What is Apologetics?

Apologetics  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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intro to apologetics

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What is Apologetics?

(joke) First all, it’s a Biblical commandment

15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and pfear: 16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.

“reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something”
you could also say it’s proclaiming “what we believe and WHY we believe it”
Apologetics is a form of ministry
Paul became all things to all men
right tool for the right job
many people have been brought to faith after learning certain things about the faith, like the preservation of the Biblical text and the historical accuracy of the Bible
misconceptions about these things are rampant among people in the west today arguments like:
“Rome made up the faith to get people in line and under control”
“Various emperors and corrupt people changed the text and the text is unreliable”
“Jesus never existed” - this claim is all but ridiculed by most historians today
“Christianity/Judaism is just a new coat of paint on old pagan religions”
“there is no evidence of most events in the Bible”
“Jesus never made a claim to divinity”
“There is a difference between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of the Bible”
It was claimed for a long time that David never existed, until they found evidence
Now they say Moses and Joseph never existed
These are things that we should be ready to argue against
We are representatives of the faith, and it reflects poorly on the faith if you don’t have any answers for people when they ask questions
There are situations where someone may be interested in the faith, but someone gives them bad or even no answers, and that person may forever disregard the faith
We saw what Peter said in his verse earlier, let’s see why John wrote his gospel:

30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

John was providing evidence for his claim, he made an argument and then provided proof
he also says in this verse that he presented his argument so that ye might have life through his name, he wrote it for evangelistic purposes
Let’s see what Jude said:

3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

to exhort is to encourage, he is encouraging the believers to contend for the faith, to argue for and promote the faith in order to combat evil people
this verse also talks about those who turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, lasciviousness is kind of like debauchery
they thought, “hey we have grace, we can do whatever we want” - does this sound familiar? we see this a lot today
there are answers for this in Romans 6

6 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7 For he that is dead is sfreed from sin. 8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 9 Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

This is an example of “apologetics” regarding correct doctrine. It’s evangelism to those in error.
fact that the american church needs to hear the gospel just as much as other countries and places because there is so much error
he also talks of those denying our Lord Jesus
Even the early church was dealing with these kind of problems, and were “contending for the faith” even back then
We see that the writer of the book of Hebrews is an evangelistic book written to the Jews. The writer was contending for the faith, presenting a reason for believing in Christ.
the writer spoke of how Jesus fulfilled a lot of OT prophecy
Let’s see what Paul said in his letter to Titus:

8 But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; 9 Holding fast the faithful word mas he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. 10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: 11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake. 12

he talks of exhorting and convincing the gainsayers (false teacher) and those who also believe that way
lucre = 1. “money, especially when regarded as sordid or distasteful or gained in a dishonourable way”
There is an interesting verse in Isaiah:

5  I have even from the beginning declared it to thee;

Before it came to pass I shewed it thee:

Lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them,

And my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.

6  Thou hast heard, see all this;

And will not ye declare it?

This passage is God telling the israelites that He declared. God and what He does is proven out through history.
We have prophecy in the Bible, and lo, and behold, they were fulfilled.
We also have Isaiah prophesying the name of Cyrus, who would later release the Jews from captivity and let them go back to Israel.
What other faith has this kind of pinpoint accuracy?!
There is much historical proofs of the Biblical stories, but that conversation is for another day. The point being, is that this is God confirming for us that He is God, and what He says and does is true!
Let’s see an example from Colossians:

5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. 6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

this is an absolutely clear command that we should know how to answer every man, we should know what we believe and WHY we believe it
This is similar to when Jesus told us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves
in those times the serpent was known as a wise animal
believe it or not even now there are people who present the following argument “the serpent wanted to enlighten adam and eve, to open their eyes so they wouldn’t be a supposed ‘slave’ to God
What would you say to someone like that? One thing that I would say is that the opening of adam and eve’s eyes was a bad thing, and that it’s apparent that it’s ended up causing much evil to come into the world, and was therefore an objectively bad thing to have happened
this might seem obvious to a Christian, but there are people out there who actually believe this
let’s look at what Paul did at Mars Hill:

16 kNow while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. 17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.

