These are the arguments for the existence of God I find most compelling. There are others. Use what appeals to you, the ones you find compelling.
(Bold is for subject headings. Normal text gives the thumbnail of the argument. Italics gives explanatory comments that you can go into if time allows and if necessary.)
1. The Cosmological Argument
A. Whatever began to exist has a cause. The universe began. Therefore the universe must have a cause.
Something cannot come from nothing. Even subatomic particles that arise from vacuum fluctuations aren't coming from "nothing" but from an energy-rich quantum field. If anything has ever come from nothing, anything can come from nothing.
However, God doesn't need a cause because God did not begin. There cannot be a continual, infinite progression of causes. It must stop somewhere. True infinities do not exist. There must be a first cause, and that is God (see B).
But the universe did begin. That the universe began to exist is a necessary result of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and General Relativity (among other physical observations). It is simply not possible that the universe has always existed.
If the universe didn't always exist, and if something can't come from nothing, something created the universe.
B. If the conditions for the creation of the universe were always met, the universe would have always existed. The universe has not always existed. Therefore some condition had to change. The physical conditions could not change, so it had to be a decision on the part of the creator — thus the creator has to be personal, not simply some force.
2. The Design Argument
The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. It is not due to physical necessity or chance. Therefore, it is due to design.
The design in the universe is unmistakable. There are dozens of physical parameters in the universe that have to be just so before life — any life, not just human — is even conceivable. One example is the cosmological constant which drives the expansion of the universe. If it were different by one part in 10 to the power of 120 (or 10^120; 10^9 is a billion) life couldn't exist.
These numbers don't have to be anything like they are, but if they weren't what they are, no one would be here. The odds of all of them being what they are simply by chance are beyond ridiculous — it would be like one person winning the lottery millions of times.
Therefore the features of the universe that make life possible must have been designed by an intelligent, personal designer.
3. The Moral Argument
If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. Objective moral values and duties do exist. Therefore, God exists.
Notice that this is NOT arguing that atheists cannot be good. It's arguing that if God doesn't exist, there is no such thing as objective "good." If humans are just unusually advanced animals, murder is not wrong. One man killing another is no more wrong than a lion killing a gazelle. There is no moral obligation to help each other. Selfishness is nothing worse than the lion failing to share with the hyena.
But we all know instinctively that murder is wrong. Rape is wrong. Stealing is wrong. It is good to help people who are in need. We feel bad when we do wrong and when we fail to do right because this morality is ingrained in us. When someone does evil we do not respond as if the rules for a well-functioning society have been violated. We respond as if something evil has been committed. Those few who seem not to recognize morality do not disprove morality any more than the colorblind disprove the existence of color.
This inborn, universal knowledge of objective moral values and duties shows that God must exist.
The above only proves that a god exists. It takes more to prove the existence of the Christian God. For that you have to move from here to the case for believing the Bible and for the resurrection of Christ.
Whole books have been written on these topics. This is of necessity a brief summary. I encourage you to study so that you can explain these arguments in more detail where it is needed.
The above borrows heavily from On Guard by Williams Lane Craig.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Staying Ready to Defend the Faith
One day I was eating lunch and had a puzzling thought:
I collect knives. I have big knives and small knives. I have pretty knives and scary knives. I have knives with lights in them, knives with tools in them, and knives with knives in them.
So why am I cutting my chicken with a spoon?
Having all the knives in the world does me no good if I don't have one with me when I need it.
Christendom has all the tools it needs to defend the faith. They will do you no good if you don't appropriate them. And even if you go out and buy some good books, having all the books in the world will do you no good if you don't remember what is in them.
I've read quite a few theology and apologetics books. I've also read blogs and magazine articles. I've watched tv shows and listened to podcasts.
And a couple of years later I couldn't recall half of what I had once learned.
So I decided I should create some "crib sheets" I could review from time to time to jog my memory — or that I could flat out pull out in a pinch. (People choke under pressure. Don't be ashamed. Be prepared.)
I encourage you to do something like this on your own, but in the meantime, these notes are something you can refer to if you need them. You can even copy them into a memo on your phone or bookmark them in your browser if you want. Use them however you need if you find them helpful.
Apologetics crib sheets:
Why do I believe in God?
Why do I believe the Bible?
Why do I believe in the resurrection of Christ?
I collect knives. I have big knives and small knives. I have pretty knives and scary knives. I have knives with lights in them, knives with tools in them, and knives with knives in them.
