Have You Not Read S2E21 - Defending the Faith

Welcome to have you not read a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints before we dig into our topic we humbly ask you to rate review and share the podcast thank you

I'm Andrew Hudson joining me today is Michael Durham Michael we have another question this question was sent in by a listener how can a

Christian defend his faith rightly that's good question how can a

Christian defend his faith rightly you know when we think about the ways in which

Jesus spoke with his disciples and taught them not only who he was and what that meant for their lives but he also taught them how to conduct themselves as his followers and he shaped their expectations about the kind of opposition that they would face that indeed they would be brought before all kinds of governing authorities either

Jew or Gentile to make a defense for their faith and he told them what to expect and he obviously reminded them of things such as a disciple is not above his teacher and the things that Jesus experienced the kinds of slanderous attacks that Jesus experienced he wanted his disciples to know that they would face the same thing so as a

Christian we think first of all I mean there's some great passages that we could look at in Acts and Colossians and first Peter and Jude and we and we will but just to begin at ground zero the disciples followed their master

Jesus and in rabbinical fashion when you when a rabbi would have his disciples they would do everything he did so if he if he ate his food in a certain way that's how they would do it

I'm gonna eat it that way yeah if he if he laid down to sleep in a certain way that's what they would do if he ducked under a branch of a tree that's how they would do it in the same fashion so it makes sense to put our attention on Christ how did he defend his statements he came teaching and preaching the kingdom of God the good news of the kingdom he said repent and believe for the the kingdom of heaven is at hand repent and believe in the gospel and he went about not simply healing and delivering the demon possessed but he went around preaching the truths of the kingdom and many times he was challenged many times the

Pharisees or the Sadducees or the scribes or the chief priests would confront him and oh yeah what about this yes and they would challenge him they did not like it when he healed people on the

Sabbath and told them to take up their beds and go home they really didn't like it when he forgave their sins he they really didn't like it when he would do things that would challenge their teaching authority their worldview but they thought how they thought the world worked and so they would confront him so what do we see

Jesus doing in responding to his critics what can we glean from his example since he is our master whom we follow what were some of his ways what were some of his approaches well one of them was have you not read yes great question because he being the second person of the

Godhead as the one mediator between God and man the Christ he himself knew all that was written in fact he was the one who brought forth the

Word of God by the Holy Spirit that's how holy men wrote the infallible and errant perfect Word of God and so he would draw attention to the text of Scripture I remember one time they the

Sadducees in particular who accepted the validity of only the first five books of the

Bible the the Torah they rejected any truth about the resurrection of the dead they didn't believe in that they couldn't find it in the first five books of the

Bible so they said well then we're not going to deal with that that's not part of what we believe and he thought it was ridiculous they thought it was they thought it was very foolish and so they try to trip

Jesus up with some strange hypothetical and a long string of husbands yeah dying and then

I remember one old preacher was preaching on that text and he got to the was it the eighth husband or the seventh husband and then they died and and then he said and mercifully the woman died too but the it's a ridiculous example you know right right and then

Jesus instructed the Sadducees about the resurrection when he said from Exodus he quoted

Exodus which was in their wheelhouse you know that God said that he is the

God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob present tense so he's not the

God of the dead is he he's the God of the living have you not read this

Sadducees did you not read that that these patriarchs died and yet they are still living because God is the

God of the living so that's that was one of the ways in which Jesus would address his critics is he would say have you not read and go to the

Word of God and point out the truths of God's Word so what are some other ways that we find

Jesus interacting with and addressing those who would oppose his words we can think of when he was asked very difficult questions meant to trip him up he would respond by asking a related question back you know and and I find that very interesting wherein like we didn't answer my question well the point is if you answer the question

I just asked you you will be answering the question yourself exactly you see and I think that's a very clever way of doing things people think it's fair to ask any crazy question they want until they are forced to reconcile their worldview with a question coming towards them

