How can I be prepared to share the gospel? - with Greg Koukl - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 31

Hi, welcome to the Got Questions podcast.

My name is Jeff.

I am the administrator of the bibleref .com website of the Got Questions family.

And I also do some work with writing articles and answering questions at gotquestions .org.

Today, we have a special guest to talk with us about a topic that I think is really useful for

Christians regardless of our level of comfort with scripture and regardless of our level of comfort in

conversation.

For believers, there's a lot of things that we have conversations about that can generate a lot of heat

and not as much light.

For believers, obviously that means faith concerns, but that can also mean, how do I be a

Christ -like person when I'm discussing almost any topic?

And lately, there've been a lot of topics that are controversial and generate some

controversy to them.

There's a spiritual component to that, of course, but there's also a need for us to have practical, conversational

techniques.

In other words, the things that you're not going to necessarily know just by being filled with the Holy

Spirit.

So we need the Holy Spirit, we need good intentions, but we also need tactics.

Now, that's the name of a book that was written by today's guest.

And with me today is Greg Kokel.

He's the founder and president of Stand to Reason, which is an apologetics faith resource ministry,

writer of several books, two of the more important ones, in my opinion, being tactics and the

story of reality.

So Greg, welcome to the show.

Well, Jeff, I am thrilled to be with you and really happy to see what GotQuestions is doing.

It's kind of a new discovery for me and I'm really excited to see what you're up to.

Thank you, thank you very much.

So for those who may not be as familiar, why don't you give us a rundown of what STR

does and how you came into that particular ministry?

Yeah, I think you mentioned something about apologetics, defending the faith, and in a certain sense,

that's our activities.

However, our particular goal is to train Christians.

So we're really more of a discipleship enterprise in what we want to ultimately accomplish.

We train Christians to think more carefully about their convictions and then to be able to make a

thoughtful, gracious, but incisive, that is effective, defense for

classical Christianity, classical Christian values.

And so that's what we're all about.

But really at the heart of it, Jeff, is that we want to create a certain type of individual.

And we call that person an ambassador.

And we get that concept from 2 Corinthians 5.

We are ambassadors for Christ, Paul says, as though God were speaking through us.

And so we are Christ's representatives.

I think that's, to me, a more useful concept or picture than evangelist.

You think about evangelist, it's like going for the throat.

I think this is the way a lot of people think of it.

And when you think of being an ambassador, you get a picture of more of a genial diplomacy,

and this is what we're after.

And if you think about an ambassador in any context, an ambassador has three

basic capabilities or requirements.

One is they have to know something.

So there's a knowledge requirement.

They got to know whatever policy is being communicated.

They have to have the ability to maneuver in conversations effectively.

That's the tactical wisdom that you just mentioned.

And then there also needs to be the character that commends the message and doesn't subtract from the

message.

This is why Peter says, you should be ready to defend the faith, but with gentleness

and reverence.

You know, how'd that get in there?

Yeah, that's all part of it.

So we're building ambassadors with knowledge.

We characterize that as an accurately informed mind, with wisdom, that's an artful method,

that's the tactics, and with character and attractive manner.

And that's what we've been about for 28 years and counting.

And hopefully we'll have another 20 years or 28.

This will be past my watch on the organization probably, but God willing, he's been

really good to us.

Thanks.

Excellent.

Well, it's a valuable resource.

I definitely suggest that people check that out.

We will have links to that on our side of things so that people can take a look at those things.

Now, one of the things that you mentioned in what your organization's thrust

is, is this idea of the tactics or conversational ability.

And there's a lot of times where believers are afraid to have conversations, even

when they feel that they know the truth.

And that's just because of the way conversations go and the way that they happen.

In your experience, what are some of the frequent fears or concerns that believers have when it comes to tackling hard

topics or conversations?

Yeah, it's a great observation.

And I think one of their fears is they're gonna get stuck in a corner by an aggressive person

and they're not going to know how to answer.

