Apologetics: Defending Hope - Week 1

Introduction

Welcome to the Introductory course to Apologetics. I said it in the class description, but over the next six weeks in this course, we will talk about what apologetics is and why it is important, the questions people are asking today, developing an apologetic for our own personal doubt, how Christianity and Science relate to one another, Christianity and the other main religions in the world, and finally we will finish it off with a Q&A and practice session.

Today, we will cover the biblical foundation for apologetics and what it is. We will also cover what doctrines and beliefs that we need to know. We will then talk about worldviews and what makes a worldview. We will then discuss the 4 different types of apologetic methods and will end today with where belief comes from and the gospel.

Today is the big overview. It is a very intellectual field. And I have tried to make today as simple as I can, but there are still some topics and words that you might not understand or get. That’s okay. The handout should help.

I also want to say that this is the foundation for apologetics. The rest of the five weeks are going to be very practical. We just have to understand what it is and to lay the foundation first.

First, I want to put a preface on this class that I do not know everything that there is to know about apologetics. I have studied and read and have learned a lot, but I am not the source of all knowledge when it comes to this topic. I am a molehill compared to the great mountain of thinkers that have written books about this stuff. So when questions are asked, I will ask what others think and be honest and tell you when I know an answer or think I know and when I do not. A lot of the times, I will not. Also, we are learning through this together. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, if we don’t know the answer, we will go ask Carlton. Lol

Apologetics can get very philosophical very fast. That is not the direction that I want to take this class. The majority of the people we talk to are not going to be worried or even know words like metaphysics(the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space), epistemology(the theory of knowledge), ontology(the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being), or teleology(the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world). If you want to do a deep dive into those types of things, I have some that I can recommend, but that is not the purpose of this course. The purpose of this course is to better equip us to share our faith with the people that are around us day to day. Not to get into arguments with philosophers on facebook or twitter.

What is Apologetics?

So let’s dive in. What is Apologetics?

From Answers in Genesis, “Apologetics is a branch of Christianity that defends the authority of God’s Word, the character of God, and Christianity as a whole, and also uses the Bible as an offensive “weapon” (e.g., like a sword) against all other worldviews and opposition”

It’s not a single approach that is a blanket argument. There are many different facets and approaches to it that we will dive into. There are slightly different approaches to different conversations that we may have.

For example, my conversation with my dad or my brother is going to look a lot different than it is with my agnostic friend who believes in a God but not the God of the Bible, or a Muslim who believes in Allah and that Jesus was only a good prophet but not the messiah.

The message and truth of the bible remain the same. The approaches vary slightly.

There is also no excuse for a Christian to be completely unable to defend his or her faith. Every Christian should be able to give a reasonable presentation of his or her faith in Christ. No, not every Christian needs to be an expert in apologetics. Every Christian, though, should know what he believes, why he believes it, how to share it with others, and how to defend it against lies and attacks. And we will tackle this question as we go as well.

We have many different verses in scripture that tell us to defend our faith or to give a defense. One of the main passages that this comes from is 1 Peter 3:14-17, but in order to get the whole picture of the passage, I want to start in verse 8.

8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. 10 For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 11 let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” 13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but 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, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

“Always be prepared to make a defense”

The term for making a defense here is the greek word apologia which literally means defense. This word is also where we get the term apologize and apologetic from. However, I do want to be clear. This is not calling us to apologize to people for the faith that we have. This is calling us to take a stand for our faith. Not to lay down and take a beating from the lost world around us about it.

This word is used in various other places in the New Testament like:

Acts 22:1 “Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you”

This is when Paul was put on trial at the Tribune and he gave a defense.

In Philippians 1:7 - “It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel

It’s also used in a few other places, but for the sake of time, we will just use these examples to see that the theme is present. Paul is making a defense for himself for the proclamation of the gospel before others and in Philippians he is encouraging them in their defense of the gospel. The same thing Peter is doing in our original passage. So let’s jump back to that and dissect it a little.

This is clearly an argumentative word. We are approached with someone asking questions or trying to poke holes in our belief, so we are told to be ready for that and to be prepared. However, we can’t be prepared if we don’t know what we believe.

