Apologist Sean McDowell WON'T Defend the Faith?! | Pastor Reacts

The Criticism That Sean McDowell Is Avoiding Defending the Faith

Sean, how would you respond to a person who'd want to say, my goodness, Sean, you're an apologist. It's time to give him our best shot.

We may get there in due time, but I think the task of apologetics is to be ready when somebody asks.

I like all of that. And if I was an...

Well, of course the atheist likes this, right? Because Sean's not hitting him upside the head with the Bible, right? Some of you watching right now are upset with Sean, because it just seems like he's refusing to defend the faith and tell the truth.

Sean goes slow and he doesn't get to the foot of the cross on the first go around, which shouldn't he though? Here's the $6 million question. Does he have a point? What is the obligation of the Christian when it comes to fulfilling the Great Commission?

Are they just supposed to sit and wait for people to come to them? Or does the Lord expect them to engage others on his behalf? Apologist Sean McDowell is faced with this particular question in a recent exchange between himself and an atheist, and his answer may surprise some of you.

So let's get right into it. And as always, see what the Bible has to say about it. Before we go any further, my name is Nate, and this is Wise Disciple, where I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be.

Jesus does intend for us to be certain kinds of followers, both wise as serpents and innocent as doves, in Matthew 10, 16. And that's what we're reaching for at this channel. If you haven't yet, would you like and subscribe and even share this video with someone else?

This just helps me to get the ministry out to more and more people. All right, let's get right into it.

Answering the First Criticism: Wait for the Question

So Sean, let me... And Adam, this would be good for you to hear, as Sean and I have a little bit of an in-house conversation in front of you. Sean, this is where I think the criticism comes, okay, of you, would be this.

Now, it's a little bit skewed because you and Adam know each other, and your conversation has been going on. But let's say, Adam, you just joined us in this podcast, okay, this event. I could see parts of our community going, we have killer arguments for God's existence.

Like airtight, they work A to Z, and you'd have to be pretty insulated, not for our drag them out arguments to work. So I think some would look at you, Sean, and say, okay, this perspective taking, this empathizing, listening, Sean, hit him with our arguments.

My goodness, you dropped it. I think there's a certain impatience because that's where, Adam, I think our community can get insulated, where our arguments just seem like they're knocked down and drag them out because we never try them on non-Christians.

And so, of course, they seem drop dead airtight. So, Sean, how would you respond to a person who'd want to say, my goodness, Sean, you're an apologist, it's time to give him our best shot.

So I'll make it even worse than that. For a lot of Christians who are serious about getting the message of Christ out to the whole world, a lot of us are thinking, well, what if you'll never see this person again, right?

Shouldn't we hit him up with the straight gospel every single time and just let God sort out the rest? I have an answer to this question, but I wonder if my answer is Sean's answer. Let's find out.

Well, I'd probably go to the apologist verse, 1 Peter 3, 15, that talks about sanctifying Christ as Lord in your heart. Always be ready with an answer when someone asks for the hope within, and then give it with gentleness and respect.

Ah, so Sean says, for those who want me to just jump right to the gospel in the first encounter, meeting someone, I'm going to give them 1 Peter 3. But does that verse actually support him? Let's find out.

So some of you might be asking, what Bible program are you using, Nate? Thanks for asking. I use Logos. Logos is the Bible app that I use to study the scripture, and I highly recommend it to any of you who want to get into serious study of God's word.

Go to logos .com forward slash wise disciple and check out some of the awesome discounts that we're running right now over there. All right. So Sean mentioned 1 Peter 3, and let's just read that verse.

But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy. This is verse 15. 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, having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

So if you just look at this passage, it does seem like we should wait until someone asks us for the hope that is within us. But wait a second. Wait a second. Jesus gave us a great commission. Did he not?

Matthew chapter 28 verse 19. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and 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. So does Jesus put us in a position to just wait for someone to engage us? Or does he expect us to engage other people? So I'm going to give you my answer in a moment.