They're gonna be hit with a challenge that they can't deal with.

And consequently, they sit on the bench.

They don't engage.

Even if they know a few things, they're afraid they're going to get out of their depth,

which I understand that.

I mean, I've been doing this for a long time.

I mean, I get out of my depth on occasion.

I mean, so everybody has a limited amount of knowledge.

And if that were the thing that kept us out of play, then we'd all be out of play.

Okay, I'll have some suggestions about that.

That's one of the things.

Another thing is, and this is broadly based on my understanding

and now philosophy about evangelism, is in the modern era,

we have a way of doing evangelism that focuses on harvesting, okay?

If you look at all the tracts, for example, all these tracts end with a prayer, okay?

I'm not against tracts.

And I used them when I was a young Christian.

In fact, before I became a Christian, there was one that featured significantly in my

progress towards Christ.

But here's the simple gospel, basically.

Here's some ideas and here's how to pray to receive Christ.

And so what that does is it gives the Christian the sense that evangelism is

harvest oriented, okay?

And when they think about trying to get somebody to pray to receive Christ, well, that's

troublesome in our culture right now.

That sounds like fighting words, you know?

That's hard to do.

And so they don't want to get into that circumstance where they'll feel discomfited.

And so they sit on the bench again.

And I think that the biblical model is not so much harvesting.

This is gonna sound strange until maybe some of your listeners think about this for a moment.

I do talk about this in the opening of the book on tactics, the 10th anniversary edition.

I expand on this a little bit more.

But Jesus tells the disciples in John chapter four that the woman at the well, after

she has gone back to Sychar and the disciples come because they weren't part of that conversation.

He says, you are about to reap where you did not sow.

You are about to reap where you did not sow.

And Jesus is identifying their one field, Sychar in that case, he's identifying one

team, which is the body, the Christians, the believers broadly construed, but

two different seasons and two different workers.

So you have sowing and reaping, you've got sowers and reapers, okay?

I actually think most of the hard work is in the sowing.

I call it gardening.

That is before you can have a harvest, you gotta have a season of gardening, okay?

Which is precisely what we see practiced in the New Testament,

in Jesus' life and also in the book of Acts.

There are great harvests, but they happen almost automatically.

There's no altar calls.

Nobody's invited to pray to receive Christ.

That is actually a modern invention.

And again, I'm not against encouraging that, but it's not a necessary part of the

process of communicating the gospel and having people respond.

And so if that's not a necessary part, but it's the kind of thing that keeps people from

getting engaged at all, then maybe we need to have a refocus on the way that we do it.

And this is what I advance in the book on tactics.

Let's just think about gardening.

Because when I look at my life, Jeff, I'm a gardener.

I'm not a harvester.

I garden, garden, garden, garden, garden.

However, I've seen the Lord use that in a very, very powerful way in the lives of people as

time goes on.

You might've heard, and your listeners might know of a guy named J. Warner Wallace.

He's written a bestselling book, Cold Case Christianity and others as well.

A very effective apologist, a former atheist who was also a cold case detective, still

is actually, I'm consulting because he's retired, but now a full -time Christian apologist because he used his

detective skills to apply them to the New Testament and determined that the New Testament was

reliable as eyewitness testimony, became a Christian and then has written these books that are great.

But a lot of people don't know, most don't know, Jim, J. Warner Wallace was in

my garden.

He was listening to our radio show when he was an atheist.

And over time, this gardening had a salutary influence in his life.

Now, I didn't harvest him.

Somebody else went into my garden, right?

And harvested my crop, but this is fine.

Jesus said in John four, the one who reaps and the one who sows can rejoice together.

We're all on the same team.

Now, the reason I mentioned this, and I'm just giving a thumbnail sketch of my broader philosophy about gardening is

that if Christians were encouraged to simply garden, to do a little here, a little there, and

not necessarily go for the gold, swing for the fences, so to speak, more would get into

play if they had a tool that allowed them to do that.

And that's what the tactical game plan does.