So why am I cutting my chicken with a spoon?
Having all the knives in the world does me no good if I don't have one with me when I need it.
Christendom has all the tools it needs to defend the faith. They will do you no good if you don't appropriate them. And even if you go out and buy some good books, having all the books in the world will do you no good if you don't remember what is in them.
I've read quite a few theology and apologetics books. I've also read blogs and magazine articles. I've watched tv shows and listened to podcasts.
And a couple of years later I couldn't recall half of what I had once learned.
So I decided I should create some "crib sheets" I could review from time to time to jog my memory — or that I could flat out pull out in a pinch. (People choke under pressure. Don't be ashamed. Be prepared.)
I encourage you to do something like this on your own, but in the meantime, these notes are something you can refer to if you need them. You can even copy them into a memo on your phone or bookmark them in your browser if you want. Use them however you need if you find them helpful.
Apologetics crib sheets:
Why do I believe in God?
Why do I believe the Bible?
Why do I believe in the resurrection of Christ?
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Preparing to Defend the Faith
We need to be able to explain what we believe and why we believe it. It's not hard to do, but it does require some effort on our part. The best place to get this is from books, but that's not the only place. There are radio programs and podcasts that cover this as well as online classes. I highly recommend BiblicalTraining.org's classes on the Bible, theology, and apologetics — all free.
But don't run away from reading. If the average reader can spend just 30 minutes a day reading, he can go through 5 or so good books a year. And there are books on tape/mp3 (visit ChristianAudio.com). Some Kindles will read to you, too. (I have my Kindle plugged into the aux port in my car stereo, and it reads to me every day as I commute to and from work.)
In short, there are a lot of ways you can equip yourself if you’re willing to put the time and effort into it. After you start learning, you need to practice. Basically, start up discussions with your friends — get used to using the information, and try to learn the arguments that can come up against them. You also might want to read a little anti-Christian literature. This is an area where it is important to test yourself against the other side or you won’t grow. So at first find Christian friends to play devil’s advocate, and then find people who are actually on the devil’s side. It’s a painful growth process, but you’ll be glad you did.
Preparation is the key here. You have to prepare before you’re in trouble. If you wait until you need this, it’s too late.
Last, after you’ve prepared, and after you’ve practiced, repeat! If you don’t use it, you lose it. Think about all that math you used to know. It's gone now due to lack of use, right? If you don’t keep refreshing yourself, you’ll start to forget.
So what should you read? Theology and apologetics. What does that mean?
Theology focuses on drawing what we believe out of the Bible. Systematic Theology tries to gather up everything the Bible says on certain topics. This is mostly what I'm talking about (not that other types of theological study don't have value, too). There are good books on certain theological topics (eg, the nature of God or the deity of Christ) — both large and small. There are a number of good single-volume systematic theologies. There are also multi-volume sets. You can go as shallow or as deep as you want. You could just read one quality systematic theology and call it done, or you could read a few and see what differences there are and work out what you personally believe. I recommend reading at least one single-volume systematic theology.
5-Minute Theologian is the shortest book I've found that can be called a systematic theology. It's the bare minimum, but it's something. Read one short "5 minute" chapter a day and you'll have a fair survey of systematic theology in just over a month.
But if you can go a little heavier, there are good single-volume texts by Ryrie, Grudem, Erickson, and Geisler. (A word of warning, most systematic theologies are written by theologians of a Calvinist bent; they're all written from some theological system or another. Don't let it bother you if they don't teach everything you believe.) Some are written for a popular audience, and some are aimed at theology majors or even graduate students; check descriptions and reviews so you aren't surprised, but while the popular may give you all you need, you might find you enjoy the deeper studies.
Remember that theology is just what we believe. Some people can make it dry, but studying the nature of God, the person and work of Christ, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit can be powerfully moving. You will probably find yourself drawn to worship as you read about the working of God. It's not for nothing that Paul so frequently slipped into doxology as he explained God's nature and plans.
As for apologetics, you can break it up into different topics. What I call historical apologetics refers to questions about whether or not the Bible is reliable or whether Christ really rose – things like that. A great introduction to that topic is Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ. Besides being a good book, its best feature is that at the end of each chapter on the different topics it gives you a good list of books to read if you want to go deeper. Josh McDowell’s More Than a Carpenter is a popular and shorter book, though it’s narrower in focus.
