SBC: No Apologies | 1 - What Is Apologetics, and Why Does It Matter?

Today we are starting a new series called No Apologetics

Now the word Apologetics seems intense, but it is really fairly simple.

We get the word Apologetics from 1 Peter 3:15

1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;”

Apologetics comes from the word “defense” in 1 Peter 3:15

The Greek word used here for defense is Apologia

The word means to make a formal justification and to defend oneself

The study of Biblical apologetics is learning how to defend what you believe from a Biblical perspective.

and we are told how to do this from 1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;”

Before we look at any truths to defend, scripture gives us some steps we must take.

Sanctify the Lord God in Your Hearts

This word sanctify means to consecrate, or separate

It is the idea of dividing two things apart

And scripture says that before we attempt to defend our faith, we must sanctify God in our hearts

What does this mean?

Before you enter into a debate, or you attempt to defend a position, check your heart, and ask yourself this question, what is my motivation?

If you have followed this pattern correctly, you will have already separated, and consecrated, your heart from your own fleshly desires, and you have focused your heart on God.

So that your motivation in defending your faith is only to point others to Him.

We should never have prideful motivations in trying to share the truth or defend our faith

If we have any prideful motivation then we are skipping the very first step in regards to how we approach Biblical apologetics

2. Always be ready

There is a very important word here that we cannot miss. ALWAYS

Unfortunately most wait until they are approached with a topic or question, to determine what they believe on the matter.

It can be very harmful to an unbeliever who asks you a basic question of the faith, and you have no clear answer

This does not mean you must be an expert in all things, but you must have a solid foundation to know why you believe what you claim

This means that if you are going to stand by a truth, you must know why you believe it

With social media today all of the sudden everyone is an expert on everything yet we know less than every before

ADVICE: DO NOT GET YOUR DEFENSES FROM SOCIAL MEDIA CLIPS

It can be very beneficial to listen to full form debates, and even clips on basic topics that you already have a clear understanding on for further support, but you should never base a whole position off a 30 second clip

This is what has led to a world of people who believe they are experts on everything, yet there is very little actual truth shared

So we must prepare ahead of time, and be sure that if we are going to stand for something, we at least have a foundational reason for why we believe it

3. To give a defense

We come back here to this word that is transliterated from the word apologia to apologetics

Which means to defend oneself and make a FORMAL JUSTIFICATION

This is important, because what we are not called to do is attack, and argue, and slander, and criticize, and pridefully try to defame to make ourselves feel bigger

This is something that many Christians struggle with when trying to defend their faith

It is very difficult today to have lengthy disagreements without emotions taking over

What should be organized discussions, points made back and forth, today inevitably becomes a yelling match, personal attacks, and emotional arguments

But this is not how we are called to defend our faith

We should be able to make a formal justification

AND IF YOU CAN’T DO THAT YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS STANDING FIRM IN A POSITION AND THEN TRYING TO DEFEND IT

If you feel like abortion is wrong, but you have no reason for why you believe that from scripture, or science, or logic, you shouldn’t publicly stand against it

YOU SHOULD NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN WHY YOU BELIEVE IT

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHY YOU BELIEVE SOMETHING YOU SHOULDN’T BELIEVE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE

Because that means what you know as truth is based only in the fact that somebody told you this, or you feel like it should be true, and that is not a solid defense.

Again, you don’t have to be an expert in everything, and we are going to talk in a minute about a method you can use to defend your faith in a way that doesn’t require you to be an expert on everything

But it should always be done in a way that is formal, organized, and God honoring

4. To everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you

There is one word I want you to focus on here

HOPE

It says that we should be ready to defend our faith to everyone who ask you why you have a hope within you

Now I think this is less about the person that is questioning, and rather about ourselves

In this example, why is the person asking you anything, because THEY SEE THAT YOU HAVE HOPE, AND THEY WANT TO KNOW WHY

This is so incredibly important, our demeanor in life should be one where people see such a hope within us that have to know where we get it from

And this could take place in a variety of different ways.