I think that a lot of our learning experiences as Christians, we go to conferences and we learn a lot of good things, books, whatever.

They are fabulous, but the problem is, is they are missing a bridge from

the content to the conversation or from the scholarship to the relationship.

How do you get all the information that you've been learning, whatever it is, into play in a

conversation?

And that's what the tactical game plan allows people to do.

So people are afraid because they think, wow, I might get stuck in a corner somewhere.

The tactical game plan will help them with that because we're gonna encourage people and show them how to get in the

shallow end of the pool and stay there as long as it's comfortable without going into the deep

end, so to speak.

They're uncertain about the idea of trying to swing for the fences, okay, and lead

someone to Christ through a challenge to sign on the dotted line.

No worries, okay?

We're gonna show them how to get in the batter's box, all right, and then see what the Holy Spirit does.

So there are, and there are a number of other kind of challenges that Christians encounter,

fears that they have, that I think the, or they don't even know how to proceed.

Like I said a moment ago, how do you get from the content of the conversation in a way that looks more like diplomacy than D

-Day, okay?

Well, that's what the game plan will help them to do.

So whatever challenges that a follower of Jesus is facing in

entering into a conversation that might have spiritual impact in somebody else's life, these are the kinds of

things that the game plan is well -suited to address, to make it easier for

even inexperienced or unacknowledgeable Christians

to begin to make an impact in, broadly, evangelism, even though

they don't think of themselves as an evangelist.

That's excellent.

I know that one of the things that was really transformative for me in my ministry life

was fully coming to the realization that it is not really my

responsibility to seal the deal or to get the signature on the dotted line, that what God expects of

me is to be faithful and truthful and loving.

And then whatever happens after that is what's gonna happen according to his will.

So I appreciate the reminder that people need to be told.

It's not that God is out there asking how many apples are in your basket.

He just wants to know that you've been faithful.

And then to add to that, to know that there are practical ways that a person can approach these

conversations where they're not going to be railroaded or stuck in a corner.

Yeah, let me add just another thought.

You mentioned basket.

When the fruit is ripe, it falls into the basket.

It just needs to be nudged.

You don't have to yank on it and swing from the fruit.

You don't have to pull it from the vine.

It just drops in the basket.

I was in Wisconsin in June and some property you have up there and the blueberries were just getting ripe when we were about

to leave.

And there I'd see some blueberries in the brush.

Oh, I'm gonna get one.

And I would touch the blueberry, trying to pop it in my mouth.

And the blueberry would just fall into the brush.

I had to be really careful, get my hand, because ripe fruit is easy to harvest.

It just falls into the basket.

The real significant part of the process is the gardening,

as I've characterized it, or the sowing that brings that fruit to the point

where it's ready to be harvested.

And when the gospel went out, look at the book of Acts.

Here you've got Pentecost Sunday and you've got Peter preaching.

He doesn't give an altar call.

He preaches the truth very aggressively.

This Jesus whom you crucified, wow.

And then they were caught to the quick and they say, what should we do?

And then he tells them and bang, 5 ,000 like that are added.

So this I think should be encouraging to your people, just like it's encouraging to me

that if we seek to garden effectively and then the

harvesting pretty much takes care of itself.

The altar call approach is historically new, mid -19th century, all right?

And the second great awakening, this is where it kind of became popular.

So when the fruit, just for your folks to listen, I mean, to incorporate

this particular idea, let that sink in.

When the fruit is ripe, it's gonna fall from the vine.

Our job is to garden.

And the way I characterize that in the book is just putting a stone in people's shoe, okay?

You know, a stone in your shoe, I mean, it's not the end of the world, but it does get your attention, right?

It's a little bit annoying.

And so in a certain sense, we wanna annoy people in a good way.

We wanna get them thinking about Christ.

And that's what the tactical game plan is meant to do.

I know for a lot of believers, there are moments and we've all had them where there's a moment where you hear somebody say something, where you

see a situation and that little voice in the back of your mind says, you should say something.

