Evangelism, a Christian's account to an unbelieving world of the hope Christians have, as the the apostle Peter says,
"But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Pet. 3:15).
The Greek word translated "to give an answer" is the one from which we get the English word apologetics. Apologetics and Evangelism are therefore “tied at the hip”. Evangelism naturally brings one into apologetics.
In this blog I will attempt to help readers understand the different types and methods of apologetics and how apologetics relate to a Christian's call to evangelize. The types of apologetics listed in this blog do not constitute an exhaustive list of apologetic approaches. They do represent, however, the most well-known and popular argumentative strategies in the scholarly apologetics community.
Here we go...
Colossians 1:28-29
Luke 4:18-19
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed(Means) Me to preach(Method) the gospel(Message) to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
19 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
This pattern of “Message, Method and Means” in evangelism is repeated over and over again in God's word. If this pattern is displayed for us in the Old and the New testaments by men sanctified by God, and further by Jesus himself, then how much more is it needed by us?
Lets go back to 1 Corinthians and notice the purpose statement in verse 5...
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
So men's faith does not exist because of the wisdom of men, but as the consequence of God's power. This is why I believe the evangelism of the church should rest on the Holy Spirit's Power(Means). What is at stake here is the eternal well being of men, women, and children! It is possible for faith to be generated by a source other then God, but when this happens this faith will not stand the test of time. Sooner or later it's weakness will show in the same way a sick plant will reveal the quality of it's soil.
If a person's faith is drawn out by the sentimentalisms of a preacher, the emotional charged manipulations of a christian singer or church growth marketing techniques, it will prove to be vulnerable to anyone who comes along and is able to out think, out reason, out do the previous guy. And lets face it, everyone of us can be outdone by someone else! There are apologists for Islam that are much more articulate and intelligent then I could ever hope to be. There are advocates for the theory of evolution that are much more persuasive then I could ever hope to be. The fact is that if the advancement of Christianity is dependent on the intelligence of it's advocates, Christianity is doomed.
On the other hand, look at who God chooses:
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;
But what has God chosen to work with?
27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, 29 so that no man may boast before God. 30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, 31 so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
This is why I have issue with certain evangelistic methods that are built on an apologetic emphasis. There is a place for apologetics, but I have hesitation with approaches to evangelism that are built upon an apologetic emphasis that seek to show that Christianity is far more intellectually superior then any other religion or thought process. Often church or college Christian groups will sponsor debates between Christians and non-Christians in an attempt to convert unbelievers.
Here are two outcomes:
Archibald Thomas Robertson, a preacher and Greek scholar, once said:
"But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Pet. 3:15).
The Greek word translated "to give an answer" is the one from which we get the English word apologetics. Apologetics and Evangelism are therefore “tied at the hip”. Evangelism naturally brings one into apologetics.
In this blog I will attempt to help readers understand the different types and methods of apologetics and how apologetics relate to a Christian's call to evangelize. The types of apologetics listed in this blog do not constitute an exhaustive list of apologetic approaches. They do represent, however, the most well-known and popular argumentative strategies in the scholarly apologetics community.
Here we go...
Classical Apologetics (Rationalism)
There are two steps to this form of apologetics:
- Prove the existence of God (broad theism) through rational argumentation using the cosmological (William Lane Craig, Thomas Aquinas), teleological (William Paley, Michael Behe), moral (C.S. Lewis, William Sorley), or ontological arguments (Anselm, Alvin Plantinga, W.L. Craig).
- Establish the truth of Christianity specifically by appealing to the historical evidence, particularly of the life of Jesus, his miracles, and his resurrection.
Most people, when they hear of apologetics, would immediately think of what is termed “Classical Apologetics”. Classical Apologetics is a very rigorous logical approach to presenting the truth of God in a philosophical manner. This is usually accomplished by critiquing the non-christian world-views in terms of the break down of logic. This break down of logic is accomplished because worldly world-views are not based on the truth of God. Examples of Classical Apologetics would be The Proofs of God made popular by Thomas Aquinas in his work “Five Ways” or five proofs for the existence of God. I have included the link below if you are not familiar with this work.
