Apologetics for Anyone

Last week I was introduced for the first time to the name Michael Ramsden. He works with the Zacharias Trust, which is the UK name for RZIM. Anyone who knows the names, Joe Boot, Andy Bannister, Logan Gates, Abdu Murray, Vince Vitale, etc., should know about Michael, but I didn’t. I tracked him down first on YouTube and then found this transcript and podcast. It’s very, very long in written form, so I’m just including a small sample here today. (Note: If you have the time, click the link and read or listen to the story about the haircut Michael had which precedes this section.)

Click the header below to read or listen at BeThinking.org.

Conversational Apologetics

…I don’t know if anyone has ever asked you, “Why are you a Christian?” If you find yourself in the context where someone else has asked that question, listen very carefully to what they say. What you’ll find is that when we are asked why we are Christians, we often explain to someone how we became a Christian. But why you are a Christian is not the same as how you became one. Those are two different questions – why and how. If you answer the question “Why are you a Christian?” by telling someone how you became a Christian, what do you think you’re communicating to them? Put yourself in their shoes. What do you think they’re going to hear? It’s about me. And more than that, what about the process itself? “Why are you a Christian?” “Well…” And then you tell them how. “I met a Christian guy, he seemed very nice, he invited me to his church. I was intrigued by what they said, I went along to their bible study group, I spent some time, and then I became a Christian.” If you were a non-Christian, what’s the next thing that you would then ask? They might say, “But if you met a Buddhist that day, and he took you to his temple, and you joined his Zen group, you would now be sitting cross-legged on the floor going, ‘Ommm…’ Doesn’t it sound a bit random? But is that why you are a Christian? Just a random chance process and it just happened to happen to you, or is there more to it than that?”

Most of you are here because you’re interested in apologetics, and if you’re interested in apologetics, you’ll already be familiar with the verse in 1 Peter 3 where it says, “But in your heart set apart Christ Jesus as Lord, and always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us for the reason for the hope that we have.” We’ll look at that briefly, because I want to go somewhere else into the Gospel as well. Here’s what is interesting with that command to be able to always give an answer: The word translated ‘answer’ is from the Greek word apologia, where we get apologetics from. For years, we’ve taught that apologetics is an inherently complex task. Apologetics is for a group of specialists. Apologetics, we said, is giving the philosophical branch of theology, or the theological branch of philosophy. But I don’t think that’s what it is at all.

When Peter wrote 1 Peter to the church, he didn’t write to an individual, and he wasn’t writing to just a very narrow geographical region. He wrote 1 Peter 1:1-2 to the church that was being scattered as a result of persecution. He addresses himself to the church. He’s addressing two universal commands in those two verses, 1 Peter 3:15-16. First, “In your heart, set apart Christ as Lord.” If you are a Christian, you must live in obedience to that command, are we agreed? And number two, “you must be prepared to give an answer, an apologia, an apologetic, for the reason for the hope that you have.” Who is that command addressed to? To the church.

I would suggest that the vision and the meaning of what is in here is not about a complex specialist task for a group of highly trained, skilled individuals. What is in here is a command addressed to the church, to the ordinary members of the body of Christ, saying, “You must be prepared and ready to give an answer – an apologia – to everybody who asks you for the reason for the hope that you have.” In other words, apologetics is not about introducing a dose of confusion into the gospel in order to make it sound more profound. It is about communicating the profundity of the gospel so as to remove the confusion surrounding it.

There has been a very big divergence between the historical development and definition of apologetics and its biblical definition. I have no trouble admitting that at all, but that is a disastrous development – absolutely disastrous. Now there are going to be people out there with incredible philosophical minds who will take this to a very deep level. That’s fine. But Peter can’t be addressing himself at that level, can he? Because unless you are a master of philosophy, how will you ever be in a position to give that kind of apologetic?

In other words, this idea of conversational apologetics – engaging with hairdressers, taxi drivers, your next-door neighbors, your friends, your family, meaningfully, with the gospel, I suggest to you from Scripture, is meant to be something which every member of the body of Christ should be able to do. It is not an optional extra. Two commands are given back to back: “In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord,” and “always be prepared to give an answer, an apologetic, to everyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that you have.”

We don’t have 1) Basic Christianity that’s got like, the lordship issue settled out, and then 2) Christianity Deluxe, with advanced theology, apologetics and a couple of extra software modules plugged in. Apologetics is part of the basic package. Apologetics therefore must live or die within the life of the church. It died in Western Europe when it became an abstract intellectual discipline as opposed to a spiritual dynamic exercise that was right at the heart of the church. Yes, there will be specialists, there will be people who have incredible ability, but that’s not all there is to it. It’s just as dangerous for apologetics to end up in a small group of specialists as it would be for theology to only exist among academic theologians…

Evangelism is More Showing Than Telling

Today we’re featuring an author who is new to us, Heather Goodman who writes at All Things Are Yours. This the beginning section of a much longer article, so you are encouraged to click the header below.

Evangelism and Genuinely Liking People

Forget apologetics.   Forget signs and wonders.  If you really want to excel at evangelism, there is one golden key worth more than all the others – LIKE the people you are reaching out to with Jesus.  Since we often get really messed up with doublespeak when we talk about what it means to “love”, I’d like to submit that the real issue is whether or not we LIKE “them.”  In general, we can’t bring people to Jesus that we don’t like.