Jesus also would tell stories he would tell stories in which the audience who opposed him at some point realized like wait a second he's talking about exactly and and then everybody would see through the simplicity of these stories yet the power of these stories what the real situation was

I really liked the the way in which Jesus talked about he said this this wicked and perverse generation he talked about them as a children in a marketplace and if there's ever a group of children anywhere they're gonna probably find some way to play together oh yeah yeah that's what they do they'll find a game out of anything exactly and so he tells about children playing in the marketplace now when you have a big group of children what do they want to do they want to get others to play with them the more kids playing the more fun it is and Jesus likened the intellectual elites of his day the ones with all the objections to his in his day to little children whining about who won't play with them he said you're like children in the marketplace who you want you're wanting to play wedding and you want everybody to sing and dance and we're gonna play a wedding and then

John the Baptist he wouldn't he wouldn't dance to your tune and he wouldn't celebrate the things that you celebrate and so you got mad at him you said oh he has a demon you know like you insulted him like like little children who were sullen and they become insulting all of a sudden and then when the

Son of Man comes when Jesus himself you all of a sudden you want to play funeral oh let's have a dirge let's all be sad and walk in procession and then

Jesus said but I wouldn't lament the things that you lament I wouldn't play that game with you and so you said oh he's a he's a glutton and a winebibber you know once again southern children insulting those who won't play their games and follow the rules that they make up on the spot what a powerful way to demonstrate the situation yes because when the critics are bringing their arguments to bear and they're firing away they sound like they have a good point until Jesus puts it into perspective it's like you know we remember what you and he's calling everybody's remembrance we all remember what you said about John the

Baptist and now look what you're saying about me you you all are so inconsistent you're just like little children and so we see these are some of the ways not all the ways but these are some of the ways that Jesus dealt with those who would oppose his message so we find in him our premier example for defending our faith

I think we see flexibility there we find an absolute trust in God's Holy Word and we find effective ways of communication for those who are foolishly questioning who are not sincere how do we answer those fools well

Proverbs says to do not answer a fool according to his folly lest you become like him but also answer a fool according to his folly lest you be wise in his own eyes in other words

I don't answer a fool in the same manner of his folly like joining in in the way that he thinks and expresses himself his worldview his paradigm exactly he's looking at things but to answer the fool and according to the how his folly deserves demonstrating to him how foolish he is or just simply proving in front of everyone how foolish he is that his wisdom really was not exactly otherwise he will be wise in his own eyes fools delight in expressing what they believe to be unanswerable questions aha

I got the gotcha question and we saw that the

Sadducees and Pharisees and they tried that with Jesus a lot and at one point we read in the text they got beat up so bad doing that I'm done with that no more please yeah they decided not act we're not gonna ask you any more questions for we're done with this and so in that sense we see

Jesus as the master of that wisdom that we read in Proverbs and so when the the

Sadducees and Pharisees came at him they were coming with their oral traditions their scholasticism the rabbinical ism

I try to ask questions that they thought were very tricky but they were rather foolish and then Jesus would go straight to the heart of the text or he would go straight to the heart of the man and demonstrate that they themselves were inconsistent that they were doing these things out of evil so one example would be when they accused

Jesus of being empowered by Beelzebul to cast out demons he's like oh yeah well yeah what a ridiculous thing but Jesus didn't say just he didn't say

I don't have time for this foolishness or he didn't say that question is so ridiculous

I won't honor it with an answer kind of a thing that rhetorical device yeah well he did he just he just took their logic or lack thereof tell me about your son and he yeah and he just put it on display like all right everybody let's take this accusation and let's bring it out into the open and let's take a really good thorough look at it everybody and wow that was lunacy what you just said and we find that that is a very loving thing for him to do for all the hearers who might have been taken astray by those sure there's people on the side like oh yeah that yeah that's what's going on here there's a demon involved right but they didn't think it through but then

Jesus helps them think it through he's the light of the world and he's like hey let's shine some light on this and then all of a sudden like oh that makes no sense at all yeah you're right