In a commentary from Didymus the Blind, he says, ”We must be so well instructed in the knowledge of our faith that whenever anyone asks us about it we may be able to give them a proper answer and to do so with meekness and in the fear of God. For whoever says anything about God must do so as if God himself were present to hear him”

And from Cyril of Alexandria: “The one who decides to do this is not doing anything new, nor is he making up some new explanation. Rather he is making clear to those who ask him what his faith in Christ is all about.”

If you don’t know where to start with an apologetic, then I would recommend starting with the Gospel of John. I was emailing with Aaron Acker about this the other day and he started preaching over email. This is what he said,

“Pretty amazing that the summary prologue for the most God-glorifying gospel starts with “In the beginning was the WORD!” The ultimate metaphor inspired and used by John was NOT – the Force, the Life, the Love, the Feelings, the Heart, … BUT the Word!

God the Son is personified as “the Word,” the OT equivalent of “God has said!” God chose to explain Himself to us in a BOOK! So He came as a revelator, an expositor Who was an exegete of God the Father in the flesh!

Makes me think He cares very much about what we think and believe about Him, and that we have a solid defense of Who He is!”

Apologetics are all over the Bible, just different forms. John’s gospel, the entire thing is an apologetic basically. The word “believe”(pisteuo) is used 98 times int he gospel of John. The whole point of him writing it was so that the reader would believe. And he gave evidence for that belief. Or take the Gospel of Matthew, he was writing to Jews his Gospel starts with the apologetic of Jesus’ lineage

To anyone who asks you:

We do not pick and choose who we are to share the gospel with or who will ask us a question for our belief. It might be a stranger in Walmart or a server at a restaurant. It could be your best friend who has been internally struggling with faith for years. It could be your children beginning to feel the pressures of the holy spirit or of the devil which causes them to start asking questions. I would also say here that this is not a cop out on evangelism. This is in supplication to it. We can’t just sit around waiting for people to ask us questions about our faith. We need to be sharing our faith with those we come in contact with. We need to be on the offensive and proactive about sharing our faith. We need to be the marines who are on the front lines, not the Army Reserve who is waiting for the call. The call is there. Go preach the good news. But in doing so, be prepared to defend it and to explain it. And if we are not sharing our faith, then we should feel guilty about being disobedient to what our Lord has called us to.

For the reason for the hope that is within you:

If you are going to take a stand for Christ, you have to know where you find your hope.

What is our hope? By definition, it is the confidence that, by integrating God’s redemptive acts in the past with trusting human responses in the present, the faithful will experience the fullness of God’s goodness both in the present and in the future.

Our hope is not only in God, but that our hope is also from God as we are told in Psalm 62:5 “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.”

I believe our Hope is best summarized by the old Hymn written by Edward Mote in 1834. I will not sing it for you, because you all might not come back… But I will read it. Listen closely to the words.

Verse 1: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

Verse 2: When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace; in every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. [Refrain]

Verse 3: His oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the whelming flood; when all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay. [Refrain]

Verse 4: When he shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in him be found: dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.

Refrain: On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand: all other ground is sinking sand; all other ground is sinking sand

I don’t believe that there is a better way or summation to say where our hope is found.

Yet do it with gentleness and respect:

This might seem like the hardest part for a lot of us. When these types of conversations arise, it is easy to get heated and rude and mad and shut the ignorance of unbelievers down with a loud voice and a threat. But that is not what we are called to. We are called to Gentleness and Respect. This would not be a command if it came naturally to us. We must fight the urge to be haughty and contemptuous.

We must remember:

The unbeliever is not the enemy; it is the false philosophy that has taken them “captive” that is the enemy (2 Timothy 2:24–26; Colossians 2:8; 2 Corinthians 10:4–5). An unbeliever, whether he or she realizes it or not, is made in the image of God, your relative, and is in need of Jesus Christ to be saved.