What is evangelism, first of all?

A student of Greek will quickly explain that evangelism involves sharing good news, being an ambassador, etc etc.  And that’s all good and true.  Evangelism is part of our kingdom role of being priests and kings.  Malachi talks about one of the jobs of a priest:

“True instruction was in his mouth and unrighteousness was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity. 7“For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.”  (Malachi 2:6-7)

Sharing the knowledge of God both with believers and nonbelievers is incredibly important and is our honored role in the Kingdom.  I’ve heard people often quote, St. Francis in saying, “Preach the gospel, and if necessary use words.” But the reality is that words will always be necessary.   We are to help people UNDERSTAND things about God, and share knowledge.

BUT –  if our view of evangelism is just about TELLING people something, shoving a sign or a tract or a well-rehearsed message at someone, I don’t think we’re going to get very far with real humans with that approach.  At least, I never saw much come of my own efforts at evangelism when I approached people with that mindset.  Evangelicalism for a long time has I think based much of its lifeless attempts at sharing the good news with people on a misapplication of one verse:

“so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:11

This verse is often used to justify completely violating or at completely impersonal attempts at sharing Christ with people.  Under this mindset, all that matters is making people hear words.   It doesn’t matter if the message comes to them in any real understandable form, or if it has any personal connection to them… simply shouting at them is good enough, for God will make any words we shove at them “not return void.”  Though an explanation of why that’s a bad way to read that verse is well beyond the scope of this blog post, that’s not what this verse meant when it was written, and I don’t think its what it means for us today.

LEARNING A DIFFERENT WAY

My relationship with being an emissary of the gospel really started to change a few decades back when I stopped trying to be a “good witness”  (which is evangelicalism-speak for “hiding all your sins and faults from nonbelievers in order to supposedly attract them with the perfection of your life now that you are a believer in Jesus”) and instead let a non-Christian friend see me “for real,” as I shared with him the depths of the depression I was in, as well as my intense struggles with God at that time.  When he suddenly up and decided that Christ was real and he wanted in on the Kingdom when I was contemplating how best to hurt myself, I started realizing that my first “convert” was teaching me something about how Christ makes Himself known to people – and it wasn’t by me being fake and seemingly having it all together in front of non-believers.

I also started learning that it wasn’t about shoving impersonal sentences at people that supposedly were “the Word of God that won’t return void” to them.  Some wise person shared with me that every person in existence is already in a relationship with God, and that He has been dancing with them their entire lives, carefully cultivating a conversation with them.  I started to understand that my job as an evangelist was not to plod on into that conversation like a bull in a China shop, but to respect it – and to learn to peer into how God has already been engaging with that person, and that person with God – and to enter appropriately into THAT conversation.

Just as the Holy Spirit is one who “comes alongside and helps” I started to see my job as a colaborer with Christ by the Holy Spirit, agreeing with the Holy Spirit in coming alongside a person being drawn to Christ, rather than coming at them.  Good evangelism is midwifery, and while some babies are born on their own, much of the time someone helps the baby along…

…continue reading at this link…

 

With Jesus, Class Is Always in Session

 

Time once again to pay a visit to veteran Christian musician and author John Fischer. This appeared at his blog, The Catch, under the title Walking and Talking.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

This is discipleship, pure and simple. This is what makes discipleship, according to Jesus, simply brilliant. Jesus wants us to personally pass on everything He has taught (and is teaching) us so that we are always teaching what we know. The curriculum is always being developed, so it is always fresh.

What makes teaching difficult is when you are expected to teach what you don’t know to someone unfamiliar. That’s when we err by faking it – by acting like we know more than we really know, and if we’re with people we don’t know very well, our ignorance can go undetected. Whereas teaching someone you know is much more revealing. You can’t fake it with your wife or your own kids.

(Ask any pastor to tell you about their toughest audience, and if they don’t say their wife and kids I would wonder if they are telling you the truth.)

Teaching is not about imparting information; it’s about imparting a life. I keep wanting to do the former. Give me a curriculum and an appointed time to teach it and I can do that, but tell me you want me to impart what I know to someone as we walk and talk, and that is something else entirely. Yet that is the method Jesus used. They walked and they talked.

• The disciples left Jesus at Jacob’s well and went into town for food, only to find Him talking with a Samaritan woman when they returned, and upon her departure back to town, Jesus proceeded to teach the disciples all about the great harvest of souls He was predicting.
• They passed by a fig tree and Jesus taught the disciples about bearing fruit.
• They passed by a vineyard, and Jesus taught them about abiding in Him.
• They faced a storm at sea and Jesus taught them about faith.

Class was always in session because the lessons were all from and about life.

If we can teach someone at an appointed time and place, but not as we walk and talk, the question must be asked as to how well this teaching has been integrated into our own lives. Compare what you teach out of a book to what you impart over dinner, and ask yourself which experience of learning is most likely to stick.

I have always struggled over this with my own kids. The Old Testament tells me I have a responsibility to teach my kids and train them in righteousness, but I’ve never been able to get them to show up for Discipleship 101 taught by Dad. In fact, that’s when they seem the least teachable – when I’m trying to teach them! No, they show up for life, though, and that’s what it’s all about.

Lord, teach us to walk alongside and talk deeply with, not just disseminate information. Anyone can do that. Teach us to disciple by being disciples. Teach us to impart how to live by living openly. Not perfectly, but openly.

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