Scientific apologetics gets into questions regarding the origin of the universe and the origin of life. Strobel has another of his survey/introduction books called The Case for a Creator that you might want to check out. Two books I really got a lot out of are Hugh Ross’ The Creator and the Cosmos and The Fingerprint of God.
(I should probably step off on a tangent here. Ross is what is called an old-earth creationist – he believes God made everything billions of years ago. Many evangelical Christians are what is called a young-earth creationist – they believe that God made everything a few thousand years ago. I don’t care which you are as long as you believe God created everything. But if you are a young earther, and you come across a typical non-Christian who believes the earth is 4 billion years old, your choices are to spend a lot of time trying to convince them that everything he believes about the universe is wrong or you can use what he believes to show that God must have created the universe. The second is a lot more likely to succeed. Believe whatever you think is true, but meet your atheist friend where he is.)
Philosophical apologetics is really just answering those more generalized questions – does God really exist, how can a good God allow evil, things like that. C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is considered one of the classics of the field; it also gets into some theological stuff. The oh so prolific Lee Strobel has another book called The Case for Faith that deals with these kinds of questions too. William Lane Craig's On Guard covers this well with a bit on the reality of the resurrection as well; it's my new favorite.
5 Minute Apologist (written by the same author as 5 Minute Theologian) has a book with those same brief chapters that covers the gamut on apologetics in obviously less detail, but if that's all you can do, or if you need a primer to get started, do what you have to do.
These are just my suggestions. There are lots of great books out there, and if you’ve got some, or if someone’s recommended some others, that’s fine. This is a resource for those who don’t have any idea where to start.
This is all general stuff. If you need to answer questions regarding a particular religion or cult or issues impacting our society right now – like the stem cell debate – you may have to do more specific reading. But if you’ve never read a single book on the Jehovah’s Witnesses, yet you’re very familiar with Christian theology, you will be equipped to deal, at least on a basic level, with JW questions that arise. We can’t be specialists in everything, but we can be broad generalists, and that will help you know where to go when you need more specific information.
What matters is to prepare. Decide you're going to do it, buy a book or download some mp3's, and set a time to go through the material. The other side's information is everywhere, ready to assault hearts and minds. You are the defense. Arm yourself.
But don't run away from reading. If the average reader can spend just 30 minutes a day reading, he can go through 5 or so good books a year. And there are books on tape/mp3 (visit ChristianAudio.com). Some Kindles will read to you, too. (I have my Kindle plugged into the aux port in my car stereo, and it reads to me every day as I commute to and from work.)
In short, there are a lot of ways you can equip yourself if you’re willing to put the time and effort into it. After you start learning, you need to practice. Basically, start up discussions with your friends — get used to using the information, and try to learn the arguments that can come up against them. You also might want to read a little anti-Christian literature. This is an area where it is important to test yourself against the other side or you won’t grow. So at first find Christian friends to play devil’s advocate, and then find people who are actually on the devil’s side. It’s a painful growth process, but you’ll be glad you did.
Preparation is the key here. You have to prepare before you’re in trouble. If you wait until you need this, it’s too late.
Last, after you’ve prepared, and after you’ve practiced, repeat! If you don’t use it, you lose it. Think about all that math you used to know. It's gone now due to lack of use, right? If you don’t keep refreshing yourself, you’ll start to forget.
So what should you read? Theology and apologetics. What does that mean?
Theology focuses on drawing what we believe out of the Bible. Systematic Theology tries to gather up everything the Bible says on certain topics. This is mostly what I'm talking about (not that other types of theological study don't have value, too). There are good books on certain theological topics (eg, the nature of God or the deity of Christ) — both large and small. There are a number of good single-volume systematic theologies. There are also multi-volume sets. You can go as shallow or as deep as you want. You could just read one quality systematic theology and call it done, or you could read a few and see what differences there are and work out what you personally believe. I recommend reading at least one single-volume systematic theology.
5-Minute Theologian is the shortest book I've found that can be called a systematic theology. It's the bare minimum, but it's something. Read one short "5 minute" chapter a day and you'll have a fair survey of systematic theology in just over a month.
But if you can go a little heavier, there are good single-volume texts by Ryrie, Grudem, Erickson, and Geisler. (A word of warning, most systematic theologies are written by theologians of a Calvinist bent; they're all written from some theological system or another. Don't let it bother you if they don't teach everything you believe.) Some are written for a popular audience, and some are aimed at theology majors or even graduate students; check descriptions and reviews so you aren't surprised, but while the popular may give you all you need, you might find you enjoy the deeper studies.