2 Timothy 2:24-26: “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame

Jesus tells us that if they persecuted Him, then they will persecute us. The gospel of Christ is not a popular topic to those who love the darkness. You can’t be friends with everybody. Everybody will not like you if you are sharing the hope you have with Christ with them. This is a big problem that I have. I like to be liked. However, when my desire to be liked supersedes my desire for unbelievers to repent then I will not share my faith with them and that in turn leads me to being in sin.

Their opinion of you has no weight in comparison to the value of their soul.

When we share our faith, we have no guilt. If we don’t, we stand guilty with the blood of those who we kept the truth from on our hands as it is said in Ezekiel 3:18 “If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.”

And when we get to see sinners repent and believe, it is a joyous thing that covers all of the rejections and slanders that we face. The angels rejoice over 1 sinner repenting. Many are called, but few are chosen. The more we share our faith, the more that we will be rejected. But Christ will use us to bring His sheep into his fold if we will simply be obedient to preach what we believe.

We Need to Know What We Believe

There are some important things we need to know before we are called to defend our faith. We need to know what we believe and what we know.

Let me give you an example. It’s silly but I think it works:

I know my wife and I know my kids very well. If someone came up to me and told me that Annie was walking around in her pink cinderella shoes and had her eyebrow raised and gave them attitude, I would 100% believe it. There would be no doubt in my mind that it was true. She loves her dress up shoes and she has her daddy’s facial expressions and she can’t hide anything. There is no defense for that.

However, if someone came up to me and told me that my wife had killed a rabbit, I would know without a doubt that she never in her life would have willingly killed a rabbit not even if she was starving. She loves those rodents and I don’t know why. If she were to kill a rabbit it would shake her to her core so much that she wouldn’t be able to function. So I can take a stand for her and go to her defense that she did not kill that rabbit. There’s no way.

And how we handle apologetics is similar. If someone approaches us with something that we believe, we can confirm it and discuss it with them.

If someone comes to us with something in error, we can defend what we know to be false by what we know to be true.

So in order to have a sound Apologetic, we first need to have and understand Sound Doctrine.

I pulled many of these doctrines and explanations from Van Til’s book Defense of the Faith.

Doctrine of God

Naturally in the system of theology and in apologetics the doctrine of God is of fundamental importance. We must first ask what kind of a God Christianity believes in before we can really ask with intelligence whether such a God exists.

God’s Existence

The Divine Names

God’s Attributes

The Trinity

His Divine Decrees (His sovereignty)

Doctrine of Man

The whole question with which we deal in Apologetics is one of the relation between God and man. Hence, next to the doctrine of God the doctrine of man is of fundamental importance.

The Image of God in Man

Man’s relation to the universe

The fall of Man

Doctrine of Christ

Reconciliation is possible only if God brings about salvation for man and therewith reunion with himself. Christ came to bring man back to God.

He is the Prophet, Priest, and King

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “How does Christ execute the office of a Prophet?” The answer is: “Christ executeth the office of a Prophet, in revealing to us by his Word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation.

Again the catechism asks: “How does Christ execute the office of a Priest?” The answer is: “Christ executeth the office of a Priest, in his once offering up himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us.”

In the third place the catechism asks: “How does Christ execute the office of a King?” The answer is: “Christ executeth the office of a King, in subduing us to him- self, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all of his and our enemies

Doctrine of Salvation

How are we saved? What is our soteriology?

God is sovereign: God has complete control over all things, including the choices and wills of His creatures.

We are saved by the blood of Christ that covers our unrighteousness. Not by our own works, but by the works of Christ.

TULIP

Doctrine of the Church

The Westminster Confession’s definition of the church states “The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.”

Doctrine of the Last Things

Every Christian who trusts his future to God believes that God controls the future. He believes that God has interpreted the future; he believes that the future will come to pass as God has planned it. Prophecy illustrates this point. Belief in the promises of God with respect to our eternal salvation is meaningless if God does not control the future. We look forward to the facts to come because we accept the interpretation of them given us by God.

Just as God has confirmed his promises of a savior in the old testament, so we believe that he will fulfill his promises of the second return of Christ in the new testament. Now whether that is pre-mil, a-mil, or post-mil, there is still a lot of discussion about that. There are people with all three views in our church, and that’s a topic I’m not going to get into because I don’t want to start any arguments right now.