Classical Apologetics is how we typicality think of Apologetics.
Evidential Apologetics (Evidentialism)
- Present the evidence for the truth claims of Christianity.
More recently men like Josh McDowell use an Apologetics in the form of evidences that makes a very strong case for Christianity called, “Evidential Apologetics”. These evidences include archeology and higher criticism, etc.
For example: There are some that claim that the bible is made up by men who wrote stories much later after the events. Recently, biblical scholars that have researched and acquired data and evidences for the early early writing of the scriptures. This data conforms and is confirmed by the data acquired by archeology.
There are many evidences provided for the Christian today that can help present the truth to an unbeliever. The issue with this approach is an unbeliever can only conclude that Christianity is most probably true. Who would want to learn so much for the sake of setting forth a mere probability?
Both Classical and Evidential Apologetics are very helpful because they do take advantage of two specific sources of information.
- Rationalism – God is a rational God. People are made in His image as rational beings, so therefore we can communicate using reason.
- Evidentialism- We can provide evidences that are plain to see.
The Issue
Now the problem with rationalism and evidentialism is that they tend to elevate the role of reason or the role of evidences.
The Rationalist can tend to say; because reason can be a common ground of communicating the Gospel between the believer and the unbeliever, I can rely heavily upon reason alone in order to convince the unbeliever about the truth of the gospel.
Or likewise, the Evidentialist can say; we have data that seems to be clear and therefore we can bring the unbeliever to a neutral ground and they ought to be submissive to the data presented.
The problem with both Classical and Evidential Apologetics is they fail to deal with the root cause of the issue in an unbeliever, which is a depraved heart. Since man is fallen the fall effects his mind... it effects his reason.. it effects his will and his intention on how he will interpret the data that he sees. In my mind, these two types of apologetics put way too much emphasis on man's ability to think. Many Christians believe they can’t use the Bible to prove the Bible. They think they need some neutral starting place where both the unbeliever and the Christian agree, from which we can prove the Christian position. Such a neutral beginning point is impossible because of the disagreement with unbelievers over the nature of knowledge. Also, neutrality is ineffective, because it grants autonomy to the unbeliever by releasing him from the authority of the Bible, and is inconsistent, because the Bible makes clear that Christ is the source of all knowledge.
I believe that any argument for the existence of God should start with God, not with the reasoning of man. As the church has slowly abandoned its commitment to the sufficiency of Scripture, nowhere has it been more evident than in the area of apologetics.
Presuppositional Apologetics
The point of this approach is that in the Bible the Christian has all that he needs and all that he will ever need for the doing of apologetics. Scripture is sufficient to train the man of God so that he may be fully equipped for every good work. Therefore when we come to presuppositional apologetics, what we try to emphasize is the authority upon which conversation rests. It does not rest upon reason. It does not rest upon evidences, in some neutral way that the unbeliever would acknowledge. But rather, it rests upon God and His revealed word. The presuppositionalist approach presupposes that Christianity is true without rational proof or any type of direct evidence. To paraphrase a popular book on Christian counseling, every Christian is competent to challenge any unbeliever because every Christian has access to the Word of God in the Spirit of God. God has created human beings with innate knowledge of him, which may be triggered by such things as, for example, the wonders of nature (Romans 1:20). This approach is sometimes called Reformed Epistemology.
The other types of apologists tend to ignore the data of scripture. The presuppositional apologist starts with the data of scripture. A presuppositional apologist proclaims God, and then and only then, can the use of reason and evidences support the truth claims of the word of God.
We know that everything owes its existence, and its rationale for existence, to God alone. We know, therefore, that no unbeliever can make sense of anything with which he is forced to live or which he tries to explain. We know that anything that the unbeliever discusses with us owes its explanation to those first powerful words of Scripture, "In the beginning, God ...." And how do we know this? From Scripture alone! Not from Aquinas's genius nor from an evidentialist's facts, but from the Bible, which alone, is sufficient to equip every Christian to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have.