Remember that theology is just what we believe. Some people can make it dry, but studying the nature of God, the person and work of Christ, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit can be powerfully moving. You will probably find yourself drawn to worship as you read about the working of God. It's not for nothing that Paul so frequently slipped into doxology as he explained God's nature and plans.
As for apologetics, you can break it up into different topics. What I call historical apologetics refers to questions about whether or not the Bible is reliable or whether Christ really rose – things like that. A great introduction to that topic is Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ. Besides being a good book, its best feature is that at the end of each chapter on the different topics it gives you a good list of books to read if you want to go deeper. Josh McDowell’s More Than a Carpenter is a popular and shorter book, though it’s narrower in focus.
Scientific apologetics gets into questions regarding the origin of the universe and the origin of life. Strobel has another of his survey/introduction books called The Case for a Creator that you might want to check out. Two books I really got a lot out of are Hugh Ross’ The Creator and the Cosmos and The Fingerprint of God.
(I should probably step off on a tangent here. Ross is what is called an old-earth creationist – he believes God made everything billions of years ago. Many evangelical Christians are what is called a young-earth creationist – they believe that God made everything a few thousand years ago. I don’t care which you are as long as you believe God created everything. But if you are a young earther, and you come across a typical non-Christian who believes the earth is 4 billion years old, your choices are to spend a lot of time trying to convince them that everything he believes about the universe is wrong or you can use what he believes to show that God must have created the universe. The second is a lot more likely to succeed. Believe whatever you think is true, but meet your atheist friend where he is.)
Philosophical apologetics is really just answering those more generalized questions – does God really exist, how can a good God allow evil, things like that. C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is considered one of the classics of the field; it also gets into some theological stuff. The oh so prolific Lee Strobel has another book called The Case for Faith that deals with these kinds of questions too. William Lane Craig's On Guard covers this well with a bit on the reality of the resurrection as well; it's my new favorite.
5 Minute Apologist (written by the same author as 5 Minute Theologian) has a book with those same brief chapters that covers the gamut on apologetics in obviously less detail, but if that's all you can do, or if you need a primer to get started, do what you have to do.
These are just my suggestions. There are lots of great books out there, and if you’ve got some, or if someone’s recommended some others, that’s fine. This is a resource for those who don’t have any idea where to start.
This is all general stuff. If you need to answer questions regarding a particular religion or cult or issues impacting our society right now – like the stem cell debate – you may have to do more specific reading. But if you’ve never read a single book on the Jehovah’s Witnesses, yet you’re very familiar with Christian theology, you will be equipped to deal, at least on a basic level, with JW questions that arise. We can’t be specialists in everything, but we can be broad generalists, and that will help you know where to go when you need more specific information.
What matters is to prepare. Decide you're going to do it, buy a book or download some mp3's, and set a time to go through the material. The other side's information is everywhere, ready to assault hearts and minds. You are the defense. Arm yourself.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Defending the faith against attackers
When we are equipped to defend the faith, we are a tool for bringing the lost to Christ and a help for the saints around us. But there's another kind of person we may meet.
Some unbelievers honestly ask questions wanting to understand why we believe what we believe and perhaps join us in the family of God. Other unbelievers, though, are not just non-Christians, they’re anti-Christians. These people are convinced that Christianity is synonymous with brain-death. They find every aspect of our faith absurd and think it is their responsibility to make everyone else see the light.
When Christians encounter these people out in the world, a battle of sorts should occur – a loving, grace-filled battle, but a battle no less. We should show them and all bystanders that Christianity is based on solid truth and that the skeptic is the one who has built himself a house of cards. Typically, however, Christians run for the hills or, worse, get trounced. Everyone sees that the Christian – and therefore Christianity – is intellectually inferior. The world sees these encounters and comes away convinced that Christianity is for the weak and the stupid. Lots of these encounters occur at the water cooler at work, but many of them occur in full public view.
One of the most infamous was the so called “Scopes Monkey Trial” where the teaching of evolution in schools was debated. The prosecution was Williams Jennings Bryant, a good man by all accounts and a believer. In comparing Darwinian evolution to the biblical view of creation, Bryant could have called theologians, apologists, and scientists. Instead, he called himself. He made a fool of himself, lost the case, and cemented in the minds of the other side the notion that anyone who dares question their pet theory is an ignorant rube that only just developed opposable thumbs.