Charles Spurgeon said, “It is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord, so that your blood is Bibline and the very essence of the Bible flows from you.”

We want to have such a knowledge of the scriptures that we are able to just be an overflow of biblical truth to those who are around. We want to be so entrenched with these truths so that the source of our life is not the blood that is pumping through our veins but the Word of God. Let it be on our hearts and minds morning, noon, and night.

And that leads us to worldviews.

What Are Worldviews?

The basis of our beliefs is how we develop what is called our worldview. Everyone has a worldview, and at the core of apologetics is finding out what that worldview is of the person we are talking to.

So what is a Worldview:

Definition: A comprehensive perspective that encompasses an individual's beliefs and values about the world and life. It could also be described as a perception of how the world works. Or The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a group or society, influencing behavior and traditions.

As believers, our worldview is summed up above in the things that we believe from the bible. Everything we know is derived from a biblical worldview. How old the earth is. Where the earth came from. How we are saved. It is our “Big Picture” of how we view things. Our worldview is the basis for how we make daily decisions.

Every worldview, Christian and non-Christian, deals with at least these three questions:

Where did we come from? (and why are we here?)

What is wrong with the world?

How can we fix it?

“Basic to all the differences between the Christian and the non-Christian views of life is the fact that Christians worship and serve the Creator, while non-Christians worship and serve the creature.”

Many times when we present a Christian worldview to the unbeliever, it involves clearing up misconceptions about Christian beliefs. A few examples are:

God is one God who is triune (three persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit), not three separate “gods.”

Christianity should be based on the Bible, not the words of fallible humans—even if they are Christians (who often fail to live up to the standards in the Bible).

God created the world perfect, not the way it is today. It has been subjected to death and decay due to man’s sin (Genesis 1:31; Deuteronomy 32:4; Genesis 3; Romans 8). Death and suffering are a result of sin, and God stepped into history as Jesus Christ the God-man, to die in our place and save us from sin and death

A prevalent worldview today is naturalism, which answers the three questions like this:

We are the product of random acts of nature with no real purpose.

We do not respect nature as we should.

We can save the world through ecology and conservation

Here is a checklist to look for problems in the unbeliever’s worldview:

Is it arbitrary—mere opinions, relativism, mere conjectures (perhaps prejudicial)—biases that have no ultimate basis?

Is it inconsistent (fallacies, behavior doesn’t match what one professes, their presuppositions do not mesh together)?

Violations of preconditions for knowledge (any ultimate basis for logic, uniformity in the universe, morality, and so on)?

Will this view be reduced to absurdity (a form of inconsistency when taken to its ultimate conclusion)?

4 Types of Apologetics

All of these views are held in high regard by different Theologians. These types of apologetics are a lot like eschatology. We need to have a stance, but other Godly people can have a different stance. We can think they’re wrong, but this is not a primary or a secondary issue. And it might be that the best approach to apologetics is a integrated philosophy of all four of them combined. A classical argument might work best in some scenarios where an evidential argument might not work and vice versa.

Classical:

essentially, this method assumes that rational thought is the absolute standard regarding philosophical debates. Evidence is used in conjunction with the argument—though it is important to understand all evidence is interpreted (i.e., rational thoughts first to point to the Bible’s truthfulness).1

Classical apologetics is the oldest type of Christian apologetics. It uses philosophical arguments to prove the existence of God and argues that the Christian God is the only logical choice. Classical apologists argue that reason and faith are not in conflict and that reason can be used to support faith.

For instance, classical apologists could use the cosmological argument, which argues that everything in the universe must have a cause, and that cause must be God. Another example is the moral argument, which argues that objective morality exists and that this morality must have come from God.

Augustine in the 4th century, Thomas Aquinas, William Craig, and RC Sproul

Evidential:

essentially assumes that rational thought is the absolute standard and that when people see evidence (as in miracles in the Bible, or historical evidence and scientific evidence), they will come to the right conclusion (i.e., evidence first to point to the Bible’s truthfulness).2 This method really assumes people are “neutral”—which is against what the Bible clearly states about the nature of man (there is none righteous, and none seeks after God, etc.).

