9-3-18
Occasionally, maybe more than occasionally if your friendships run a certain way, you chat with religious skeptics or unbelievers. How do your conversations go?
The vast majority of humankind – those who believe in God, or who regard Him in any manner at all – spends a great portion of their “faith lives” explaining themselves to Him. Justifying themselves… asking for forgiveness… praying. Explaining themselves, their lives, to God.
But there are people – pastors, priests, teachers, writers, Christian friends – who take it upon themselves to justify God and God’s ways to humankind, or one-on-one to friends.
And a smaller number of people, quite a small group, unfortunately, explain the nature of God, the ways of God, to humankind and to friends when the opportunities arise. Explain, defend, educate – not “justify” (which depends on our points of view, not His, really). This group is known as “apologists.”
We are not apologizing for anything – how could we apologize, in the contemporary meaning of the word – for God Almighty? Make excuses for His ways? No…
The root of the word “apologetics” is the concept closer to “defending.” In the Bible, a letter by Peter to persecuted young Christians in Asia Minor (I Peter 3:15) says, If you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, 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 within you: yet do it with gentleness and respect.
In this passage – advice that comes down to us through the ages – the defense (not excuse; not justification; not softened explanation) was originally apologia. We must defend God to those who do not know the Truth!
When people ask about “reasons” for God’s workings, or our mature faith, in the letter, that was the word logos, from which many of our familiar words come.
So by Christian apologetics, we defend God by reason and evidence.
Is this such a big deal? Defend? Explain? Persuade? Didn’t Paul say to be all things to all people? Shouldn’t we relate to people in ways they understand?
It is a big deal. You might adopt the pose of explaining away what you think are superficial inconsistencies in the Godhead; or His acts from one millennium to another; or whether He is vengeful or loving; or whether His plan of salvation seems fair. If so – if you mistakenly believe that God needs your help by contradicting His Holy Word – go ahead, but… by the way, you are enabling someone’s descent to hell. If not your own. You would be excusing God, distorting His essence, polluting His message, denying His sovereignty… all while your puny self is misunderstanding Him, and insulting Him.
Defending God instead of explaining or justifying Him immediately assures your listener (and reassures yourself!) that Truth is Truth. There is no need to devise explanations or justifications. It is. Just like God said, “I am.”
And the truth of the Truth does not depend on our opinion of it. Nor our explanation, which is bound to be faulty; nor our justification, which is limited by our human ability to reason. God merely needs defense – (word origins again!) not against arrows and darts; but requires no-nonsense, no-doubt, presentations by reason and evidence.
God does not require our clever justifications. Which makes the calling of the Apologist unique.
So we rely on God’s Word and the evidence in our hearts – we know that God is real; he lives within us! We know that we know that we know. I tell you, that confidence has persuaded more skeptics to accept Christ than any stack of scientific charts and graphs.
We can turn to historical evidence. Or the thousands of fulfilled prophecies. Or the surprising number, lately, of archaeological discoveries that confirm Bible accounts.
We rely, better, on the changed lives, the miracles we witness, the gifts believers exercise. And, yes, the blood of martyrs.
Who would die for a lie?
Millions would not; millions have not; millions do not. But people do die to defend the Truth.
Apologetics, when you read or hear, or if you choose that particular path of sharing the Gospel, is sometimes a rare and lonely profession. But it is the first step to disciple friends; a necessary component of evangelizing strangers. To defend Someone and Something that, ultimately, needs no defense? Yes.
We know that, but the world does not. So we engage in Christian apologetics. It’s what lonely and brave Paul did at Mars Hill. It’s what Jan Hus and Martin Luther did against the raging establishments… of church bureaucrats. It’s what millions of Christians in Communist and Muslim countries do, in our world today.
Can we at least do the same thing at family dinners… at school board meetings… in political discussions?
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