We are at a point where society as a whole is starting to look at Christians – especially the evangelical variety – as mindless dolts. This is bad because it is untrue, but worse than that, it keeps people from coming to Christ because they either don’t want that association or they reject the gospel out of hand – because we are, after all, mindless dolts.
Being able to skillfully defend the faith is necessary to be the salt and light we are supposed to be in this society. We cannot affect this world positively if this world rejects everything we say out of hand. It is also necessary because we lose the ability to reach some people with the gospel as long as we have the unfortunate reputation we have.
People need to know that we have a thoughtful faith. If they examine the faith and can’t believe, it’s sad but their choice. If they don’t believe because we’ve let them think faith is unreasonable, though, that’s a tragedy of our making.
You may be thinking, “We need a practical religion, not theology and philosophy.” I want you to realize that this is very practical stuff. When a young mother wants to know why her baby died, that’s terribly practical theology. When your cousin is flirting with joining the Mormons, theology suddenly becomes very practical. When your friend doesn’t want to hear the gospel because he “doesn’t believe in anything he can’t see,” apologetics just jumped from philosophical conversation to deadly serious pre-evangelism. When you’re questioning why God is allowing unpleasant things in your life, a little theology – that God is sovereign, that God is all-powerful, and that God is good – becomes very practical.
You may be thinking that you’ll bring those people to church with you or give them a good book. But the odds are that most of them will not want to come to church with you – and if they did, would they necessarily find the answers they need in that week’s sermon? And while some will, many will not read the book – they’ll be polite and take it from you, but what are the odds that they’ll read it? Pretty slim. They’re going to be dependent on you to be their resource. And you need to have it readily available – on the top of your head if at all possible – because you never know what kind of opportunities you’re going to get.
You may be thinking that you’re not smart enough or educated enough to study this stuff. If so, that is patently untrue. More than that, you have to realize that the average person you’re going to talk to will know less that you. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in philosophy or theology or anything else to study or use this kind of information. The average unbeliever doesn’t have one. He has some basic ideas regarding moral relativism, has been told that evolution removes the need for God, and may have seen a Jesus Seminar TV special or magazine article. Average believers can, with a little effort, equip themselves to deal with these issues and lead the unbeliever toward, if not to, Christ. You might at some point in your life find someone who has made attacking Christianity a hobby or even a career – let someone else deal with that one. But the vast majority of the people in your life will not be like that, and you can help them.
In all of this, remember that you cannot argue someone into the Kingdom. Only God can work on a person’s heart and bring them to Him. But we can help overcome their objections, questions, and fears and clear the way for them to come to faith.
I’ve tried to convince you of the need to study theology and apologetics. Here’s my last attempt … today. The unbelievers out there are watching us to learn whether or not our faith is real. They are watching our lives first and foremost, but then they will have questions. How we handle those questions may well determine how they will decide the most important decision they can make – the fate of their souls. No pressure.
Some unbelievers honestly ask questions wanting to understand why we believe what we believe and perhaps join us in the family of God. Other unbelievers, though, are not just non-Christians, they’re anti-Christians. These people are convinced that Christianity is synonymous with brain-death. They find every aspect of our faith absurd and think it is their responsibility to make everyone else see the light.
When Christians encounter these people out in the world, a battle of sorts should occur – a loving, grace-filled battle, but a battle no less. We should show them and all bystanders that Christianity is based on solid truth and that the skeptic is the one who has built himself a house of cards. Typically, however, Christians run for the hills or, worse, get trounced. Everyone sees that the Christian – and therefore Christianity – is intellectually inferior. The world sees these encounters and comes away convinced that Christianity is for the weak and the stupid. Lots of these encounters occur at the water cooler at work, but many of them occur in full public view.
One of the most infamous was the so called “Scopes Monkey Trial” where the teaching of evolution in schools was debated. The prosecution was Williams Jennings Bryant, a good man by all accounts and a believer. In comparing Darwinian evolution to the biblical view of creation, Bryant could have called theologians, apologists, and scientists. Instead, he called himself. He made a fool of himself, lost the case, and cemented in the minds of the other side the notion that anyone who dares question their pet theory is an ignorant rube that only just developed opposable thumbs.
We are at a point where society as a whole is starting to look at Christians – especially the evangelical variety – as mindless dolts. This is bad because it is untrue, but worse than that, it keeps people from coming to Christ because they either don’t want that association or they reject the gospel out of hand – because we are, after all, mindless dolts.