The most perfect example I can think of this is the college debates of Charlie Kirk

Though I think there were definitely some things that he could have done better in some areas, overall I think he is an excellent example for how we should share what we believe in this area, and in others we will look at later

The reason I say this is because Charlie had a way of showing his hope amongst the darkest debates

A person living in the sin of homosexuality could ask him what he thought about their lifestyle specifically and he could turn that into a way of showing the love of Christ, and you could see in him a sense of fulfillment and confidence, and joy regardless of how he was challenges

This is how we should be, examples of living hope

I also think its interesting that in this picture, we are defending our faith against those who come to us

That does not mean at all that it is wrong for us to engage others in debate, however the picture is that we are living with such a hope in our lives, that others naturally ask you why that hope is within you, and depending on the context, that is when we defend whatever area of faith is the topic with a focus on Christ

5. With meekness and fear

We have two more clarifications as to how we should defend our faith.

And the two words given are meekness and fear

If you had to pick two words that would describe how most conversations of apposing beliefs go, meekness and fear would probably be the last to you would choose

The word meekness simply means humility, that we put ourselves second, and the goal of sharing the truth of Christ and his word with others as the motivation

Fear means to have a sense of awe and respect

This is the same word used to describe a fear of the Lord

This is not that we are scared to defend our faith, but rather we see it as something that is very serious and important

We should not take defending our faith lightly

It is something that can point others to Christ, or away from him

It is something that can change the trajectory of someone's entire life

It is something that can ruin relationships, and tear down friendships

So yes we are to be meek in the interaction, but we should take it very seriously too

So this is how scripture says that we are to defend what we believe.

But how exactly are we supposes to defend our faith when we don’t know what we believe?

Well this is where I want you to see this new way of looking at apologetics that I think will be beneficial

Most tend to take a top down approach with apologetics

They will go to the most advanced arguments, the ultra specific points of contention, and they will try to find one liners that they can throw out to stump the other person

There are a few problems with this.

1. It rarely points anyone to christ

If you defend what you believe through one liners, you may win an argument, but there is nothing greater than that learned

2. It results in fragile arguments

If you are debating with one liners, than the other person could have a one liner too that negates yours. This method of debate usually results in any amount of actual truth being thrown out the door very quick to result in emotional arguments

3. It requires specific knowledge

In this case, you have to research and uncover all of the answers to every specific argument that could be brought up, and if you don’t have all of the answers, you lose the debate

So a top of the ladder attack approach is unwise.

When it comes time to defend what we believe against someone, we should not go to every tik tok clip we can find, write down all the one liners, and get ready to throw them out one by on

But there is another way that is far more beneficial and answers each of these issues with a top down approach.

What this is called is the Socratic Method

And we are going to look it in the example of a ladder

EX: Lets say someone comes to you and they say, you believe in evolution right?

And you say no, and they say, well why not.

Picture at this point you are standing on top of the ladder, like you and the other person are standing straight up at the very top.

How most would try to debate here would be to start shoving one another to see who can fall off first

Throw out one liners, personal attacks, etc. to try and just knock the person out of the argument altogether

But we already established this is not beneficial and it is a very inefficient and difficult way to debate

So what if instead, you help them down off the top, and you both get to a more secure spot on the ladder, with your hands and feet now supporting you both

What you are doing in this case, is you are bypassing all of the emotions, and the one liners, and you are taking a step down to something more meaningful, and more secure.

It’s safer, its easier to debate, and its more beneficial

So what does this look like?

Well it’s very simple, and really you only need to know 5 words - WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHY?

Well they ask why you don’t believe in evolution?

So instead of saying....”Well the carbon dating records at the grand canyon I believe were measured incorrectly and Dr. so and so that conducted the research was not reliable, etc.”

You take them down a step.

But here is the secret, you have a very powerful weapon on your side if you are sharing truth

Weapon - THE BIBLE SAYS THEY ALREADY AGREE WITH YOU, THEY JUST HAVEN’T REALIZED IT

Romans 2:14–15 “for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)”

So if you are sharing what is actually true, in their hearts they know it is true because God has written that truth on their hearts

If this is the case, then all you have to do is help them see that truth that is already there

And you want to know the secret in how to do that, ask questions

Let them expose the truth on their hearts themselves

The greatest debaters I have ever seen are ones who speak very little

They know the right questions to ask, and this leads the individual to uncovering the foundational truth themselves

So in our example instead of throwing out some hyper specific one liner to win the argument, we take it a step down and say....