Or you should bring this up.

And there's that sense of fear of going, oh no, I'm gonna mess this up.

I'm gonna come across too strong or I'm gonna embarrass myself.

The thing that the tactics sort of approach does is provide some of those practical techniques for saying,

okay, here's how we can do this in a way where we're not going to crush the blueberry, that we should

just be checking on to make sure that it's growing the way it's supposed to be.

So with what you've seen, what are some of the common mistakes that you see believers making in moments like that, either because they're

too eager or they're too fearful?

Yeah, well, I will, the mistake that the fearful ones make is not engaging.

But I'm sympathetic to that.

If you don't have a tool to get you involved in a way that seems

not abrupt and not inappropriate, you're not going to get in, especially if you're a little bit

shy.

If you're not shy and you're aggressive, you're gonna jump in too aggressively oftentimes, all right?

So the tactical game plan is meant to

provide a tool that helps either side be more effective.

Now, we talk about tactics.

There's lots of tactics in the book.

They have different names, as you know, names like taking the roof off and just the facts, ma 'am, and what a friend we have in Jesus and

inside out.

And these are all kind of maneuvers in conversation, conversations that a believer can

employ in order to be more effective in that conversation.

But there is one tactic that really is the core of the game plan.

It's famously called, I see you grinning already, the Columbo tactic.

I was speaking to a bunch of, about 250 high schoolers a week ago in South

Carolina, and not hardly a single one of them knew who Columbo was, but that's all right, didn't matter.

He's a detective who was in TV, who maneuvered and was able to solve a crime

by his creative use of questions.

So all your people have to remember is the best way to overcome

both of the problems that I just described, either the too timid or the too aggressive

Christian is to ask questions, all right?

So if you don't know, how do you go from what you know to this conversation?

How do you go from a standstill into moving ahead in something productive for

spiritual purposes?

Ask a question.

Now, I suspect that many of your listeners are thinking, I never thought of that

before.

I thought I have to make a statement about Jesus or just jump right in.

But if you ask question, I mean, questions are polite.

When you ask a question, you are drawing somebody out and you're asking for their response or

their opinion, their point of view.

That's showing an interest in them and that's good manners, all right?

Secondly, when you're asking questions, you're getting information.

We're getting intel, to put it another way.

And a lot of times, maybe most of the times when we are beginning a conversational

relationship with someone, even somebody we might've known for a while, but we've never ventured into this

area, we need more information.

We need that intel because without it, we don't know where to go.

I remember sitting next to a fella named John on the airplane.

And as I got in a conversation with John and using the game plan, very simple to do,

I found out, well, John just told me I'm not a Christian.

Well, that's good information.

Yeah.

Then John told me I used to be a Christian.

Oh, is that good information?

Yes.

And then he said, I used to be a preacher's kid.

I said, John, how'd you used to be a preacher's kid?

Did your dad die?

He said, no, no, my dad's still alive.

He's just no longer a preacher anymore.

In fact, he's not even a Christian anymore.

Oh, is that valuable information?

Absolutely.

Can you imagine if I would've jumped into that conversation, Jeff, and I just started talking about the gospel and Jesus and how God

loves him and everything, he would've said, yeah, been there, done that, and it hurt.

But because I had now some information about him, now I can

move more carefully around the minefields that I had discovered by

letting him talk, by drawing him out and listening.

And see, this is really key.

You're not gonna go into a firefight, so to speak, to use military terms.

And I mean, sometimes those are not the best types of analogies to draw

because we don't mean to communicate a combative environment.

But there is a spiritual warfare going on.

And plus, sometimes the other side is combative, which is why we're reluctant,

okay?

But we wanna make sure, given that reality, that we are in the midst of an

increasingly hostile culture towards Christians, that we wanna make sure we have our

intel, we have information that allows us to maneuver around potential minefields.

The more questions that the Christian asks, the better.

Sometimes just to soften the discussion, to learn about the person, make it nice.