Being able to skillfully defend the faith is necessary to be the salt and light we are supposed to be in this society. We cannot affect this world positively if this world rejects everything we say out of hand. It is also necessary because we lose the ability to reach some people with the gospel as long as we have the unfortunate reputation we have.
People need to know that we have a thoughtful faith. If they examine the faith and can’t believe, it’s sad but their choice. If they don’t believe because we’ve let them think faith is unreasonable, though, that’s a tragedy of our making.
You may be thinking, “We need a practical religion, not theology and philosophy.” I want you to realize that this is very practical stuff. When a young mother wants to know why her baby died, that’s terribly practical theology. When your cousin is flirting with joining the Mormons, theology suddenly becomes very practical. When your friend doesn’t want to hear the gospel because he “doesn’t believe in anything he can’t see,” apologetics just jumped from philosophical conversation to deadly serious pre-evangelism. When you’re questioning why God is allowing unpleasant things in your life, a little theology – that God is sovereign, that God is all-powerful, and that God is good – becomes very practical.
You may be thinking that you’ll bring those people to church with you or give them a good book. But the odds are that most of them will not want to come to church with you – and if they did, would they necessarily find the answers they need in that week’s sermon? And while some will, many will not read the book – they’ll be polite and take it from you, but what are the odds that they’ll read it? Pretty slim. They’re going to be dependent on you to be their resource. And you need to have it readily available – on the top of your head if at all possible – because you never know what kind of opportunities you’re going to get.
You may be thinking that you’re not smart enough or educated enough to study this stuff. If so, that is patently untrue. More than that, you have to realize that the average person you’re going to talk to will know less that you. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in philosophy or theology or anything else to study or use this kind of information. The average unbeliever doesn’t have one. He has some basic ideas regarding moral relativism, has been told that evolution removes the need for God, and may have seen a Jesus Seminar TV special or magazine article. Average believers can, with a little effort, equip themselves to deal with these issues and lead the unbeliever toward, if not to, Christ. You might at some point in your life find someone who has made attacking Christianity a hobby or even a career – let someone else deal with that one. But the vast majority of the people in your life will not be like that, and you can help them.
In all of this, remember that you cannot argue someone into the Kingdom. Only God can work on a person’s heart and bring them to Him. But we can help overcome their objections, questions, and fears and clear the way for them to come to faith.
I’ve tried to convince you of the need to study theology and apologetics. Here’s my last attempt … today. The unbelievers out there are watching us to learn whether or not our faith is real. They are watching our lives first and foremost, but then they will have questions. How we handle those questions may well determine how they will decide the most important decision they can make – the fate of their souls. No pressure.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Making Him Known: Defending the Faith
We are here to know God and to make him known. To effectively make him known, we need to be godly men and women who are ready, willing, and able to share the faith, defend the faith, and apply the faith to our world.
Defending the faith is a vital part of making Christ known. It's also the most controversial among Christians. To some it's too confrontational, to some unnecessary. To the apostle, though, it was essential:
"Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord" (Jude 3-4).
Notice what Jude says here. He wanted to write to his readers about our salvation! Instead he had to send them a timely warning – be prepared to defend the faith. He says “contend” for the faith. What does he mean? He means to fight for the faith. He wants us to strain, struggle, sweat; this word is the root for our word “agonize.”
Why did he write this to them? Because people had slipped into their church who were false teachers – they were perverting the teaching of God’s grace and denying that Christ is who he is.
Jude’s instruction to them was to stand up to these false teachers. He’s not telling us to be contentious, but we must, gracefully, protect the faith. What is “the faith?” It is the teaching of Jesus and the apostles that has been handed down.
It’s interesting to compare Jude’s world to ours. The Church was born in a time of great religious diversity. There were at least four great philosophical movements, a variety of cults, a number of local traditional religions, and pressure from the state to conform to the approved religious practices. There were atheists, pantheists, monotheists, and polytheists. There were those who said that you had to follow their religion, and there were syncretists who said all religions were basically the same. In short, Jude’s world was a lot like ours.
In the history of the church, there were literally a thousand years where a person could go his whole life without meeting someone who didn’t at least claim to be a Christian. That day is gone. We live in a world with great religious diversity, and like the early church, we have people who are trying to bring that religious diversity into the Church. Jude says, “Don’t let them!”
