My Apologetics Bible

[landon13]

Hello,

I wanted to share with you all my personal apologetics tool. My apologetics Bible is a compact Bible that has all of my tools and references I need for debating our Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ on their common objections to Catholicism.

Hello all,

As you all are aware from my very first post, I am a former Protestant, and that means that I have a ton of friends and family members who are shocked by my conversion. This means a ton of debates about Catholicism with them and, since the Bible is supposedly the “pillar and bulwark of truth” unlike the Church which is clearly in the Bible, I have to use the Bible as the sole authority in my debates.

So, what did I do to keep all of my apologetics notes and Bible references straight? I could have memorized them like my friend Dr. Kevin Vost recommends in his book “Memorize the Reasons!” with a memory palace to keep it all straight but I did something a little bit different.

I took a small, compact Catholic Bible and started arranging in it some sticky notes. You know, those small sticky notes that are almost like book tabs? I made a key in the back of my Bible so that based on its location on the page, that is the proof it is trying to make with Bible verses for common Catholic beliefs. In total I have used about 75-80 sticky notes throughout this entire Bible. So now, I just have to stick this in my bag or backpack wherever I go so when the topic comes up, I am prepared to make arguments especially for some of the obscure areas of Catholic apologetics that sometimes come up besides the usual Mary “worship” or the Papacy. READ MORE AT: apologetics4catholics.wordpress.com

God bless and thank y’all!

 

[CalCatholic]

Good luck Landon! Just pray that those sticky notes don’t become unstuck!!!

 

[getysbg]

Hello,

I wanted to share with you all my personal apologetics tool. My apologetics Bible is a compact Bible that has all of my tools and references I need for debating our Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ on their common objections to Catholicism.

God bless and thank y’all!

Ah, great minds think alike! Instead of sticky notes, I purchased colored tabs at Staples and cut them in half. On the one that marks the passage that is usually thrown up as a claim against the Church, I mark that with a “P”. All the others can be numbered in order of their strength.

 

[TimothyH]

It is one thing to have some Bible verses handy with which to debate non-Catholics but our faith is more than a few proof texts.

We should be able to demonstrate our faith through our lives. If we carry Jesus in our hearts and the Holy Spirit actually dwells within us as we claim it does, then our lives should be all the witness we need.

Personally, I would rather be their friend than debate them. Winning a debate does nothing for my salvation. If I can’t prove the efficacy of my faith with a life of peace and joy then I am a hypocrite and all the Bible verses in the world won’t change that.

-Tim-

 

[getysbg]

It is one thing to have some Bible verses handy with which to debate non-Catholics but our faith is more than a few proof texts.

We should be able to demonstrate our faith through our lives. If we carry Jesus in our hearts and the Holy Spirit actually dwells within us as we claim it does, then our lives should be all the witness we need.

Personally, I would rather be their friend than debate them. Winning a debate does nothing for my salvation. If I can’t prove the efficacy of my faith with a life of peace and joy then I am a hypocrite and all the Bible verses in the world won’t change that.

-Tim-

My experience has been that it is our Protestant friends that always begin the conversation. It is up to us to make the defense for our joy. Having ‘systems’ such as this allow us to be prepared.

 

[sirach2v4]

I sent my evangelical cousin a copy of the book Tradition and the Church by the Msgr. and she not only didn’t read it, but sent it back to me. The book has a lot of apologetics-oriented sections in it, but she wouldn’t ‘bite’ on really looking at the Bible.

Whatever resource you have only works with someone who has an open mind to begin with. My mind is so open that I often confuse myself sometimes. That only gives me reason to go back into my books to get straightened out.

I think apologetics will work better when it gets organized enough to work itself into elementary and secondary Catholic school classes. My Catholic education classes were all preachig to the choir. I had all nuns for religion classes. They would have retaliated physically if anyone brought up an apologetics question. They would have considered it insulting to their authority.

I understand some public schools are implementing “immersion” language education from K on upward. Analogously, we need immersion apologetics training.

Not only is apologetics useful for evangelization of others, I think it would be useful to explain things more fundamentally to CAtholic children, to begin with. They need to know, too, why we believe what we believe.

That’s the reason, to this day, that I have studied Protestant Bibles (e.g. NIV Study Bible) and Jewish commentaries. I want to know what the other people say, not just what Catholics say. I would like to know why Protestants look at us with pity and scorn, which is what I have experienced in my lifetime.

 

[landon13]

I sent my evangelical cousin a copy of the book Tradition and the Church by the Msgr. and she not only didn’t read it, but sent it back to me. The book has a lot of apologetics-oriented sections in it, but she wouldn’t ‘bite’ on really looking at the Bible.

Whatever resource you have only works with someone who has an open mind to begin with. My mind is so open that I often confuse myself sometimes. That only gives me reason to go back into my books to get straightened out.

I think apologetics will work better when it gets organized enough to work itself into elementary and secondary Catholic school classes. My Catholic education classes were all preachig to the choir. I had all nuns for religion classes. They would have retaliated physically if anyone brought up an apologetics question. They would have considered it insulting to their authority.

I understand some public schools are implementing “immersion” language education from K on upward. Analogously, we need immersion apologetics training.

Not only is apologetics useful for evangelization of others, I think it would be useful to explain things more fundamentally to CAtholic children, to begin with. They need to know, too, why we believe what we believe.

That’s the reason, to this day, that I have studied Protestant Bibles (e.g. NIV Study Bible) and Jewish commentaries. I want to know what the other people say, not just what Catholics say. I would like to know why Protestants look at us with pity and scorn, which is what I have experienced in my lifetime.

Amen. That is what I try and do as well. I don’t spend my time immersed in the Catholic apologetics books or the Catholic Bible commentaries and spiritual works, to be able to speak on their level and get into their head, you have to speak on their terms and understand their argument more than your own.

That is why I have spent my time studying the other religions works: the Qur’an, the Book of Mormon, Luther’s writings, the Protestant anti-Catholic evangelists writings, the writings of atheists, &c., We need to, before we debate people of other religions, understand their religion better than they do.

God bless!