But I just want you to be thinking about what the Bible is teaching us on this particular issue.

Why Apologetics Requires Wisdom Toward Outsiders

Occasion is that somebody's asking. And so in this conversation, Adam and I, Adam's interested in different questions right now. And we're having a lot of fun and we're growing and learning, having that conversation.

In our book, we haven't even settled yet. We might talk about the topics you mentioned. I talk about marriage, abortion, race, socialism, capitalism, arguments for God's existence. I don't know. We may get there in due time.

But I think the task of apologetics is to be ready when somebody asks. And so that would be my first initial response.

Okay, so Sean is clearly answering the question that he was asked. Okay, granted. But wait a second. Is the Christian endeavor just about apologetics? In other words, is the Great Commission an invitation to merely defend the faith?

And the answer is no. So again, what does the Christian who wants to get out there and effectively engage others for Christ make of Sean's answer thus far? If he's taking his time and he's not engaging this atheist about why he should become a Christian, is he really capturing the Great Commission in his answer?

I don't get that a ton from people. Honestly, the main criticism I get is when I have people on with different views. They're like, you're just platforming somebody. This is dangerous. That's the main thing.

And I would say, first off, Adam already has a platform, probably bigger than mine. He doesn't need me to give him a platform. And second, there's just value in bringing clarity in terms of what people believe and modeling what it means to have a civil conversation.

So I'd probably push back on that person and just say, can you tell me the last time you had a real conversation with somebody? Because somebody who approaches it that way is they're in an echo chamber.

They're reading books only by Christian apologists. And by the way, if they make the argument that way, they're not reading William Lane Craig, the top Christian apologist, who doesn't say these are knocked down forced arguments.

Like he just says, this means it's reasonable that God exists and maybe in some sense probable. So that's someone who hasn't done their homework, who hasn't, isn't really being a practitioner and actually having these conversations.

I don't anticipate a lot of that criticism.

Engaging Outsiders with Wisdom and Good Use of Time

The other thing I'm so Sean says that those folks who would criticize him for not immediately engaging the atheist with arguments for why Christianity is true, just isn't out there engaging nonbelievers in real practice.

These are folks who are living in an echo chamber and they don't know what it's like to seriously engage folks who don't believe in God, especially right now in today's culture. Now, here's the $6 million question.

Does he have a point? Does Sean have a point here? Is there some kind of biblical justification for the thing that he's saying right now? Does this verse help at all? Colossians 4 verse 5, walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Look at that for a split second. Do we not see a call to the different types of people that we might encounter?

Is it not implied in this passage that there are multiple types of ways to engage folks who are on the outside? In other words, those who reject God? How can we be gracious and season our words with salt so that we know which way we should engage them in the first few minutes of meeting somebody or on the very first encounter?

Right?

So Sean goes slow and he doesn't get to the foot of the cross on the first go around, which shouldn't he though? What about the idea of making the best use of the time, right? Ephesians 5, 16 says the same thing as Colossians 4, but it also says because the days are evil, that's why we should use wisdom.

So isn't there an urgency to the plight of the unbeliever? And shouldn't that put a fire in us to get to the foot of the cross quicker rather than later? My answer for this is coming up in a minute.

I might say, I might say, just like slow down. We will get there in due time. I'm sure at some point you and I will have that conversation. And other ones we haven't even broached. I mean, you've, you've talked me into conversations.

I don't normally address politics at all. And you didn't do it rudely, but I'm okay. I'll help understand maybe why some of y 'all go support Trump. I'm like, you pulled it out of me in a good way. Fine.

We're going to have those conversations in due time. So I just say slow time, slow down and spend less time criticizing what I'm trying to do and go have some conversations with people who see the world differently.

Yeah.

Learning the Audience Before Preaching the Gospel

That, and if I can, you know, if I was, I like all of that.