To successfully contend for the faith, we have to know what we believe and why. Based on the errors Jude describes these false teachers spreading, we can identify two fields of study in this matter: theology and apologetics. By theology, I mean knowing what we believe and why based on the scriptures – for example, knowing the proper teachings regarding grace. By apologetics, I mean knowing why we believe, the foundation for what we believe, based on scriptural and non-scriptural information – for example, knowing the biblical and extra-biblical evidence for the resurrection of Christ.
Jude was not writing to pastors – he was writing to simple believers. Every believer has a scriptural mandate to study to be able to defend the faith. Besides that scriptural mandate, there are other reasons to prepare yourself to defend the faith.
We talked about the fact that we are here to represent Christ – we are His ambassadors. We cannot represent Him effectively unless we know His position on the matter at hand. Can you imagine the ambassador to the UN from the US going into a vote without knowing the president’s stand on the issue? Our job as an ambassador for Christ requires that we have at least a basic familiarity with theology.
There was a time when the average believer was an amateur theologian. It was considered important for everyone to know the nature of God and the nature of salvation and things like that. Then, a couple of hundred years ago, people started leaving that stuff to the preacher. And now we are in a situation where the preacher can get up in front of his congregation and teach completely unscriptural things, and no one calls him on it because no one knows. A.W. Tozer said,
Based on the message of Jude and on the nature of our calling as an ambassador, we all need to have a basic knowledge of theology and apologetics. We also have an obligation to study to defend the faith based on our calling as witnesses of the Gospel. When we share the gospel with people, it is always possible that they’re going to ask why they should believe it. It may take the form of how can a good God send people to hell or how could the incarnation be possible. It might be more of questioning whether God even exists. Sometimes objections will come up during the gospel, and sometimes you’ll hit them well before you’re able to share the gospel itself. Apologetics can be part of presenting the gospel, and it can be pre-evangelism.
The unbelievers most likely to ask apologetic questions of you are your children. Kids naturally ask questions like “who made God” and “how to we know Jesus rose from the dead.” It’s in their nature. But if we can’t give them good answers to those questions we run the risk of either giving them an immature, easily destroyed faith or even not having them come to faith at all.
J.P. Moreland tells the story of a woman he knows whose son, though a believer, was surrounded by unbelievers who provided him with lots of hard questions to ask his mother. She couldn’t answer them. His response was that if her faith was really important to her, she would have made the time to find out the answers – after all, she had time to watch tv and pursue her hobbies. Her inability to answer some of the tough questions skeptics throw at Christianity made her son wonder if her faith mattered at all.
This world is after our children. At some point they’re going to be asking those hard questions, and they’re going to need answers. I said before that it’s okay to say, “I don’t know but I’ll find out,” but if you never know, your kids are going to start wondering if your faith is really important to you, and if it should be important to them.
When you’ve studied and can answer the hard questions, though, you will be more confident about sharing your faith with your friends and neighbors – and your children.
Sometimes we defend the faith for the sake of the unbelievers; sometimes we defend the faith for the sake of believers. You’ve probably heard of The Da Vinci Code. That one book was responsible for more angst on the part of believers than anything else in recent memory. Why? Because it told them that their faith was founded on fiction, and they were defenseless against the accusation. Don’t you know the Devil giggled when that thing came out? What person who is questioning his faith is going to be sharing the gospel?
When you prepare yourself to defend the faith, you build up defenses for yourself, and you become a resource for those believers around you who have not so prepared.
For the sake of both the unbelievers and the believers around you, commit to learning to defend the faith.
Defending the faith is a vital part of making Christ known. It's also the most controversial among Christians. To some it's too confrontational, to some unnecessary. To the apostle, though, it was essential:
"Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord" (Jude 3-4).
Notice what Jude says here. He wanted to write to his readers about our salvation! Instead he had to send them a timely warning – be prepared to defend the faith. He says “contend” for the faith. What does he mean? He means to fight for the faith. He wants us to strain, struggle, sweat; this word is the root for our word “agonize.”
Why did he write this to them? Because people had slipped into their church who were false teachers – they were perverting the teaching of God’s grace and denying that Christ is who he is.
Jude’s instruction to them was to stand up to these false teachers. He’s not telling us to be contentious, but we must, gracefully, protect the faith. What is “the faith?” It is the teaching of Jesus and the apostles that has been handed down.