Jesus okay that was ridiculous so that's that's a very legitimate thing to do so if somebody is just being you know very very cynical so and so forth and now how do you approach that well you know in Colossians you know

Paul was concerned about this and he said in Colossians 4 verses 2 through 6 we've read this passage not so long ago on the podcast but it's worth coming back to again given the question he said continue earnestly in prayer being vigilant in it with Thanksgiving meanwhile praying also for us that God would open to us a door for the word you know okay

Paul well what's a door for the word well it's the idea remember Paul's traveling around it's the idea of hospitality when you're going from city to city what do you need you need a door open to you that you may enter in and rest and be welcomed you know

Paul wasn't going from La Quinta Inn to Motel 6 he was going from house to house he needed a place to be welcomed and so he's looking for a door to be open for the word to speak the mystery of Christ so the idea is not simply you know here's a here's a slight opening where I can say something in about 90 seconds which if that's all you have so you have he's thinking

I want to sit at somebody's table and share within the mystery of Christ but he says for this

I'm also in chains but he desires still that door he still desires an opportunity that he may make it manifest as I ought to speak so to Paul's mind what he is asking for prayer is that a door open for the word means that I'll have the opportunity to make manifest the mystery of Christ in the way it really deserves to be shared okay so now he says to the church in Colossae you walk in wisdom toward those who are outside right those who are outside the church redeeming the time let your speech always be with grace seasoned with salt that you may know how you want to answer each one and in other words he just said the whole thing

I'm praying for here is that I have a door open so I can speak the mystery of Christ as I ought to make it manifest and that's what he wants the

Colossian Church to do so their speech being a season with grace a season with salt is not hey

I'm you know I'm really nice and cool and when we get done talking you walk away and you think wow what a cool guy that was that's not what

Paul is meaning he's meaning walking with walking clear wisdom toward those who are outside that you can make it clear so this is again back to the question how can a

Christian defend his faith rightly has to do with knowing how you ought to answer each one to make that gospel clear so I think of somebody for instance who's part of maybe a false who doesn't believe in in the

Jesus of the scriptures or they don't believe you know that he actually saves people by his righteousness that we have to be saved by ours or maybe someone's a part of a actual cult you know like the

Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or so on or perhaps somebody who is on the kind of the outside of the church and they've got a lot of mixed up ideas that they just kind of gleaned from everywhere and they're so confused you know how

I talk to each one of these people is gonna be a little bit different right it sure will be because because in order to make the gospel clear to a

Mormon I'm gonna be doing a whole lot of different work than I would be to a homeless guy who you know here's some water here's a coat and here's some conversation because you don't have a lot of human contact here we are we're going to sit together and speak of Jesus it's gonna be different than when

I talk to somebody else but we we need to walk in wisdom toward these people depending on what their needs are to make it manifest to them so that's gonna be that's why it's gonna be different so that's one thing we have to take in consideration if we're gonna defend our faith rightly we have to think about the person that we're actually dealing with and we need to know something maybe a little bit about them it'll be helpful sure there's a different paradigm that someone who has a different set of scriptures has that you must be able to speak towards you know

Muslims they don't believe the same thing that Jehovah's Witnesses do or correct Mormons do yet they still need to hear the good news and rightly so with wisdom so that is a different approach it's not a different gospel no it's a different approach exactly and so then we have some passages in 1st

Peter and in Jude and Peter says in verse 13 of 1st

Peter 3 and who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good and so Peter's just pointing out you know if you're going around blessing others where you can and trying to help people and in follow the law and you're you're a great subject to the

Empire in our context good citizen of the nation come after no one's gonna oppose you for that yeah no yeah but nonetheless you know someone's gonna get ticked off that you believe that Jesus Christ is the way the truth in life and no one comes to the father except through him right they're gonna you know because that has wide -reaching implications that's hate speech you're killing me uh -huh exactly violence so verse 14 says but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake you are blessed let's straight from the