You: “Why do you believe in evolution?”

Them: “Because it’s what science tells us is true.”

You (step down, not push back): “Okay — What do you mean by ‘science’?”

Them: “Science is the observable way the world works.”

You: “So science depends on observing the world as it is now, right?”

Them: “Yeah.”

You: “Then how do you believe the world itself came into being?”

Them: “The Big Bang.”

You (gentle but precise): “Okay — were we able to observe that event?”

Them: “No, but we infer it from evidence.”

You: So we’re talking about interpreting evidence, not direct observation.”

(Important: you just lowered the emotional temperature.)

Them: “Right.”

You: “So what kind of evidence do you think points to everything coming from nothing?”

Them: “Well… there isn’t direct evidence. But you don’t have evidence for creation either.”

You: “That’s actually a really important point. Neither of us was there.” “So the real question isn’t ‘who has proof,’ but ‘what explanation makes better sense of the evidence we both see.’”

You: “Do you think it’s more reasonable that order, laws, information, and morality came from nothing — or from an intelligent cause?”

Now we could go on but I hope you get the idea here.

What has happened here, is instead of throwing out one specific jab at the beginning, trying to knock them off the ladder and potentially knocking ourselves off in the process

All you have to know is what the actual foundation to the issue is

NOW HERE IS THE SECRET, THE FOUNDATION IS ALWAYS THE SAME, YOUR JOB IS TO KNOW HOW TO GET THERE IN THE BEST WAY

THE FOUNDATION IS ALWAYS JESUS, BUT YOU NEED TO DETERMINE HOW JESUS IS THE FOUNDATION, AND WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO GET THERE

And in this case what is the biblical foundation against evolution, Jesus is sovereign over all creation

So now you don’t have to have every argument and know every fact, all you have to do is know how to walk them down, step by step to this foundational answer, and then what you prepare, is how to defend that foundation, rather than learning every possible rebuttal and argument that could come up

So the overall answer to the question is going to be found in the foundation of how Jesus is the answer to this question

But it can be difficult to immediately draw a line of questioning from the top question to some concrete foundation of Jesus

So instead what is helpful is to find the mid-point

This is the step in the ladder where you can align with the person to unify on a single point

Ask the question - What single point, if they agreed with it, would naturally move the conversation closer to Christ? Where is it in the ladder.

So in our example with the question today, Why is apologetics important, the mid point could be...

We should only stand for what we can support to be true.

The line of questioning here could look something like...

Them: Why is apologetics even important?

You: Why do you think it isn’t?

Them: Because faith is personal. You don’t need to defend it.

You: What do you think faith should be based on—truth or just personal feeling?

Them: Truth.

You: Who decides what’s actually true?

Them: God… I guess.

You: What happens if someone believes something strongly, but it isn’t true?

Them: Then they’re wrong.

You: Why would it matter to know why you believe something is true?

Them: So you’re not just believing blindly.

You: So we can agree on this then: we shouldn’t stand firmly on things we can’t actually support as true.

Them: Yeah, that makes sense.

You: If Christianity claims to be true, who should decide how seriously we take understanding and explaining it?

Them: Jesus.

You: And if Jesus is Lord, then being ready to explain what we believe isn’t optional—it’s obedience.

I want to share a video of Charlie Kirk debating a college student on the topic of abortion and he does exactly this.

Now understand he was in a different setting, his goal was to educate, so in many of his videos he is tackling very specific arguments but thats because that was his job and he had a different intent than just defending himself.

So don’t think that responding with specific matters of debate or laying out a long case against something is wrong, but for the average person, the Socratic method is going to be the best way to proceed

VIDEO - CHARLIE KIRK DEBATING COLLEGE STUDENT ON ABORTION USING SOCRATIC METHOD

So just a recap.

We learned that biblical apologetics is being able to defend your what you believe from a biblical perspective, and doing so in a way that is effective and God honoring.

We also looked at what is called the Socratic method, a way to defend your faith in a way that....

Doesn’t require you to know every single debate point

If done correctly will always lead back a foundational Godly point

Will work to build relationships and encourage dialogue rather than division

Next week we are going to move into some of these foundational questions, starting with the question Does God really exist. And we are going to look at how to take a question even as foundational as this, and work your way down to a logical and biblical understanding.