Sometimes if a spiritual issue is coming up, asking more questions of clarification about

maybe the challenge that's been offered.

And then, in other particular, so I don't wanna get ahead of myself here in our conversation, but what I

want your listeners, your viewers to absorb here is that the

best approach to a difficult circumstance is to ask

questions, okay?

Ask questions.

Now, there's a strategy in what questions to use and whatever.

Maybe we can talk about that.

But this is the simplest way to get into the shallow end of the pool.

Because if you're asking questions, you're not making statements.

If you're not making statements, you have nothing to defend.

If you're asking questions, you're showing interest in the other person.

You're getting information.

Plus, and this is the key to the tactical approach, Jeff, you are in the driver's

seat of the conversation, right?

In other words, you're directing it in a particular way.

Just look at our interview right now, you know?

I'm doing all the heavy lifting, right?

I'm doing all the talking.

But this interview is going in the direction that you want it to go because

of what?

The questions you're asking me.

Yeah.

And so the person asking the questions is always in charge of the conversation, even if they're not doing most of the

talking.

And that's what we're after here.

When I've discussed the topic of having these conversations, most of the people that I speak with, their

biggest concern is the timidity aspect.

In other words, what they're concerned with is I don't know exactly the right words to say.

And especially when it's someone who's a little more hostile, say it's a coworker or an in -law or a family

member who wants to spout off about things about faith.

And I've brought up that asking questions not only helps to diffuse some of the

tension, but it also means that expertise is not necessarily required.

For example, one of the things that you mentioned in your book is the idea that if somebody says something about some scientific

theory or some idea, a perfectly good response is just to say, what do you mean by that?

Can you explain how you got from that idea to this conclusion?

And not only does that help you gain information, but one of the things that we find out is that sometimes

people haven't really thought about it.

There's not infrequently when you ask somebody to explain what they believe or how they came

to that conclusion, they don't have a good explanation.

You don't have to actually do anything.

They'll blow it up themselves.

I have encountered this so often, Jeff.

And notice what you've done here is given the first two steps of the game plan with

the first two model questions.

One, what do you mean by that?

That's to gather more information about the view.

And then secondly, once you're clear on what they mean by the view they've offered, asking them

why they think their view is true or accurate.

This is how did you come to that conclusion?

It's kind of reversing the burden of proof onto the person who's making the claim against the Christian.

And I hope your viewers are getting the sense that, wait a minute, I'm not defending

anything here.

Right.

All I'm doing is trying to be clear on their view and their reasons for it.

Right.

Well, wait a minute.

I'm not advancing the gospel then.

Not necessarily at this point, but that doesn't mean you're not doing any good.

You know, I got a book back here on my bookshelf by Peter Boghossian, it's called A Manual for

Creating Atheists.

Maybe you've seen it.

Peter Boghossian is a well -known atheist from Portland State University.

And he's made a tactics book for atheists basically.

And what he says in his book, I mean, it's involved, has a lot of stuff in it, but he says, don't argue for

atheism.

That's what he tells his atheist people.

His disciples, don't argue for atheism and don't even argue against

some form of theism, rather just ask questions.

Now he focuses in on the questions regarding the nature of faith because he's convinced that faith

is a blind leap and it has no evidence for it.

Right.

But there's a lot of Christians for whom that's exactly the case.

And so questions about their convictions and what grounds their convictions are going to upend the Christians

and get them thinking, which is what he's after.

He wants his atheistic disciples to put a stone in the Christian's shoe.

Right.

Exactly what we're talking about here.

So when, as I have given this approach here, asking the question,

what do you mean by that, is a powerful question.

You mentioned earlier about the younger Christian or maybe the timid Christian feeling like they might be

overwhelmed or especially with an aggressive person.

I'll tell you what I've seen, Jeff, lots and lots of times.

I've seen somebody come into a conversation with a lot of bluster.

It's like their sails are filled, with their own ideas and their own confidence and all

this other stuff.

