Why We Need Apologetics

Hi, my name is Matt Slick and welcome to the Carmancer Desk. I want to give a little talk here on why we should do apologetics as Christians. Now, apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith. I'm going to go through several reasons why we're to do that.

The Biblical Command to Make a Defense

First of all, Peter tells us in the book of Peter, 1 Peter 3 .15, he says, But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you.

So we are told to make a defense, an apologia in the Greek, or apologetics. We're commanded to make a defense of our faith, to establish the truth of our faith. We are told to do that. Another reason we're to do that is because, quite simply, it helps Christians to know their faith better.

Apologetics Deepens Christian Knowledge

When you study apologetics, you have to study such things as the Trinity and the deity of Christ and the reliability of the Bible and his resurrection, logic, history, and things like that. And it forces you to kind of learn a lot.

That's a great, great thing to do if you take up what God says and give a defense and do apologetics. Another reason that apologetics is so valuable is a really good, compassionate one, basically to help get people out of hell, to get them saved so they don't be damned.

Apologetics Helps Lead People to Salvation

We want to defend the Christian faith. We want people to come to a place of relationship with Jesus. I like to say that the apologist, the person who gives a defense of the faith, is kind of like someone who leads someone else through a field.

Let's say that there's this field full of weeds and rocks and boulders and things like that. In the middle of this field is a nice garden with a big stone wall with a gate. There's actually a door. The apologist leads people around the briar bushes and overrun with thickets.

Don't touch that. Get around that boulder this way. Bring them to that door. Bring them to that place, that garden where Jesus is. The idea is that we as apologists give people reasons to believe. We try and answer objections to shut their mouths, essentially, to bring them to the place of a relationship with Jesus Christ because Jesus is the one who opens their heart and minds.

We are to remove the barriers and get them to that place to accept Christ. That's one of the reasons for apologetics as well. Fourth, we need apologetics to counter the bad image that Christianity has received through the media, through schools, and things like this.

Apologetics Counters Misrepresentation of Christianity

It's very prevalent. It doesn't take much thinking or much watching of TV to see that Christians are maligned or ridiculed greatly. Apologetics helps to improve the image of Christians and Christianity.

That's another good reason. Also, we need apologetics to combat the constant threat of apostasy that is so prevalent in the church. We as people just have a tendency to fall away from the truth. That's just our nature.

Apologetics Guards Against Apostasy and False Teaching

Apologetics is a defense of the Christian faith. That means within the church as well as without the church. There are errors outside the church trying to get in, and there are certainly errors within the church that are trying to spread themselves inside the Christian community.

We want to have apologetics, the proper defense, knowledge, and expression of the Christian faith to refute those kinds of things that are happening inside the church, like the positive confession, like name it and claim it, women pastors, women elders, things like this.

Homosexuality is okay. The Bible is not really the word of God. Various things inside the Christian church that the apologist needs to address. Sixth, another reason that we need apologetics is because of the many false teachings that are outside the church.

I just mentioned it, but you know what? The idea of evolution or pro-abortion movements, the idea that the Bible is just simply false. These are outside pressures that are being put upon Christians in different avenues and different ways, and we apologists need to be able to defend them and answer those objections.

So one of the very good reasons of doing apologetics is simply to answer those external objections. So that's a good reason. Also, we know that there's a heavy rise of immorality here in America. Now, when a society becomes immoral, it cannot be expected to survive.

Apologetics Resists Moral Decline and Cultural Pressure

When lying and cheating and stealing and false witness run rampant, then societies fall. Just look at history. Apologetics in the defense and the establishment of the Christian faith helps to stop that moral decay that is so prevalent in our culture today.

That's another good reason to study apologetics. And the eighth one I want to go through just briefly is one of just our education system. The education system is highly antagonistic to the Christian faith.

Apologetics Equips Christians in Hostile Education Settings

I have got story after story of Christians writing me and telling me that their professor would just attack Christianity, attack the Bible, attack the person of Jesus, and they just don't know what to say, what to do, except sit there and take it and not let it be known that they're a Christian, lest they be attacked as well.

We need apologetics because we need to guard our children. We need to guard the church. We need to establish the truth and the wisdom of the gospel. We need apologetics because it's what God has commanded us to do.

This is why we need apologetics. It's essential in this time. It's essential in this culture. We need it as Christians. And if we don't practice wise and aggressive apologetics in our culture, then we're going to lose everything.

So we need to do this. We need to obey the word of God and give an answer to everyone who would ask for the reason of the hope that lies within us. Thank you.