Sorry is a Sorry Word

Don’t memorize arguments, understand your faith and competing worldviews.

The better you understand where a person is coming from the better you will be able to communicate your faith to them. Because I am trying to give tips on defending the Christian faith my assumption is that you will be in a position where a person from another faith/worldview is in a give and take discussion with you. That isn't always the case, but it is a lot.

Part of defending your faith is knowing why the Christian faith is superior to any other worldview. If you truly believe that Christ reigns supreme over all other treasures you should be able to find where his gospel is better (yes it's ok to say something is truly better) than any belief you encounter.

Obviously I don't have nearly enough knowledge to talk about every worldview out there in detail but I can give some biblical help:

According to the Bible all mankind irrationally gives their worship to idols. Whether it's Animism, Hinduism, or plain old Atheism, worship that is not directed to the one true God of the universe is idolatry. Romans 1:18-32 gives us an overview of how this looks.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:22-23)

In our day and age this is seen in an inconsistency in morality (how does an Atheist know what is truly right?) only accepting religions that make you feel good about yourself (ask Hollywood for the best options), or simply find the religion that turns you into a deity (learn to ride a bike first). In Isaiah's day the criticism was that the same wood that was thrown into the fire to warm the house was also used to make an idol to which a person could bow down (Isa 44:15).

Am I suggesting you find the best way to tease a person about their personal beliefs, no. However, you should learn about other worldviews and understand where they fall short in comparison to the beautiful salvation that comes from Jesus Christ.

More to come...

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

Galatians 6:14

All Apologies

Don’t memorize arguments, understand your faith and competing worldviews.

The better you understand your faith the more effective you will be in defending it.
It is clear that the Bible teaches us to grow in our understanding of the Christian faith (see Hebrews 6:1, 1 Corinthians 3:1-4). But this is also important when defending the faith. If you only know your faith at the simplest level you will be able to evangelize but you will not be able to defend it against attacks from ungodly worldviews.

This point has immediate application to my own life. Recently I struck up a conversation about evolution with an old friend because of a Facebook status he had posted. That turned into a deeper discussion on the Christian faith in which I found myself defending core Christian doctrines (and even the authority of the bible itself). To make things more interesting this friend is very intelligent and has raised several objections to Christianity that are logical at face value.

It is only because I have personally taken the time to answer my own questions about the authority of Scripture, the sovereignty of God, and even the necessity of the atonement of Christ that I have been able to provide answers to my friend’s objections. If I only knew now what I knew about my faith when I graduated high school I wouldn’t have been able to answer his questions in a biblical way. More importantly, because I have been able to get into such a deep discussion on the matter I have had several opportunities to take the discussion back to the most important thing, the gospel.

My intention in this post has not been to show off the fact that I have engaged in this evangelistic opportunity. I confess that I do not evangelize nearly as often as I should (seriously). Rather, it is intended to show you the practical importance of understanding your faith. I want to encourage you to raise questions to yourself about the Bible. For example, how does the momentary suffering of one man atone for the sin of millions upon millions who would otherwise pay for their own sin for eternity? If God is all knowing, all powerful, and good why does He permit horrible suffering (for example, Haiti)? I’m sure you can think of many more. Then spend some time researching in Scripture or asking your pastor these things. This will edify you in your walk with Christ and strengthen your ability to defend your faith while spreading the good news of Christ.

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

Please Accept My Apologies

I'm finally continuing my series on apologetics. Here's the link to Part 1.

Don’t memorize arguments, understand your faith and competing worldviews.

1. Not every pro-Christian argument is biblical or God honoring.

“…we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:2)

First let me clear up that by argument I don’t mean a disagreement or debate. Dictionary.com (the world’s most convenient dictionary) defines an argument as “4. a statement, reason, or fact for or against a point: ‘This is a strong argument in favor of her theory.’” And, “5. an address or composition intended to convince or persuade; persuasive discourse."

When I refer to a “pro-Christian argument” I am not saying that the argument is inherently Christian- that would make my point a contradiction- I am saying that the argument is attempting to defend the Christian faith.

It is easy for anyone to fall into the trap of using anything that seemingly helps their point against those who disagree. But when seeking to evangelize it is important to remember that God does the saving, we simply need to be faithful to the message.

I suggest that when you hear an argument for the Christian faith, analyze it and consider whether or not it is consistent with what you understand from the Bible. If it isn’t, go to the Bible and try to get a better understanding of where the conflict between you and the person from whom you heard the argument lies.

A good practice for this is to listen to debates between Christians and non-Christians. Listen to the arguments of both sides and see how you would respond to the non-Christian if you were in the debate. (One good resource for these is the Unbelievable Radio Program which features weekly debate between Christians and non-Christians. Free audio can be found here.)

More on this topic soon...

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

Too Late to Apologize?

apol•o•get•ic \ə-pä-lə-ˈje-tik\ adj: offered in defense or vindication〈the apologetic writings of the early Christians〉

"...in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect..." (1 Peter 3:15)

I am not an apologist nor do I want to pretend to be. However, I have had a few opportunities to answer questions and give a defense for the gospel in my evangelistic efforts. Because I have had some experience and have learned a lot from that (as well as from studying the subject) I want to offer you some tips in a new series of posts. I will probably interrupt the series some weeks for other kinds of posts but in an attempt to offer as much help as I can I think it will be good not to limit myself by trying to fit everything into a single post.

Presuppositions exist, don't ignore them.

This is one of the foundational truths of the brand of apologetics known as Presuppositionalism. It isn't important at this level to go into a textbook style summary of what that means. What you should remember is that you cannot prove the existence of the God of the Bible without acknowledging that you are assuming the truth of His Scripture.

This is one of the great problems I have with many respectable men in the field of apologetics. They make great arguments based on real evidence for the existence of God but in order to avoid the charge of assuming the truth of the Bible they have to say things like "the great preponderance of the evidence points to the likelihood of the existence of a god." Which may be convincing enough to bring some people to faith in "a god" but the assumption behind that kind of argument is that we just need to convince people to become theists and hopefully they will throw themselves into the Christian camp as well.

Instead, I suggest that you simply acknowledge that you are entering the debate with a heart and mind that has been changed by God and, therefore, you assume His existence from the beginning.

You also must remember that because all of mankind has been radically affected by the Fall they are doing the same thing. In Romans Paul says, "no one seeks after God" (Romans 3:11) and in Ephesians 2 man is further described as "following the Prince of the power of the air" and described as "the sons of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2).

So biblically speaking you are entering the "debate" with a bias for the God of the Bible and they enter it with a bias against Him. Ignoring that doesn't make the debate go smoother, but it can lead to arguments that are meant to be for God's existence but end up blasphemous.

More to come...

Grace and Peace,
Stephen