Scripture
Bible Explorer
Apologetics goes wrong when verses are used as ammunition rather than read as texts. Read whole chapters here, then work through the study layers: what genre the passage is, what the original terms mean, what the text actually establishes, and what it is often wrongly made to prove.
John
Gospel · c. AD 85–95 · John, the apostle · 21 chapters
Jesus is the eternal Word made flesh, whose signs reveal He is the Son of God.
Why it matters apologetically. Contains the most explicit deity-of-Christ statements (1:1, 8:58, 10:30, 20:28) and claims eyewitness authorship (21:24), central to Christological apologetics.
Using Scripture in dialogue
Muslim
God is absolutely one (tawhid) and has no partners, sons, or equals; the Qur'an, revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, is the final and perfectly preserved word of God, superseding and correcting earlier scriptures (Torah, Psalms, Gospel) which Muslims believe have been altered or misunderstood by Jews and Christians over time.
Jehovah's Witness
Jehovah alone is Almighty God; Jesus is his first and greatest creation, a 'mighty god' but not the Almighty God, and the Holy Spirit is Jehovah's impersonal active force rather than a person of the Godhead; salvation and the coming Kingdom are administered through the Governing Body as Jehovah's visible earthly organization.
Latter-day Saint
The original Christian church fell into complete apostasy after the apostolic age; God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in 1820 (the 'First Vision') to restore true doctrine and priesthood authority; the Book of Mormon, translated by Smith from golden plates, is 'another testament of Jesus Christ' confirming and supplementing the Bible; God the Father has a physical body, humans can progress toward godhood, and God was once a man who progressed to divinity.
Atheist/Naturalist
Claims about God, miracles, and scripture's divine origin require the same standards of evidence used in history and science; since such evidence is lacking or the claims conflict with what we know about the natural world (uniform experience, the problem of evil, the diversity and mutual exclusivity of world religions), it is more rational to withhold belief in God and explain the origin of the universe, life, morality, and religious experience through natural processes alone.
Buddhist
Existence is marked by dukkha (suffering/unsatisfactoriness), which arises from craving (tanha) rooted in ignorance of the true nature of reality. There is no fixed, permanent self (anatta); what we call 'self' is a shifting bundle of aggregates (skandhas) arising through dependent origination. Liberation (nirvana) comes through following the Noble Eightfold Path — wisdom, ethical conduct, and mental discipline — not through appeal to a creator God.
Hindu
Ultimate reality (Brahman) is one, impersonal or trans-personal, and identical with the true self (atman) — 'Tat tvam asi,' 'thou art that.' The perceived multiplicity of the world is maya, an appearance overlaid on the one reality due to ignorance (avidya). Liberation (moksha) comes through realizing one's identity with Brahman, breaking the cycle of karma and reincarnation (samsara), often aided by paths of knowledge (jnana), devotion (bhakti), or action (karma yoga).
Jewish
The Torah given to Moses at Sinai, together with the Prophets and Writings (Tanakh), constitutes God's revealed covenant with the Jewish people, who remain his chosen people. The Messiah, when he comes, will be a human descendant of David who ushers in an era of visible peace, the ingathering of Israel, universal knowledge of God, and rebuilding of the Temple — none of which, in the mainstream Jewish view, has yet occurred, so Jesus is not recognized as the Messiah. Righteousness before God comes through Torah observance, repentance (teshuvah), and God's covenantal mercy, not through a mediator's atoning death.
Oneness/Unitarian
God is a single, undivided person, not three co-equal, co-eternal persons in one being. Oneness Pentecostals hold that Jesus Christ is himself the one God manifest in flesh — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are names or modes describing the one God's activity, not eternally distinct persons — and that valid baptism must be performed 'in the name of Jesus' (Acts 2:38) rather than using the Trinitarian formula. Biblical unitarians similarly affirm the Father alone as the one true God and hold Jesus to be a distinct, subordinate being (whether pre-existent or not, depending on the specific group) rather than co-equal deity.
Prosperity Gospel
Faithful Christians, exercising genuine faith through positive confession and giving, can expect God to grant material prosperity, physical health, and freedom from hardship in this present life as part of the atonement's provision, since God is a good Father who wants his children to flourish materially as evidence of his blessing and their faith.