It’s interesting to compare Jude’s world to ours. The Church was born in a time of great religious diversity. There were at least four great philosophical movements, a variety of cults, a number of local traditional religions, and pressure from the state to conform to the approved religious practices. There were atheists, pantheists, monotheists, and polytheists. There were those who said that you had to follow their religion, and there were syncretists who said all religions were basically the same. In short, Jude’s world was a lot like ours.
In the history of the church, there were literally a thousand years where a person could go his whole life without meeting someone who didn’t at least claim to be a Christian. That day is gone. We live in a world with great religious diversity, and like the early church, we have people who are trying to bring that religious diversity into the Church. Jude says, “Don’t let them!”
To successfully contend for the faith, we have to know what we believe and why. Based on the errors Jude describes these false teachers spreading, we can identify two fields of study in this matter: theology and apologetics. By theology, I mean knowing what we believe and why based on the scriptures – for example, knowing the proper teachings regarding grace. By apologetics, I mean knowing why we believe, the foundation for what we believe, based on scriptural and non-scriptural information – for example, knowing the biblical and extra-biblical evidence for the resurrection of Christ.
Jude was not writing to pastors – he was writing to simple believers. Every believer has a scriptural mandate to study to be able to defend the faith. Besides that scriptural mandate, there are other reasons to prepare yourself to defend the faith.
We talked about the fact that we are here to represent Christ – we are His ambassadors. We cannot represent Him effectively unless we know His position on the matter at hand. Can you imagine the ambassador to the UN from the US going into a vote without knowing the president’s stand on the issue? Our job as an ambassador for Christ requires that we have at least a basic familiarity with theology.
There was a time when the average believer was an amateur theologian. It was considered important for everyone to know the nature of God and the nature of salvation and things like that. Then, a couple of hundred years ago, people started leaving that stuff to the preacher. And now we are in a situation where the preacher can get up in front of his congregation and teach completely unscriptural things, and no one calls him on it because no one knows. A.W. Tozer said,
"It would be impossible to overemphasize the importance of sound doctrine in the life of a Christian. Right thinking about all spiritual matters is imperative if we would have right living. As men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles, so sound character does not grow out of unsound teaching."Sound character does not grow out of unsound teaching. We’ve got a lot of unsound teaching running around today, and I think we can see it in the character of many Christians today – Christians who are representing Christ rather badly to the world around them.
Based on the message of Jude and on the nature of our calling as an ambassador, we all need to have a basic knowledge of theology and apologetics. We also have an obligation to study to defend the faith based on our calling as witnesses of the Gospel. When we share the gospel with people, it is always possible that they’re going to ask why they should believe it. It may take the form of how can a good God send people to hell or how could the incarnation be possible. It might be more of questioning whether God even exists. Sometimes objections will come up during the gospel, and sometimes you’ll hit them well before you’re able to share the gospel itself. Apologetics can be part of presenting the gospel, and it can be pre-evangelism.
The unbelievers most likely to ask apologetic questions of you are your children. Kids naturally ask questions like “who made God” and “how to we know Jesus rose from the dead.” It’s in their nature. But if we can’t give them good answers to those questions we run the risk of either giving them an immature, easily destroyed faith or even not having them come to faith at all.
J.P. Moreland tells the story of a woman he knows whose son, though a believer, was surrounded by unbelievers who provided him with lots of hard questions to ask his mother. She couldn’t answer them. His response was that if her faith was really important to her, she would have made the time to find out the answers – after all, she had time to watch tv and pursue her hobbies. Her inability to answer some of the tough questions skeptics throw at Christianity made her son wonder if her faith mattered at all.
This world is after our children. At some point they’re going to be asking those hard questions, and they’re going to need answers. I said before that it’s okay to say, “I don’t know but I’ll find out,” but if you never know, your kids are going to start wondering if your faith is really important to you, and if it should be important to them.
When you’ve studied and can answer the hard questions, though, you will be more confident about sharing your faith with your friends and neighbors – and your children.
Sometimes we defend the faith for the sake of the unbelievers; sometimes we defend the faith for the sake of believers. You’ve probably heard of The Da Vinci Code. That one book was responsible for more angst on the part of believers than anything else in recent memory. Why? Because it told them that their faith was founded on fiction, and they were defenseless against the accusation. Don’t you know the Devil giggled when that thing came out? What person who is questioning his faith is going to be sharing the gospel?
When you prepare yourself to defend the faith, you build up defenses for yourself, and you become a resource for those believers around you who have not so prepared.
For the sake of both the unbelievers and the believers around you, commit to learning to defend the faith.
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