Hi, I am Devin, and this is how I got into apologetics...
I grew up in a Christian home in a Pentecostal/Charismatic church background, and knew nothing other than the worldview taught in the church. As a kid, you don’t ever think to question your beliefs or whether someone else might believe differently than you, especially when you grow up in the Bible Belt in the southern United States. Well, down the road a ways in my life, I was in high school and I was confronted with every kind of counter argument to Christianity and theism (belief in a God) via media, friends, teachers, etc. All the arguments were definitely rocking my Christian upbringing and understanding, but deep inside I knew Christ was in me and God was always near. I had to find a way to reconcile the turmoil brought on by the questions I faced. How do I know Christianity is the only right religion? How do I know Jesus is truly the messiah? How can I prove there is a God or is evolution valid? So many questions rang through my mind, and luckily I stumbled across a great apologist (one who defends the faith) Ravi Zacharias. That is where my apologetics journey began.
As I grew more and more confident in my faith, in the reality of the truth of the cross and defending theism and the christian faith, I dove further into studying theology. Apologetics and theology go hand in hand. However, I had learned that I had turned down a road that some would even deem heretical, and I was engulfed in the Word of Faith movement. I defended my beliefs, took them hook line and sinker, and taught and reiterated the teaching myself which I had to repent of down the road. I had been given books by men like E.W. Kenyon, Dr. James B. Richards, and others, and had been taught by preachers like Kenneth Haggin, Kenneth Copeland, Curry Blake, Bill Johnson, Dr. Jim Richards and Andrew Womack. All these men love Jesus (or at least their Jesus) and truly believe what they teach, and most are well intending ministers I don’t doubt, but each of them have believed in a Gospel that is counter to the historical faith of which we are a part. They all incorporate teaching from the last two centuries heavily influenced by Christian Science, New Age and other movements that go way further than what traditional charismatics and even Pentecostals hold to, often giving charismatics a bad reputation in the world of theological scholarship. Once you have been indoctrinated into the Word of Faith movement, it is hard to abandon and leave your theological tendencies for interpreting scripture and the natural world around you. You end up with a twisted world view that you believe is scriptural, but God is stripped down to an external being who just on-looks the world and leaves the work to his people to use their “authority” in his name to bring about his will...
Thank the Lord I was lead out of this teaching by great friends who questioned and challenged my views making me go to scripture and studying it, allowing scripture to interpret scripture. It has been a road of recovery doctrinally from this movement, but though I have benefited greatly from strongly reformed teachers and friends theologically bent toward Calvinism (one branch of christian thought that has a certain view on salvation), I have remained a Christian first and foremost, still a charismatic (believing the gifts of the Spirit did not pass away with the apostles), but in the process of growing I have not prescribed myself to Calvinism nor Arminianism (the often used contrast to Calvinism) but consider myself a historical premillennialist: not a dispensationalist and not a covenant theologian (for those who care to know). This doesn’t influence my apologetic irregardless of theological leaning (Calvinistic or Arminian), I choose to weigh everything with merit, giving opposing views their chance to hold up against theistic arguments and christian arguments, but in the end, I have found that Christianity is true, and there is a God that even the best atheistic argument or muslim or other religion apologetic argument cannot measure up to the superiority of the philosophical arguments that point to a loving creator God that sent his son Jesus to die and save sinners from his holy righteous judgment.
It is now that I take what I have learned, my passion for the lost, my desire to see Christians think biblically about everything and learning to defend their faith, that I started this online ministry/webpage to grow and share truth with whomever also has a thirst to learn more, grow deeper in their faith and in ever increasing confidence that encourages them to share their faith with anyone and everyone they can! Welcome to my page, The Layman’s Apologist!
As I grew more and more confident in my faith, in the reality of the truth of the cross and defending theism and the christian faith, I dove further into studying theology. Apologetics and theology go hand in hand. However, I had learned that I had turned down a road that some would even deem heretical, and I was engulfed in the Word of Faith movement. I defended my beliefs, took them hook line and sinker, and taught and reiterated the teaching myself which I had to repent of down the road. I had been given books by men like E.W. Kenyon, Dr. James B. Richards, and others, and had been taught by preachers like Kenneth Haggin, Kenneth Copeland, Curry Blake, Bill Johnson, Dr. Jim Richards and Andrew Womack. All these men love Jesus (or at least their Jesus) and truly believe what they teach, and most are well intending ministers I don’t doubt, but each of them have believed in a Gospel that is counter to the historical faith of which we are a part. They all incorporate teaching from the last two centuries heavily influenced by Christian Science, New Age and other movements that go way further than what traditional charismatics and even Pentecostals hold to, often giving charismatics a bad reputation in the world of theological scholarship. Once you have been indoctrinated into the Word of Faith movement, it is hard to abandon and leave your theological tendencies for interpreting scripture and the natural world around you. You end up with a twisted world view that you believe is scriptural, but God is stripped down to an external being who just on-looks the world and leaves the work to his people to use their “authority” in his name to bring about his will...
Thank the Lord I was lead out of this teaching by great friends who questioned and challenged my views making me go to scripture and studying it, allowing scripture to interpret scripture. It has been a road of recovery doctrinally from this movement, but though I have benefited greatly from strongly reformed teachers and friends theologically bent toward Calvinism (one branch of christian thought that has a certain view on salvation), I have remained a Christian first and foremost, still a charismatic (believing the gifts of the Spirit did not pass away with the apostles), but in the process of growing I have not prescribed myself to Calvinism nor Arminianism (the often used contrast to Calvinism) but consider myself a historical premillennialist: not a dispensationalist and not a covenant theologian (for those who care to know). This doesn’t influence my apologetic irregardless of theological leaning (Calvinistic or Arminian), I choose to weigh everything with merit, giving opposing views their chance to hold up against theistic arguments and christian arguments, but in the end, I have found that Christianity is true, and there is a God that even the best atheistic argument or muslim or other religion apologetic argument cannot measure up to the superiority of the philosophical arguments that point to a loving creator God that sent his son Jesus to die and save sinners from his holy righteous judgment.
It is now that I take what I have learned, my passion for the lost, my desire to see Christians think biblically about everything and learning to defend their faith, that I started this online ministry/webpage to grow and share truth with whomever also has a thirst to learn more, grow deeper in their faith and in ever increasing confidence that encourages them to share their faith with anyone and everyone they can! Welcome to my page, The Layman’s Apologist!