And then I say to them some form of the question, what do you mean by that?

I ask for clarification of the point they've made.

And I promise you, there have been lots of times when I've been in the sense visibly able to see

the metaphoric wind go out of their sails.

They're all filled with all this other thing.

I say, help me understand that.

Now, so what does that actually mean?

And then it's like, they go just like this, because like you said, they've never thought about

these things.

They don't know what they mean because the sloganeering of their

view has been adequate to Stonewall Christians and get the applause from their friends who

believe the same thing.

So they're in safe territory until someone asks for clarification.

And I've seen this time, I call it the Simon and Garfunkel response.

You know, those two guys who wrote this song back in the 60s, my era, you know, that the sounds of

silence, 1966.

So that's what you get.

You ask, what do you mean by that?

Or ask how they came to the conclusion that they believe in.

And you find out they don't know what they mean very well.

And they certainly didn't come to a conclusion because they can't give you the characterization of how they got there.

They just have been socialized to believe these things.

They spout them off and think it's the Christian's job to defeat all these ideas.

When all I'm asking of the Christian right now, and just think about this, is just to ask for clarification

for the view.

Help me understand it.

What do you mean by that?

And then if they're advancing a view they think is true, contrary to Christianity, say, okay, got it.

Now I understand your view.

Tell me why you think it's true.

How did you come to that conclusion?

And let's see what happens.

That by itself, I'm just saying, if you stay in the shallowest end of the pool with those two questions,

you're only ankle deep in this conversation in terms of risk.

You are going to be amazed at how God uses that in the lives of other people to put a stone in

their shoe, to get them thinking.

And if you do that, you've been doing some gardening in that person's life.

I think that's very well said.

And I appreciate the idea that a running theme that you see in the tactics book and the approach is that idea

that we are relying on the fact that we're trading in truth and reason.

And that it's not necessarily about us trying to dress something up or sell it.

It's just about revealing.

Sooner or later, these things will untangle themselves in a certain way.

Truth is gonna show itself as truth.

Contradiction is gonna show itself as contradiction.

Now, one of the things I did wanna ask you about is for us that got questions, what we primarily deal

with is something a little bit different than face -to -face conversation.

In fact, we're almost exclusively dealing with written type stuff.

So we're dealing with things that are akin to texting or social media.

Have you seen anything other than just when in doubt, don't post that you could

suggest for believers who think that they're getting into a potentially tense confrontation when

it comes to social media?

Well, I think that the tactical approach can be used in the social media environment.

No question about that.

But there are some liabilities and there are some advantages to

social media circumstances.

I don't do a lot of that because I do a lot of talking and I'm a slow typist.

But the disadvantage in a circumstance like that is that people will say

things online that they would never say to somebody face -to -face.

It just seems to bring out the worst in people.

And that's true on both sides of the aisle.

I have seen posts where Christians have just kind of, I'm trying to think of the best

way, they become kind of verbal monsters.

It's like they're Christians and they're saying this?

Really?

Yeah.

And when they say it, by the way, it's there forever.

I was gonna say the internet's forever.

That's right.

They can't just say, oh, I'm sorry.

I should, I take that back.

Well, they could say that, but it's still there.

Right?

It's still there.

Okay, so that's a liability.

An advantage if you're online is you don't have to be as quick on your feet.

If you're in a conversational situation, especially if you are in a kind of a public

interaction, like on radio or a debate or a TV or that kind of thing

where you have people listening and are watching and people like me get in those circumstances.

Well, I do a regular radio show where people call in.

So then you have to be a little quicker on your feet.

And I have some things in the tactics book that teaches how to prepare for those kinds of circumstances.

However, if you're online, you can think about it.

Right.

You can ponder it a little bit.

You can look something up.

You can start writing and then edit what you wrote so it sounds more persuasive, okay?

You don't have to be snap, snap, snap right on top of it all the time.

And so that gives, I think that gives an advantage for people who

don't consider themselves so quick on their feet.

