EVERYDAY APOLOGETICS CONVERSATIONAL STRATEGIES FOR DEFENDING THE FAITH
BY: ELI PRICE
WHAT ARE YOUR MAIN CONCERNS WHEN HAVING FAITH RELATED CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHERS?
WHAT IS THE GREAT COMMISSION? Matthew 28:18-20 “And Jesus came and said to them,“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
WHAT APOLOGETICS IS • DEFENDING • Identify and respond to objections or difficulties concerning the gospel. • Help others to overcome these barriers to the faith.
• COMMENDING • Allow the truth and relevancy of the Gospel to be appreciated.
• Communicate the excitement and wonder of the Christian faith.
• TRANSLATING • Recognize that many core ideas of Christian faith are unfamiliar to the audience. • Translate these Christian themes in language outsiders will understand.
WHAT APOLOGETICS IS NOT • SOLELY AN APPEAL TO THE MIND • Apologetics is a matter of the heart just as much as of the mind.
• EVANGELISM • Apologetics is the “John the Baptist” for Evangelism, preparing the way. • Apologetics is conversational. Evangelism is invitational.
• Apologetics is persuading people that there is a door to another world. Evangelism is helping people to open that door and enter it.
• ONLY FOR PHILOSOPHERS AND THEOLOGIANS
6 ESSENTIALS TO EVERYDAY APOLOGETICS
1. UNDERSTAND THE FAITH • How can you defend and explain a faith you don’t know about?
• The apologists job is not to invent the rationality, imaginative power, and moral depth of Christian faith… • It is to point it out and help others see it. • This involves having a deep appreciation and understanding of it yourself.
• The apologists other job is to have an outsiders perspective. • We are to not only understand the Christian truths, but also why one might not believe that truth. What are the barriers to that truth?
2. UNDERSTAND THE AUDIENCE • You are not speaking to an idea or a belief system. You are speaking to a person.
• Each audience has its own questions and objections that need to be addressed, as well as pointers and doors to faith. • Does your audience have a basic knowledge of Christian beliefs? What is their cultural perspective? Do they like literature or movies? Are they more abstract thinkers or hands on/practical? • You must try to know your audience the best you can!
2. UNDERSTAND THE AUDIENCE • Compare: Peter’s Pentecost Speech (Acts 2) vs. Paul’s Athens Sermon (Acts 17) • Look at Peter… • Demonstrates that Jesus meets Israel’s expectations of the Messiah. • Appeals to authorities that carry weight with the audience (namely the OT prophets). • Uses language and terms already accepted by the audience.
• Look at Paul… • Same strategy, but aimed at the philosophical Greek audience in Athens.
• Scripture shows how vital it is to know your audience.
3. COMMUNICATE WITH CLARITY • We must translate our faith into a language understandable by our audience.
• “Our business is to present that which is timeless (the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow – Heb. 13:8) in the particular language of our own age.” – C.S. Lewis • This task is tied closely to the last one. To communicate clearly, we must know our audience. • You can’t communicate something that you don’t know with clarity. • Admit when you don’t know. • Take it as an opportunity to find the answer with your audience.
4. FIND POINTS OF CONTACT • We must find points of contact for the gospel that already exist in our culture and experience. • “Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Acts 14:17 • C.S. Lewis spoke of good and evil as “clues to the meaning of the universe.” What is a clue? • It suggests, but does not prove. • They have collective significance, pointing to a deeper pattern of meaning that gives each one of them their true meaning.
4. FIND POINTS OF CONTACT • 1. Creation – The Origins of the Universe
• 2. Fine-Tuning – A Universe Designed for Life • 3. Order – The Structure of the Physical World • 4. Morality – A Longing for Justice
• 5. Desire – A Homing Instinct for God • 6. Beauty – The Splendor of the Natural World • 7. Relationality – God as a Person
• 8. Eternality – The Intuition of Hope
4. FIND POINTS OF CONTACT • Each clue is significant by itself. • But the true beauty and importance comes from the pattern they show.
• “It provides a framework that frees us from the threats of contingency and futility that lurk beneath the surface of supposedly self-sufficient and autonomous secular ethics. It offers us not a proof but a hope that the “cave” of our human world (to use Plato’s image) is not utterly sealed and closed, but that our flickering moral intimations reflect the ultimate source of all goodness” – John Cottingham, Why Believe?
GATEWAYS TO APOLOGETICS • A gateway is a means by which our eyes are opened to the reality of our own situation and the ability of the gospel to transform it. • They help you see things in a different way (the way things really are). • They allow you to appreciate what can be done to transform things. • They encourage you to make that critical step.
• What you say in your conversation can be the gateway that allows someone to see things in a different light and being to imagine a new way of thinking and living. • What are they?
GATEWAY 1: EXPLANATION • The best defense of Christianity is its explanation.
• What is probably the most popular apologetics book of all time? • Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
• Many people have misconceptions of Christianity that get in the way of their coming to faith. • This will be a huge part of your apologetic conversation with most people (even other Christians).
GATEWAY 2: ARGUMENT • Classic approaches to apologetics emphasize the importance of reason in both establishing the intellectual case for God and criticizing alternative positions. • Remember, arguments aren’t to be seen as “proofs” in the logically rigorous sense of the word, but instead as good reasons or clues that justify belief in God. • We must avoid thinking that our task is simply to win arguments or set out the rational credentials of faith. Why? • It is not biblical: Truth as a relational concept (reliability and trustworthiness). • The appeal of Christian faith cannot be limited to the rationality of its beliefs. • This approach is embedded in a modernist worldview, while most of our culture is heavily influenced by postmodernity.
GATEWAY 3: STORIES • A feature of postmodernity that is of particular importance to apologetics is its emphasis on the importance of stories and narrative. • Truth is often now determined by the capacity of a narrative to establish a distinctive moral and conceptual identity. • Lewis and others point out that a “myth” designates a story told about the world that enables people to understand and act within the world. • N.T. Wright points out that when we tell the whole story of the Bible, we both proclaim the Christian view of reality and challenge the secular alternatives. • The story of Scripture answers questions like: Who are we? Where are we? What is wrong? What is the solution?
GATEWAY 4: IMAGES • For postmodern writers, pictures, rather than words, are the supreme form of communication. • Example: • The cave in Plato’s Republic.
• Biblical Example: • Paul and adoption.
• You can combine story and images by referring to popular movies, shows, books, and poems.
5. PRESENT THE WHOLE GOSPEL • We must avoid impoverishing the appeal of Christian faith by restricting it to what we personally enjoy or find attractive. • C.S. Lewis emphasized that the apologist must make a distinction between the “Christian message” and one’s “own ideas.” • If we fail in this, we end up presenting what we like instead of the Gospel.
• Don’t get so caught up in an argument or point that you forget the only thing that can actually transform: the gospel. • We must also show how the gospel has transformed us by the way we live.
6. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE • Apologetics is not just about theory; it is about practice, action. • It is not just a science, but also an art. • It is not just about knowledge; it is about wisdom.
• If all you do is read apologetics books, you are not doing apologetics. • We must take what we know and use it in our conversations to reach people.
• Remember that no one has all the answers and that no one is the perfect apologist. • But, the more we do it, the more comfortable and effective we will become.
QUICK TIPS! • BE GRACIOUS! • The Golden Rule of Apologetics
• WHAT IS THE REAL QUESTION? • Welcome the question, then ask why this particular question is important to the questioner.
• DON’T GIVE PREPACKAGED ANSWERS TO GENUINE QUESTIONS. • APPRECIATE THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING FROM OTHER APOLOGISTS.
• KNOW YOURSELF!
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“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” 1 PETER 3:15