Evidential apologetics is focused on using evidence from history, science, and other fields to support the truth of Christianity. It argues that there is enough evidence to support the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus, and other Christian beliefs. Evidential apologists also believe that faith and reason can work together.

Evidential apologists might use the argument from prophecy, which argues that the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies about the coming of Jesus is evidence of the truth of Christianity. Another example is the argument from design, which argues that the complexity of the universe and the human body are evidence of intelligent design.

Evidential apologetics is actually a modern outworking of classical apologetics. In fact, many classical apologists appeal to evidential thinking on certain arguments and vice versa. Evidence, by itself, doesn’t necessarily convince people (Luke 16:31; John 6:65; 1 Corinthians 12:3; etc.); even Jesus when He offered His body as proof of the Resurrection did not remain silent but the evidence was presented in conjunction with the authoritative statements of Christ

Josh McDowell, Gary Habermas, Paul D. Feinberg, John Warwick Montgomery, Clark Pinnock, and Wolfhart Pannenberg

Presuppositional:

Van Tillian; God and His Word are the absolute standards of morality, logic, uniformity in nature, dignity, etc. The Bible is the only basis for a worldview that makes knowledge possible. All other worldviews must borrow from the Bible to make sense of the world (i.e., Bible first and final to look at all things.)

Presuppositional apologetics differs from the other types of Christian apologetics because it starts with the belief that Christianity is true and then argues from there. In other words, followers of Jesus already pre-suppose he is the Son of God and that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. Presuppositional apologists believe that everyone has a set of presuppositions or beliefs that they start with and that these beliefs shape how they interpret evidence. It argues that Christianity is the only set of presuppositions that make sense of the world.

For example, presuppositional apologists may contend that the existence of objective morality and the human conscience can only be explained by the existence of God. Another example is the transcendental argument, which argues that the existence of logical and moral absolutes can only be explained by the existence of God.

Presuppositional apologetics can also be what other forms of apologetics ultimately lead up to. Philosophers can reason using classical or evidential apologetics to build up the case that leads them to accept that the Bible is trustworthy or that Jesus is God, and from there, presuppositions arguments will come from a place of authority rather than outside authority.

Van Tillian presuppositional apologetics places God and His Word, the Bible, as the absolute authority in every area. God, who knows all things, has stated in the Bible that all other worldviews are wrong, so by extension all other worldviews have inconsistencies and must borrow from the Bible to make any sense of the world, whether they realize it or not.

Don’t appeal to the unbeliever’s reasoning of how the world works. All reason reverts back to the Christian Worldview.

Cornelius Van Til, Gordon H. Clark, Greg Bahnsen, John Frame, Vern Poythress, K. Scott Oliphint

Most people in the Reformed camp would consider themselves Presuppositionalist Apologists though there are outliers who are great men of faith like RC Sproul who argued against Van Til’s view of apologetics and instead opted for the classical approach.

Fideism:

Fideism is a type of Christian apologetics that emphasizes faith over reason. Fideists argue that faith is a gift from God and that we cannot use reason to understand God. It believes that reason is limited and cannot fully understand God and that we must rely on faith alone.

For example, fideists might argue that we cannot understand the Trinity or the nature of God, but we must trust in God’s revelation of himself through the Bible. Another example is the argument from personal experience, which argues that individuals can only genuinely understand God through their personal experience with Him.

Søren Kierkegaard, Blaise Pascal, William James, and Ludwig Wittgenstein

Each of these four types of Christian apologetics offers a unique approach to defending and explaining the Christian faith. Classical apologetics relies on philosophical arguments, evidential apologetics uses evidence from various fields, presuppositional apologetics starts with the belief that Christianity is true, and fideism emphasizes faith over reason. All of these approaches share the same ultimate goal of helping people understand and believe in Christianity, but they differ in their methods and assumptions. Whether one uses reason or faith, the study of apologetics seeks to provide evidence and support for the Christian faith.

Where Does Belief Come From?

You can’t force someone into belief.