I paused there and corrected that by saying, because even people who sound like they're quick on their feet have

actually prepared for that very thing to be ready to say the thing they need to say when the challenge comes

up.

I talk about that in the book.

But so maybe you haven't prepared.

Now what?

Well, no worries because you can take your time and form

a response.

Even in conversation, when you don't know where to go, this is where a question can really help out.

If you know in advance some form of the question, what do you mean by that?

When somebody makes a challenge, even in conversation, you could pause for a moment and say,

okay, I'm a little unclear about that.

Help me to understand exactly what you mean.

Even if their statement is clear on its face, it can still, you can still request

more information.

That buys you some time, okay?

And though this isn't the purpose of it, it may end up stumbling the other person if their own

ideas are not clear in their own mind.

Then you get this, the wind goes out of their sails and then they start faltering.

Again, the question is not meant to make them falter.

All right, and this is very important, Jeff.

I think that in the case of Peter Boghossian's instruction, his questions are meant to make the Christian

falter in an illicit way, okay?

We just want more information because we need more information.

And if a person is advancing a view they strongly hold, I suspect they should have some

clarity on the view and would help us to find out if they do.

And so asking them is not a trick.

It's entirely appropriate.

By the way, this applies to Christians too.

What if Christians get asked the question?

And I have those who will ask me that.

They use Columbo against me.

And they say, what do you mean by that?

Well, do you think I meant mind if somebody asked me what I mean?

Sit down, take a load off, listen up, I'll tell you.

So if the Christian is afraid of that question, that means the Christian doesn't know what he means.

And at least is not able to articulate his view clearly.

That means the Christians got some work to do just on their own side.

This, by the way, is one of the reasons I wrote the story of reality, which you made reference to.

It's a different book.

It's an entirely different kind of direction I'm going.

I'm talking about the big picture of the Christian worldview which is a kind of a story, but it's a true story.

It doesn't begin once upon a time.

It tells about the way the world actually is.

And it helps to ground the Christian and the non -Christian, frankly, if they're objecting to Christianity,

ground them both in what the story actually is.

Because I think when you understand the story writ large, it allows us to

not dodge challenges.

It answers potential challenges that we don't have to answer if you understand the issues

like this problem of evil.

Our whole story is about the problem of evil.

If we didn't have a problem of evil, we wouldn't have a story.

It answers that.

It explains why there's evil in the world and then gives a solution.

And the solution is Jesus.

And he's the only way, which is another challenging issue because he's the only one who solved the problem of evil.

And I talk about how he did that.

So a broad understanding of the Christian worldview will keep Christians from being

stuck by questions.

What do you mean by that?

And that's why the books kind of work somewhat in tandem, in my view,

because if we're using tactics to, in a certain sense, defend Christianity

and make it look more attractive and especially against opposing worldviews, then we need to

understand the view we are defending, which is the story of reality.

Yes, I appreciate that we had a chance to clarify exactly what both of those books do and feature.

Those who know me know that I wouldn't call it reluctant.

I'm just careful about giving book recommendations.

Tactics in the story of reality are two that I would definitely recommend for that reason.

I appreciate you coming on today.

I think we've provided some introductory level ideas for Christians who have some

nervousness about how to have these conversations and the idea that at the very least, that there are

resources that are available out there.

So I do appreciate your time and your ministry.

We will definitely have links to the books, to the Stand to Reason website so that people can check those

out when they have an opportunity.

I would encourage folks to read those, to take a look at that.

It really is possible to have conversations with non -believers or with

believers about difficult topics without the situation turning into a fight

or an argument.

And resources like this are part of the way to do it.

So again, Greg, thank you for your time.

Jeff, it was great.

Anytime you wanna chat again, let me know.

Absolutely, absolutely.

I appreciate that.

So again, the two books in question are Tactics and the Story of Reality.

Our guest today has been Greg Koukl.

My name is Jeff and this has been the Got Questions podcast.

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