Sermon on the Mount straight from his master's mouth he he says if you suffer for righteousness sake you're blessed and do not be afraid of their threats nor be troubled don't fear a man that's a snare fear the

Lord correct verse 15 but sanctify or set apart the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear having a good conscience that when they defame you as evildoers those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed for it is better if it is the will of God to suffer for doing good than for doing evil now this is this is a remarkable what a rich passage so full of application here

I think there's a there's something here I just want to show there's a dynamic here on the one hand

Peter says don't fear man at the same time he says sanctify the

Lord God in your hearts and he also says give a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear he just said don't fear a man so who you fearing well you're not fearing

God mm -hmm exactly so there's fear involved and you know when you fear the

Lord and you're giving a reason for the hope that is in you that's when you can do that in in meekness you can do that with a good conscience and I think it's remarkable you begin by recognizing the authority of God in your life and from that you give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you so you're not you're not pretending as if God is not

Lord you're not pretending as if Christ is not King you're not being neutral you are partisan from the beginning

I belong to the Lord and this is going to be proven by the fact that you're doing good you're working righteousness and when they defame you as an evildoer right you know you're evil because you believe in Jesus you're evil because you know you got married to one woman and you're still married and you're having children you're evil for having children you're evil for for working hard and keeping a clean yard and living in a house you're evil for driving a car you're evil for voting you know so on and so forth whatever and others other outsiders are looking at when you're like that doesn't look evil exactly so those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed

I think of you know I think of the people who orchestrated the

FBI raid on the man who was a sidewalk counselor outside of the abortion clinic and and so what's happening now what's happening now is that all of that detail is being brought out into the open and the people who authorized that and in and promoted that they're all being very much shamed in front of everyone you know and so Peter just acknowledges hey this is the way it is right and it's better right if it is the will of God to suffer for doing good than for doing evil so isn't that the fear though if the fear is that we're going to suffer if we defend our faith but defending our faith rightly does not mean necessarily that there are no consequences you know like for instance if you're taking brownies out of the oven if you do it rightly there's no consequences you do it wrongly you can get your hand burned okay that's not the way it is but when defending your faith when you defend your faith rightly you might still end up suffering and that's what

Peter is saying but he's saying don't be afraid of that yeah don't be afraid of that now we've looked at Colossians and Peter and they they have been looking at the the people from the outside the people from the outside who are pointing the finger at the people in the church scoffing mocking trying to shame them so on and so forth but there is such a thing as defending your faith against false teachers from the inside we call that polemics versus apologetics apologetics it is a making a defense for the faith from those who were outside pointing in then polemics is something we're looking within and the

Bible talks about that as well so Paul speaks to the elders of Ephesus about preaching

Christ preaching the whole counsel of the Word of God making the main thing the main thing in saying that there's wolves that can arise up from among you and you have to always be under on your watch and guarding and then

Jude Jude also talks about that and so in Jude this is all one just there's not doing any chapters it's just one it's just you it's just Jude so in the first verse we read

Jude a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James it says to those who are cold sanctified by God the

Father and preserved in Jesus Christ mercy peace and love be multiplied to you I love that greeting oh it's wonderful he says beloved while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation

I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints for certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation ungodly men who turn the grace of our

God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ and he goes on to talk about how these are people who have infiltrated the church and they need to be confronted but he says contend earnestly for the faith contend earnestly for the faith and near the end of his letter he says but you beloved building yourselves up on your most holy faith praying in the

Holy Spirit so there's a need to build to invest to to labor to establish oneself more and more in the faith in the gospel in the truth of Christ and to contend earnestly for it now contending earnestly that has a certain approach correct it's not like advocate occasionally or beguiling like very skillful techniques or anything like that earnest like I'm gonna put all my all into this we have concepts of earnest money like hey

I'm gonna do this so I have a buy -in here so this this earnest defense it's it's

I'm fully in correct I remember talking to a couple of gentlemen where we were disagreeing about what does the

