This is something that has been cooking inside me for some time, and I have been trying to figure out where, when, and how to let it out. Many of you who have followed me know I am actively engaged in apologetics and defending the faith. I’ve been at this for over 20 years, and one thing I am so grateful for is being at a church that understands the value of defending the faith but also is learning when to reel it in. I moved to my current church nearly four years ago, and I am very glad for the change. I had something stirring in me at my previous place that had I remained there much longer, it may have erupted in a not-good way. God pulled me out in part to rescue me from staying in that environment. Where I am now, the sermons have been doing an excellent job at putting a leash on me and pulling me back to keep me from going too far with certain things.
One of them is regarding apologetics. When I moved to my current church, we were in a state of making sure we were on sound doctrine. We have not departed from that, but we saw something in us that we didn’t like: deadness. We had intellectualism, but it was dead. It was stone-cold and had no life in it. And we saw it and didn’t like it, and so we have been shifting, not away from sound orthodox and quality doctrine or even the rigidness of the doctrine, but away from “intellectualism.” One post I was going to write was regarding Ecclesiastes on this topic: Meaningless! Meaningless! I was going to write about the futility of modern evangelistic methods and even modern preaching, including the good stuff. I’m still going to write on that but with a different emphasis and angle.
It is important to know our Bible and to be able to explain our faith, but I have seen a very unhealthy trend in evangelical circles and especially in academics of trying to explain the supernatural with the natural. There are times when I will get on the scientists on my side for this, trying too hard to explain evidence when there really isn’t a need to. Especially with evidence that doesn’t have any weight to begin with. For example, I applaud the work that the “R.A.T.E.” Team did in analyzing and critiquing the radiometric dating methods on their own merit and showcasing the discrepancies in the system. However, I do not agree with their conclusions that there must be a way to account for billions of years into a 6000-year time frame when the studies showed legitimate reasons that the billions of years weren’t real figures we have to account for, to begin with.
But it gets worse. There are very famous apologists for the faith: William Lane Craig, Frank Turek, Charlie Campbell, Greg Koukul, now popular Cliffe Knechtel, Charlie Cambell, Josh McDowell, Sean McDowell, and many others. Some are better than others, and some have produced some excellent works for why Christianity is true. Some others, not so much. I’m not going to get into that here. My concern is the drive for intellectualism, the attempt to make Christianity acceptable on an intellectual level, and the idolizing of these scholars as being the chief authority instead of God Himself. While God did indeed leave very powerful evidence that would compel even the halfway-thinking person, such that no one has any excuses, the problem I am seeing is the “appeal to the academic.” This is where Christianity isn’t true because the Bible (the ultimate authority on every topic it speaks on) says so but because scholarship shows it to be true. And when the scholarship shows it, many of them don’t turn to the Bible as having the authority but keep with the scholarship. I say this having written a book titled Ten Reasons to Believe the Bible, and the more I think about this, the more I almost question my approach to that book. God still left the evidence I show in my book, so any rational person can follow that to the truth, but there must come a point when we realize the Bible does have everything we need.
What is lacking in evangelism is that we just have “rationalism.” We make intellectual arguments that can showcase that the Bible is true, and yes, many people have been converted that way. But one thing I like about Josh McDowell’s testimony is that he did his research and realized the Bible was true after attempting to refute it. However, that isn’t what converted him. What converted him was the love of the saints that he never got at home or at school, especially at home with a drunk father and suffering at the hands of a homosexual pedophile for seven years. He was dealing with his anger and pride, and when he saw true, genuine love from among the believers, that is what pushed him over. He still needed the intellectual part, which made him see the love, but it was the supernatural love of God that won him to Christ.
We are missing the supernatural element. We have abandoned God’s method of evangelism. God has chosen the weak things of this world to share the truth. He uses the uneducated. He uses the poor. He uses preaching. Now God has also used the educated, and he has used the rich, and he has used eloquence, but very rarely, and only when said people have given up that very skill to surrender to Christ for Him to use.
The worst of it all is the total lack of Christ in so many people’s evangelistic and apologetic efforts when He is only brought up as a footnote. Listen to the testimonies of “I am Second” – there is no “second” of self in many of those because it’s all about them. After listening to those testimonies, after listening to our apologists today, who walks away knowing or hearing anything about Jesus? Isn’t Christ supposed to be our message? Isn’t He supposed to be central to everything? Then why aren’t we making Him central?
Eric Ludy described how his sister brought him to a correct understanding of evangelism. When we evangelize, we need to be like the servant of Abraham who went to get Rebecca to be a bride for Isaac. The servant spent very little time talking about himself. He spent his time talking about Isaac. And when we finish with someone, they should not be thinking about us; they should be thinking about Jesus. While we can appeal to how Jesus deals with sin and such, the real appeal should be what spending eternity in heaven with Him should be like and what that relationship is. Instead, we just think it’s about getting to paradise or out of Hell, and God beyond that is an afterthought. That is not how evangelism should be. That is making converts, and we are called to make disciples and to teach them how to follow Christ. And with that message is the most difficult part of it all: the denial of self and everything you once knew.
We need to get back to doing things God’s way. We need to stop thinking we have to “figure out a way to reach them.” We need to do what God said and let God deal with the results. No, God’s methods are not going to be popular. They are intended not to be. They are intended to show that God is the one doing the work, not you; you are just a tool He is using, not the star of the show. Once you do your part, you get out of the way. We need to stop thinking we actually have control over these things. We don’t, and every time we try, we end up being the fool.
Let me remind all of us: there is a true academic study, and there are useless academics. What the world teaches is only a counterfeit of the true study of God and how to use the mind of Christ to learn and study things. There is nothing wrong with learning history, science, or math, but studying Christ and using what God has given us to learn more about Christ is everything.
I am writing a book on Proverbs 3:5, and I’m leaning towards doing a series to give you a preview of the book. We have got to learn to stop trying to do things our way and according to man’s “best practices” and start doing things “God’s way” once again, especially with evangelism and apologetics.
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