And if I was, well, of course the atheist likes this, right? Cause Sean's not hitting him upside the head with the Bible, right? Some of you watching right now are upset with Sean because it just seems like he's refusing to defend the faith and tell the truth.

Am I wrong?

Some of you have got your dander up over this. Let me know who disagrees with Sean in the comments. I'm curious, like which one of you disagrees with Sean here?

A professor at Biola. The, I think of the God's not dead movies and I don't mean to criticize people, but I watch those as comedy. They are, and they are an absurd telling of the world I come from. They were clearly written by people who don't understand the world I come from.

They create characters that don't exist. They make arguments we don't have. And so what I just said, all the stuff I just said, no professor is like going to make some big, you should, you must be an atheist.

God is dead. We actually don't like God really isn't a big part of the conversation, to be honest with you.

So, so that's interesting. So the makers of God's not dead have not quite captured what real atheists are like, according to this atheist. Did you see God's not dead? This atheist says that doesn't describe him at all.

He says God's not in his conversations very much at all.

But hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Actually, that's very telling. And maybe that admission gives us a way to think about engaging someone like this. Okay, I'm gonna let him finish his thought. And then let's figure out what the right thing to do here is.

If nothing else, just understanding like the terms of the conversation, understand, like I give a lot of public speeches, often about economics, because that's my background. And I just want to know before I give a talk, like, is this a group of bankers who know all the inside lingo?

Is this a bunch of high school kids or, you know, like, what do they know? Because I want to know how to pitch my talk. So if I'm referring to interest rates, like, do they know what those are? You know, and I think at that very base level, if you're using terms that the audience doesn't understand, and doesn't has no reference for, then you've already lost.

Like, it's just not gonna work. So at the very least, even if you don't actually have any curiosity and don't actually care about perspective taking, just as a like sales job, like you should listen to the other side, I would think.

And then probably model, you know, to me, it would be good also to be curious and perspective taking in and of itself.

Interesting. So he just said, this is the atheist speaking, that very often people don't even know the terms you use. And if they don't know the terms you're using, then when you talk to them using those terms, you will not have a productive conversation.

If that sounds familiar to you, it's because I've said this so many times on this channel that you're probably tired of hearing me talk about it, right? So I agree with this, okay? And hopefully you do as well.

But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What would be a term that Christians use now in conversations with non-believers that non-believers don't even understand? Could God be one of those terms? Did you know that Pew Research conducted a poll recently about belief in God?

So when people say they believe in God, or when they talk about God, what are they really talking about? This is when Americans say they believe in God, what do they mean? Nine in 10 Americans believe in a higher power, but only a slim majority believe in God as described in the Bible.

So the article goes on. Out of, I think it was like 4 ,700 people polled, two-thirds believe in God, okay? But just about half of those who say they believe in God actually believe in the God of the Bible.

Well, what about the other half? Essentially half. Well, they believe in something they call God, but it's not the God of the Bible, okay? So if you're engaging these folks in regular conversation, how should you do that?

That is a practical methodological question, right? And also, what about the one-third that rejected God in the poll? As it turns out, some of these folks flat out reject the God of the Bible, but when pressed for details, still believe in some form of a higher power or deity.

So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. Colossians 4, right? Says, walk in wisdom towards outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech be gracious, using what's all so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Is that what Colossians is instructing us to do? Go determine who you're talking to. Go figure out what they know and what they don't know so that you can be effective, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

You remember when Philip came across the Ethiopian eunuch? How did he approach the eunuch?

You remember this?

So in Acts chapter eight, this is how it tells the story. Now, an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. And then it just goes on, you know?

So Philip sees a eunuch in his chariot reading Isaiah, praise the Lord. And this is what he says. So it says, verse 30, Philip ran to him, to the eunuch, heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you're reading?

And he said, well, how can I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. So in other words, Philip doesn't run up and give this man the gospel right away, does he? No, he engages the man where he's at.