You are not trying to merely convince them to believe. Scripture tells us that even the demons believe. You can have the best argument and win all of the points, and they might still walk away saying yeah that sounds right, with a hardened heart. It is not your job to make them believe. It is your job to tell them the truth. Whether they have faith is a gift from the Holy Spirit to give. So if you have a great conversation with someone and they remain unconverted, don’t despair or be discouraged in yourself, but pray earnestly that the Holy Spirit would work in their lives and would reveal the truths from the scripture to them.

Jesus says in John 10:26, “you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.”

I’m not saying to stop trying to preach the gospel to them. Just don’t exhaust yourself to the point of despair if they blind and the deaf will not see and listen. They cannot see or hear because it has not been revealed to them. You can’t open their eyes. Only God can. Unless God intervenes, you are preaching to dead bones. But BB Warfield sums this up pretty well of why we preach to dead bones. Listen to what he says.

““It is,” says Warfield, “upon a field of the dead that the Sun of righteousness has risen, and the shouts that announce His advent fall on deaf ears; yea, even though the morning stars should again sing for joy and the air be palpitant with the echo of the great proclamation, their voice could not penetrate the ears of the dead. As we sweep our eyes over the world lying in its wickedness, it is the valley of the prophet’s vision which we see before us: a valley that is filled with bones, and lo! they are very dry. What benefit is there in proclaiming to dry bones even the greatest of redemptions? How shall we stand and cry, O, ye dry bones, hear ye the word of the Lord!’ In vain the redemption, in vain it's proclamation, unless there come a breath from heaven to breathe upon these slain that they may live.”“

We Don’t Believe Blindly

God has given us evidences that we might believe by.

If that were the case, the only thing the Bible would consist of would say believe in me and that’s it. But that is not what the Bible says. God has given us evidence and history and stories. He has taken what he has done and written it down so that we wouldn’t just believe in an absent God, but we would know and have a relationship with the God who loves his creation. Take Thomas for example. He said to that he wouldn’t be able to believe unless he saw the pierced body of Christ. And what did Christ do? Say too bad? You need more faith. No. He said look at my hands. Feel my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Christ gave Thomas the evidence. And just like Christ gave Thomas the physical evidence to feel His crucified body, He has given us the physical evidence of the scriptures that have been passed down from generations that proclaim who He is and why we should believe.

So Where Do We Start?

The most powerful apologetic you will have is the gospel.

It is the most basic and the most simple apologetic you can have, but it is also the greatest apologetic you can have.

Romans tells us “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

What is the Good news? The gospel.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is what brings dead men to life. It is what breaths life into deflated lungs. It is what turns the person who is hostile towards God into a saint. The gospel of Christ is the only thing that can save. So if all you are armed with is your presentation of the gospel, then that is enough. So what is the Gospel?