Bible have to say in doctrine of sin and the person I was speaking with when we were talking about the nature of sin what is the biblical definition of sin

I just mentioned out of first John well sin is lawlessness right the law being the express the expression of the character of God sin is that which is against God God is the arbiter he's the definition of you know and so we kind of talking about what what sin is and then he mentioned that you know oh yeah you know that's a great definition classic and all that kind of thing so he started talking about a definition of sin that he really found compelling from someone who came up with the definition of sin that was that sin is that which opposes human flourishing that which opposes human flourishing flourishing in what way what are we talking about here exactly and that becomes very difficult to define because everybody's version of human flourishing looks different does that mean that's everything that's good for me like in my viewpoint well they would say well what what's good in God's viewpoint obviously but in this definition of sin the man who put that forward and was really promoting it and has been for a long time said now the reason why

God is against sin is because he is for human flourishing and so his ultimate ends are

I don't want to mistake ends and means here but in the end he's he's just thinking about what's best for me exactly that's what occupies

God's mind and that's right that's because that's what's good that's what he's all about is human flourishing so so the reason why he's against sin is not because it is contrary to his holy character he's against sin because it's against human flourishing he is for human flourishing therefore he's against sin and to me that is you know a wonderful sounding way to end up in all manner of terrible places doctrinally and so I contended earnestly saying that isn't you know that is not a biblical definition and in fact it puts

God in orbit around human flourishing along with the rest of us right

God's not the center of that definition that's not fearing God that's putting man and human flourishing at the center and God's just in orbit with us so I pointed that out to the to the

PhD I was talking with and and he said hmm well I suppose that his position is open to that criticism oh now that is not earnestly contending for the faith like well this is an interesting position on this idea of the

Bible this is another interesting position on this oh this is a very novel position over here and oh certainly they'll be open to various criticisms that's not contending earnestly for the faith these things matter it's not an intellectual exercise so I would say if you're gonna contend rightly for the faith you should have some skin in the game you're building yourself up on your most holy faith and this is where I think sometimes it can be very challenging when when you're talking with somebody and they are contradicting your dearly held beliefs you could go the other way instead of being some you know kind of professorial irenic you know

I'm just going to ponder all the possibilities oh that's very interesting isn't it tune and just be very you know detached from it the other side of that is if anybody says anything that even dares look askance at my dearly held beliefs yeah

I'm gonna blow my top yeah and that is where the passage in first Peter helps us because we are not to be afraid right the reason why we would get angry and maybe yell or or just go over overboard is because we're actually fearing those who are challenging what we believe but if we're fearing

God for sanctifying the Lord God in our hearts and we're fearing him rather than man then we can give a reason for the hope that is in us with meekness where strength is under control instead of out of control my wrath isn't doing anything good yeah the wrath of man does not achieve the righteousness of God so we have to and we have to have that in order and I think that's probably one of the more difficult things is to be able to talk with people who are saying things that if they are true there's no salvation the

Bible is not true you know everything that I believe is a lie how do

I deal with people saying those things in a way where I'm not becoming sinful myself in in my wrath yeah letting your emotions take over yeah all right thank you for addressing how we can defend the faith rightly

Michael what are you thankful for well I'm thankful for books

I'm thankful for resources that that are put together by brothers of mine

I've never met and one day I trust that I will but they've done a lot of labor a labor of love in the text of scripture and they have they have written to exhort their fellow believers in the riches and the beauties of Christ throughout the scriptures and I can reach over and open up that book and and read the things that they have they have studied and they have learned to be benefited by those and I'm very grateful for that that's that's a that's a treasure and I'm very thankful to the

Lord for for good books I'm thankful to God for his giving of different giftings and roles and offices here in his body bringing us into maturity through his spirit to look like his son one day we'll we'll be like his son and it's a it's a beautiful thing meanwhile the brothers and sisters who are laboring for his sake here in the body are a great blessing and which