The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation and we want to make the proclamation of the truth the primary rock we stand on. We are called to preach the gospel. When we meet an unbeliever we must lead with the general call to repentance and faith. We want to proclaim who Christ is, who they are in the presences of this Holy God, and how they need to be right with God. As you engage with an unbeliever through this conversation, we can gauge where the unbeliever is in this process. Classical and Evidential Apologetics have a place but we must lead and always come back to the data of scripture, communicated in such a way, that they understand that our authority rests on the scriptures and they need to submit to the scriptures.
Evangelism in action, at it's root is, Message, Method and Means. The Holy Spirit with His power, through a preacher establishes, confirms, proves and verifies the message of the Gospel to the heart of the unbeliever, so that he or she must respond to the truth they hear. If you spend any time at all in God's word, you will begin to see this pattern of “Message, Method and Means” everywhere. Here are a few examples:
Examples:
28 We proclaim(Method) Him(Message), admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. 29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power(Means), which mightily works within me.
1 Peter 1:1212 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached(Method) the gospel(Message) to you by the Holy Spirit(Means) sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified(Message). 3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching(Method) were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power(Means), 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
Then out of the mouth of Jesus as he reads from the book of Isaiah in the temple in Luke 4:
Luke 4:18-19
Because He anointed(Means) Me to preach(Method) the gospel(Message) to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
19 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
So men's faith does not exist because of the wisdom of men, but as the consequence of God's power. This is why I believe the evangelism of the church should rest on the Holy Spirit's Power(Means). What is at stake here is the eternal well being of men, women, and children! It is possible for faith to be generated by a source other then God, but when this happens this faith will not stand the test of time. Sooner or later it's weakness will show in the same way a sick plant will reveal the quality of it's soil.
If a person's faith is drawn out by the sentimentalisms of a preacher, the emotional charged manipulations of a christian singer or church growth marketing techniques, it will prove to be vulnerable to anyone who comes along and is able to out think, out reason, out do the previous guy. And lets face it, everyone of us can be outdone by someone else! There are apologists for Islam that are much more articulate and intelligent then I could ever hope to be. There are advocates for the theory of evolution that are much more persuasive then I could ever hope to be. The fact is that if the advancement of Christianity is dependent on the intelligence of it's advocates, Christianity is doomed.
On the other hand, look at who God chooses:
Here are two outcomes:
- The Christian is blown away by a unbeliever that is more schooled or more charismatic.(This would be a terrible outcome!)
- The Christian wins the debate hands down and as an result draws some superficial interest with some unbelievers in the audience.
Archibald Thomas Robertson, a preacher and Greek scholar, once said:
“What depends on a clever argument is at the mercy of a cleverer argument.”
In closing, Donald Bloesch in his book, God the Almighty, says it best:
"As messengers and ambassadors of our Lord Jesus Christ we do not so much persuade people of the truth or the gospel as call them to believe the gospel. We should not expend our efforts on arguments in support of the faith (though these are not to be disregarded altogether) but proclaim a message that creates the possibility of faith. We can persuade insiders of the viability of our theological interpretations, but we cannot persuade outsiders of the credibility of the gospel. Our task is not to argue the case for the gospel, as though it needed our defense, but to present the gospel as the life-giving message that alone can redeem from sin and death."
Soli Deo gloria
In closing, Donald Bloesch in his book, God the Almighty, says it best:
"As messengers and ambassadors of our Lord Jesus Christ we do not so much persuade people of the truth or the gospel as call them to believe the gospel. We should not expend our efforts on arguments in support of the faith (though these are not to be disregarded altogether) but proclaim a message that creates the possibility of faith. We can persuade insiders of the viability of our theological interpretations, but we cannot persuade outsiders of the credibility of the gospel. Our task is not to argue the case for the gospel, as though it needed our defense, but to present the gospel as the life-giving message that alone can redeem from sin and death."
Soli Deo gloria
0 comments:
Post a Comment