Paul saw a problem, that the whole city was lost, consumed in idolotry. This bothered Paul.
We then see what Paul’s reaction to the problem was, he started disputing the Jews in the synagogue, as Jude would say, he was contending for the faith; daily.

18 Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. 19 And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? 20 For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. 21 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said,

Epicureans and stoics were different kinds of greek philosophers and they argued among each other
On mars hill, or the areopagus, was a place where philosophers would gather during the daytime to present their viewpoints and debate those who disagreed
They were mocking Paul, calling him a babbler, and wanted to see him argue with the greek philosophers
so we see the setup, Paul is in a situation where he is being jeered at for his beliefs and what he proclaimed, and is about to contend for the faith in a famous spot known for “intellectualism”
Paul responds saying:

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. 23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; 26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. 29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: 31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

he doesn’t start out being angry, he is being graceful in his speech.
first, he deconstructs their belief system is in a graceful way, tearing down the wrong in order to build up what is right
he then essentially uses the resurrection as his lynchpin to this argument. he says it is a historical reality that Christ was raised from the dead, proving that the prophecies of the OT were fulfilled, and therefore that the Bible is God’s word and is correct
the proofs for the resurrection is a conversation for another day, but suffice to say, the only logical reason that the disciples would all go around saying the same thing and going to their bloody deaths is that it actually happened
some say it was a group hallucination, which is absolutely ridiculous and impossible for everyone to hallucinate the exact same thing and the exact same time
some say it was all just a coordinated lie, but what did they have to gain by lying about it? and why were they so passionate and willing to die for it? this doesn’t make sense either
it boils down to the fact that the only thing that makes sense of the situation is that it actually happened.
Let’s look at 1 John again

1 aTHAT which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; 2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) 3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

John lays out the historical claim, that they saw Him and touched Him. how amazing would that be, by the way.
He says that what they’ve seen, they declare unto the people, for an evangelistic purpose
John lays out the historical claim and says look, God has proved Himself through history to be real, and we have saw His Son and everything He did, and we tell you these proven truths so that you may believe
We see from these verses that we have the truth on our side, God IS truth, and we should use truth, history, reason, and of course, God’s help, to contend for the faith.
We have the luxury of saying that the Bible is the most historically proven faith on the planet
We have the luxury of saying how well and how amazingly our Biblical text was preserved. This is to be talked about later as well.
We have the luxury of saying that our God is unique among other God’s, especially in OT days, other religions had many different God’s and used idols, our God was very unique
We have the luxury of talking about how all these different authors over such a long time make up the Bible and it all comes together perfectly and fits together like puzzle pieces
We have so many great proofs for our faith, so much proof that is based on just Biblical prophecy alone, not even counting all the historical stuff
you could talk to someone just about fulfilled prophecy and have amazing proof
The point is that we should use everything at our disposal to try to win people over to the faith, why should we limit ourselves? we have an embarrassment of riches
Here’s the thing, I had many misconceptions about the faith before I started getting close to God again
I thought the Bible had been edited to say certain things or that certain things were lost, and that it was therefore corrupted
I questioned certain things about Jesus
Then I started watching some videos which explained that no, the Bible was preserved in a simply amazing way, I learned about the historical accuracy of the Bible, and that there is a lot of archeology that proves things out of the Bible
THESE THINGS WERE KEY IN HELPING ME TO OPEN UP TO GOD
Like Peter and Paul said, we should have an answer for people, we should be able to explain what we believe and why we believe it
Again, we are representatives of God, we are all to be evangelists, and we should be able to argue our faith without being made to look like a fool
there are many stories of Christian kids flying out of the nest, going to college, and getting their faith destroyed because of arguments from atheists and such.
if they were prepared with responses to common objections to the faith, would they have lost their faith? it’s also entirely possible that the person they were talking to could come to faith
Apologetics is contending for the faith, and all over the New Testament contending for the faith was evangelism.
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