Highlight: Defending the CHRISTIAN Faith

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At the start of this discussion of Christian apologetics and defending the faith, we need to make sure that we are Christians.

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Yeah. Christian apologists defending the Christian faith, and Jesus says, you are either with me or you are against me.

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There is no neutrality with Jesus Christ, and that's a key issue here. Apologetics has to begin that reason defense of the faith with Christ set apart as kurios, as Lord, as God, and then you proceed to defend the

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Christian faith. Christian apologetics starts off with fidelity to Jesus Christ, recognizing that there is no neutrality with Jesus.

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You're either with him or you're against him. There's no middle ground, and so what's really important for us as we start this discussion of defending the

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Christian faith is that we actually talk about discussing defending the faith as Christians, not as neutral parties trying to just figure out where the evidence is going to take us, you know, and not defending some general theism.

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You know, what's amazing to me is that when we have this discussion, people will oftentimes sort of react to, are you saying that there are

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Christian apologists who don't defend the Christian faith as they're doing

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Christian apologetics? Like, are you really suggesting that that actually exists? If you want,

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I could search the videos where they explicitly say that, that I'm not defending the Bible here, I'm not defending the

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Christian God, I'm just defending a general theism, and let's just see where the evidence takes us to.

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Because, you know, let's just say you start using philosophical argumentations, whether it's the cosmological argument or the teleological argument, you're using arguments, but you're saying, let's, in a neutral way,

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I'm not saying Jesus, I'm saying we use this argument that says that, you know, every effect has a cause, and we can't do that with infinite regression and go back and back and back.

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There has to be an initial first cause. And say that the atheist grants it, and finally goes, all right, you got me.

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It is too obvious that there's design in the universe, it is too obvious that you've got to have this uncaused cause or this unmoved mover.

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Great, I'm going with Buddha. Or aliens. Right? Or, fantastic, you know,

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I'm going to go over there with Islam. I like that one. Like, what have you really accomplished at that point?

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I think you can reason through that to say, well, if we're not reasoning from the beginning with the call of the gospel wrapped up in our apologetic methodology, we'll get to that place.

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If we're arguing from a position of neutrality, with Christ not set apart as Lord, we can get to that place where we're just throwing out evidences and trying to see what sticks on the unbeliever.

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And one of the things that Dr. Bonson used to say is that we don't, in our apologetic endeavors, in our defense of the

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Christian faith, want to be found as enemies behind lines. Meaning that I am actually assuming the pretended neutrality that the unbeliever assumes, or using his principles, or his methodologies, as I'm trying to point this person towards theism.

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Right? Because that's not what we're trying to do as Christian apologists, those who are defending the Christian faith. We're not just trying to get people to believe some general theism.

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What did Jesus do when he came to crowds of people and calls them to come to himself? He says things like, you have to come and die.

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You have to take up your cross. You have to love me more in comparison to your mother, your father, your sister, your brother.

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You've got to come die. Count the cost and come, or don't come. That's how Jesus calls people in crowds to come to him.

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Like that. He doesn't placate to them. He doesn't placate to their fallenness. He just simply says, come to die or don't come.

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Give me a try. Give me a 60 -day trial. Rick Warren said that. 60 -day trial. I couldn't believe it. I was sitting at Christmas time.

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It was years and years and years ago. It was Christmas time. News was on. Rick Warren's on. And he actually suggested to people that they try

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Jesus out for, I think he said 60 days, 60 or 90 days. Give him a try. Give him a chance. And he thought that was a wonderful suggestion.

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That's not the gospel that Jesus preached, and that's not the way that you actually get people to understand the call of Christ, the command of Christ to repent and believe by saying, try him out.

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No, it's total submission. It's unconditional surrender. That's what it means to come to Jesus Christ.

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A lot of people don't like that. They're like, oh, that's tough. How are you gonna convince the rabid unbeliever for unconditional surrender?

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Man, we got a problem understanding the gospel if we think that. Yeah, for reals. The call of the gospel. You come to die, or you don't come.

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And so we can't play neutrality, and that's the start of Christian apologetics, is no neutrality, abandon the myth of neutrality, and recognize, and this is it, and I see you wanna say something,

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Zach. Recognize that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So I'd say the great benefit of Christian apologetics that are faithful and consistent is that you actually get knowledge.

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According to God, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And so if you want knowledge, if you want understanding,

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Scripture's really clear. It starts with God, and it starts with the fear of God. And so isn't it great to understand that according to God, if you start with fear of God, reverence, submission, and awe before God, you get knowledge, you get understanding, and it's the fool who says in his heart, there is no

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God. It's a powerful thing to start in the discussion of Christian apologetics. I think that's where it does start, is ultimate commitments, starting points, what you're committed to, what you won't relinquish, because the unbeliever has those things too.

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They have things that they won't relinquish, just like we do. I was going through a Van Til's apologetic, which has got commentary by Greg Bonson in it.

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It's a really awesome starting point for the discussion, but he says something that's pretty profound in here. He says, as it turns out, the apologist, that's the

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Christian, defends what the theologian has learned with the tools and insights refined by the philosopher for the evangelistic purpose of seeing the unbeliever's heart and mind changed.

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So he's talking about the relationship between apologetics, theology, evangelism, philosophy, right?

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They're not unrelated things, they're interrelated. All of these tasks come under the common umbrella of applying

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God's Word to the hearts of men. This is what we were made for, to receive God's Word and apply it to our lives.

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So that's one thing I love about this approach to defending the faith, not only is it consistent, not only is it faithful, it demonstrates fealty, obedience, loyalty to Christ, but it's not disconnected from the theological foundation of what we know to be true, which is what's grounded in Scripture.

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So in other words, theology can't be separated from apologetics and evangelistic methodology.

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And engagement, all of those things are related to one another, interrelated. And so, like you said, the apologist defends what the theologian knows.

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And what does the theologian know? Well, his knowledge is based on God's revelation. And so that's what informs the manner of engagement, like you pointed out, from the beginning.

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And I think that's where a lot of people trip up, is they're willing to go a mile with the unbeliever and say, okay,

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I'll play along. I'll surrender this ultimate commitment of being a Christian just temporarily to get you where you need to be.

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But what they don't realize is they've done what, you know, Proverbs 26, 4 forbids us from doing, answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.

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And so you are entering into that foolishness, because you're commanded to love the Lord your God with all of your mind.

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And so when you don't do that, you're being dishonest from the outset, and really introducing dishonesty into this whole endeavor.

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But twofold apologetic methodology, verse five, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

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So there's a commitment that you have to maintain the ultimate foundation. But then as Bonson goes on to explain, you can actually step into the unbeliever's system of thought and demonstrate, do an internal critique, and show them where that thought logically leads to.

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So it's not contradictory. You're entering into it at the same time as showing them, this is where everything leads to, which is nowhere, if you don't start with God's truth.