In the beginning, God created everything. Everything that has ever been or ever will be had their start in God. God also made the first people from the earth that He had created. He named the man Adam and the woman Eve. They lived in perfect harmony with God. And they had perfect free will. God gave them one rule. To not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, and that if they ate of it, then they would surely die. Well, one day, Eve was deceived by satan and convinced Adam to eat of the fruit that God told them not to eat from. This introduced Sin into the world and now, everyone that has been born since Adam has been a slave to sin. We are engrossed with sin and it is now a part of our natural being. Adam and Even were sent out of the Garden and no longer had communion with God. They were cursed and even the ground that they walked on was cursed because of their disobedience. This was the beginning of the story in Genesis. And as we go through the Old Testament, we see a people who are covered in Sin, but we also see the faithfulness of God throughout. We see that even though God’s people are faithless, He remains faithful. If we look through the Old Testament, we can see that every word of the Old Testament is pointing us forward to what to look for in the Messiah, the Christ. It is filled with different types of Christ!! (Insert different types here) It then leads to the climax at the pinnacle of the story of redemption where the God-man walked the earth. He was born of a virgin, and because He was born of a virgin He is known as the Second Adam. He was the only other person outside of Adam that had perfect free will and he lived all of his life in perfect obedience to the Father, unlike Adam. He lived a perfect life. He was the perfect sacrificial lamb that paid the price of sin for all those that he would call unto himself. He is the only man who has ever lived that didn’t deserve to die, yet he was hung on a tree and suffered the death and the wrath of God that each one of us deserved so that in turn we might live. He was raised to life on the third day defeating the power of sin and the power of death. Oh death where is your sting!! He is the only way to life! He is the only one who can make dead bones come alive. He tells us that all those who believe in Him and repent of their sins will be saved and will spend eternity with Him! After the climax of the scriptures in the four gospels that show the majesty and the work of Christ, the following books then point us back to Christ and the work he has done and how we are to live Godly lives by being holy as he is holy through the power and the work of the Holy Spirit. They lay out the foundations for the Christian life. They are all about Christ just like the Old Testament is all about Christ, but instead of looking forward they are looking back. And just as the Old Testament prophesied that the Christ would come so the finality of the word of God is a prophecy that he shall come again. Not as a babe to live and die for the sins of humanity again but as the king of kings on his war horse who will judge the living and the dead. We are left at the end of Gods word that he is coming back and when he comes he will make all wrong things right. He will wipe away every tear and as JRR Tolkien said that the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ means that one day everything sad will come untrue. We are looking forward to the day of the return of the Messiah just as the chosen people of God we’re looking for the coming of the messiah in the Old Testament! And just as Christ has told us at the end of Revelation that he is coming soon we echo the prayer of John that you would “come lord Jesus, come quickly!” We long to see your face and to be in your presence. However, we also long that others may come into the fold before this time comes!

This is the Hope we have! Why are we not sharing it with everyone we come into contact with. I’m talking to myself here. Just the other day at a wedding, I was talking to this guy who had been arrested 10 times. We were talking and I started to talk about spiritual things and it just kind of fizzled and ended. Was I nervous of what he would think or say? Was I scared I didn’t have the right answers? Did I shy away because he was drunk? I wasn’t bold, I was sheepish and timid. But all I now know is that I did not share the truth of the gospel with him. I feel guilty because I have and I know the truth to life and I did not share it with him. My prayer is he hears the gospel and repents and believes. But I may never know it and if he does, I won’t get to rejoice with him in this life.

The greatest joy we will ever have in this life is seeing someone come from death to life. Don’t be timid or scared that you don’t have the right thing to say. Prepare. Absolutely prepare. It is our duty to be ready at all times as Peter has called us to. Put on the armor of God. Put on Christ. But do not bury the treasure that you have been given. Put it on display as it is the Mona Lisa in the Louvre so that all may see the work not that human hands have painted but that the living God has orchestrated throughout all history so that we might come to know him. Share your faith. Share your hope. And if someone comes to you with questions you don’t know the answer to, that is fine! We will never know all the answers! Don’t fake it until you make it. Be honest with them and tell them you don’t know, but you can find the answer together!

I believe the reason that people don’t share the gospel is the same reason that I didn’t with the guy at the wedding. We’re scared at what others will think. We are scared we won’t have the right answers or words to say. And we’re scared of their rejection. The Living God was rejected by men. What makes us think that we should expect otherwise?

They don’t have to come to faith in order for you to be faithful. Faithfulness is doing what Christ has commanded us to. We’re probably going to botch it a time or two. That’s fine. God works through broken people. Look at the story of Jonah. He preached “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” That is an eight word sermon. The whole city of Nineveh repented. You don’t have to be eloquent. Just be faithful with the message. The Holy Spirit will do the rest.

So if the gospel is our first and greatest apologetic, I would say that the second apologetic that you have in your arsenal is your testimony. To be clear, your testimony is not the gospel. Your testimony is how the gospel has changed your life. People are nosy. They want to know everything about everything. So why not tell them the greatest story of your life of how you were once dead but yet now you live. Tell them how Christ has changed you and you who once led a life of sin now leads a life filled with hope and redemption and grace.

Don’t forsake the power of the gospel and don’t forsake the influence of your personal testimony.

We don’t do apologetics to win arguments. We do apologetics to win people to Christ. That is our goal. Not to be boastful and puffed up with knowledge. But gentle and lowly like our savior as we present to others what we know to be true.

Let’s pray.