Heidi Ramer

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Why answer questions at all?
Framework for evangelism (and apologetics)
1. Love for God 
2. Love for neighbor 

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• Homing beacon
Get to Jesus

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• Aim to win the person not the argument 

• Realise that there is often a question(s) behind the questioner. Meaning it could be the case that someone is asking why is there evil, because they ahve experience evil, so it is not necessarily just a theoretical issue.

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What are the tough questions?
• Suffering?
• Reliability of Bible? (Conspiracy of church?)
• Homosexuality?
• Exclusivity of religion/Christianity?
• Aren’t all religions the same?
• Creation/Evolution?
• Prove God exists?
• Science has disproved Christianity?

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Flipping the Question
They don’t have an answer either. These are tough questions not just for Christians but for everyone
(1 Cor 1-2, There is such a thing as God's wisdom, which the Spirit helps us to see)

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How do you know something? The Wesleyan Quadrilateral 
1. Reason
2. Tradition
3. Revelation
4. Experience
None of these bad in and of themselves
Is revelation superior?

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‘I-reckonism’ 
It is not enough just to assert something, you need to have good reasons for it.

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Questions to ask:
• How do you know?
• Does that really work?
• What do you think Christians think about this?  (OR If you were in my shoes, what do you think a Christian would say?) 

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Underlying Cultural Assumptions… that put up barriers to the Gospel
1. individualism - i.e. my rights, my happiness, its all about ME
2. scientism/materialism - science can explain everything 
3. progressivism - with education everything will get better
4. pluralism - all views points are valid

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Getting to the Gospel
1. A question
If you had to summarise Christianity in a couple of sentences, what would you say it’s all about?
- A list of rules, going to church, blind faith, hypocrits, the religion you were born in, something to do with Jesus...

2. Explaining the Gospel
Two Ways to Live https://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/2wtl/2wtlonline.html

 

A Few Other Helpful Tools
Subjective/Objective Truth
• Buckets – Subj/Obj (i.e. some people like broccoli others doesn't, hence it is subjective; but for everyone if you step infront of a bus you are going to objective be squashed)
• ‘I don’t like to think of God as…’

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Ping-pong
Dialogue goes back and forth

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Hard-heartedness
 ‘If I could prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus rose from the dead, would you believe?’  

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You don’t have to enter their worldview