And apparently he's already seeking, praise the Lord. He's reading the book of Isaiah. Then notice this detail. Verse 34. And the eunuch said to Philip about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else?

That is a reading comprehension question of the first order. You know what I mean? Like that's, that is another clue that this eunuch is truly engaging with the text. He's trying to figure it out. Verse 35.

Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus beginning with that scripture. So, so again, just picture this. Philip does not pull a Ray Comfort or, or perform some kind of street evangelism on this eunuch.

He asks the eunuch a question about what he's specifically reading. He gets invited to read along with this man. And then the man asks him a question about Isaiah, which by the way, happens to be Isaiah 53, which is all about Jesus.

And then Philip gives the gospel starting with Isaiah 53. Now, what's interesting is this is not the uniform way that we see people engage lost folks on behalf of Christ. You want to know why? There is no uniform way to do it.

Not, not, not on a practical level, dealing with different kinds of people. Of course, the similarities and the commonalities all center around the actual gospel message proper. But beyond that, things seem to change.

If you look at Peter in Acts chapter two, and again, in Acts chapter four, totally different. And if you watch Paul's habits of going to synagogue and reasoning from the Tanakh in order to prove that Jesus is the Messiah in Acts chapter 17, you'll notice that's different from what Philip does here.

But in every situation, even with, when Paul goes to the Greeks, to the Athenians at the Areopagus, right? We see the disciples engaging people differently by attuning their engagement based on their audience's level of knowledge.

Actually, you should, you know what you should do? You should go back and do a study on that specific thing in the book of Acts. I think it would be very revealing. And it also provides us a way forward in terms of how to engage others today, right?

Like if we're trying to apply the Bible to our own lives. So let's bring it back to Sean. I think he's right in his approach. We can press into the details about specifically when he should engage his friend and, you know, with the gospel and all that, right?

And let's face it, he probably already has to some degree, okay? But allowing his atheist friend to have a real conversation where he's spending time with Sean and implicitly learning what it means to be a Christian, that is the right approach.

By the way, this is also in line with something that a lot of people forget that Jesus said, look at this, Matthew 5, 14, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. I've mentioned this at greater length in previous videos, but the light on a stand that Jesus is describing is a reference to the menorah, which sat in the temple of God in Jerusalem.

The menorah is a tree that is meant to represent the tree of life in the garden of Eden. So what Jesus is referring to here is ultimately salvation. He says, let the light in you that represents the salvation of God shine before others so that they may, now, hold on, watch this, hear the gospel.

Is that what Jesus says? So that they may hear you preach the good news of the kingdom? No, he says, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven. How can someone see your good works if you don't spend time with them?

If you don't get to know them and let them get to know you in a manner where they can see how you live your life, right? See, that's what I mean. Don't hear what I'm not saying. What I'm pointing out here is we tend to separate evangelism and the biblical idea of making disciples, which is the great commission.

That's the point that I'm trying to make. Sean is investing his time with this atheist in one sense, purely because it's what Jesus expects all of us to do. But also this sets Sean up for the possible day in the future when this atheist bends his knee to God.

And when that day happens, and let's pray for that, by the way, guess who will be there to disciple him? Because he's already spent time with him and knows him well, Sean. Sean's right, friends. And we need to wrestle with what it really looks like to get out there and obey Jesus in fulfilling the great commission.

Brother, sister, pastor, teacher, let me gently suggest to you, it looks like what Sean is doing with this man right here, with this atheist. Hey, let me know what you think about this. Is Sean right to take his time with this atheist?

Or should he give him the gospel as fast as he possibly can? All right, now it's your turn to sound off, okay? Let me know what you think in the comments. I'm curious, I don't imagine that everyone agrees.

But when you do, do me a favor, try to back yourself up with scripture as well. I think we should always seek to do that, amen? Well, if you made it this far, hey, why don't you join my Patreon community?

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