The art of Apologetics has always fascinated me. When I got saved a year ago, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “people need to hear this!” “people need to hear this truth!”. Around three months into my Christian walk, I suddenly became obsessed with Theology, I was reading constantly, and from there, my love for Apologetics began. I heard many good theologians, many phenomenal debates, many fascinating arguments and some very hard questions (at the time) being answered in such a challenging and thought provoking way. I used to believe that defending Christianity was very hard considering many people didn’t believe. It was suddenly shown to me, that I couldn’t have been more wrong. The only reason why many people become disillusioned when asking questions about Christianity, is because we aren’t listening to them as people, and we aren’t even answering them properly in line with Scripture.
If you are a Christian, saved by the Grace of God, and you are confronted with a question or an objection, always be ready, the question is, are you ready?
Atheists, skeptics, and other critics of the Bible have raised a variety of objections and questions about the existence of God and the reliability of the Bible—objections and questions that Christians should be prepared to answer. The word “apologetics” comes from the Greek word “apologia” found in 1 Peter 3:15 and means “defense.” The Bible says that Christians should always be ready to give a “defense” (apologia) to people who ask us about the hope we have as Christians. Why does God want us to “defend the faith”? Shouldn’t we just preach the gospel? What Biblical examples are there of people defending the faith?You’ll find answers to these questions in the resources below.
ARTICLES:
“Apologetics Definition” a simple definition of the word
“Introduction to Christian Apologetics” by Charlie Campbell
“Can We Trust the Bible?” by Charlie Campbell
“Evidence for the Existence of God” by Charlie Campbell
“Six Enemies of Apologetic Engagement” by Douglas Groothius
The Importance of Teaching Apologetics to Our Youth by Dr. Randy Douglass
AUDIO:
“The Importance of Defending the Faith” by Charlie Campbell
“Evidence for the Existence of God” by Charlie Campbell
“Evidence for the Bible” by Charlie Campbell.
“Archaeological Evidence for the Bible” by Charlie Campbell
“An Examination of Apparent Contradictions in the Bible” by Charlie Campbell.
“Contending for the Faith” by Bob Hoekstra
Jesus made it certain that unrepentant, unforgiven sinners will suffer for eternity in a place the Bible calls Hell, a place of darkness, torment, and separation from God. And while roughly 146,000 people die every 24 hours, many Christians are guilty of the sin of silence. It’s our job as Christians to share the truth with as many people as possible.
I have heard many Christians ask me, why does Apologetics even matter? Do we even need to defend the faith? Yes, it is absolutely crucial. We are now living in an age of anti Christ people, staunch opponents of Christianity, spiritual degradation, moral decay, and broken and run down society all orchestrated by Satan himself. Let’s stop the nonsense, let’s stop the compromises, let’s stop the constant debates and arguments about secondary issues, let’s stop the infighting and the division. Let’s UNITE in the body of Christ, go out there, spread the truth, and defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, worship Him in spirit and in truth, have a burden and a desire for the salvation of others, and let’s educate people quickly before the world tells everyone else to do the opposite. Persecutions will get much worse, especially in this age where there is such hostility against the Gospel of Jesus Christ where more than 100,000 Christians are murdered each year because of their faith.
The Bible speaks specifically about Apologetics…
Ephesians 5:11-12 “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.”
Psalm 94:16 “Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will stand for me against those who practice iniquity?”
James 5:20 “Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”
Ezekiel 3:18-19 “If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.”
What I’m going to delve into a bit further here, is the different types of Apologetics. Now, the two main ones that stick out are the most popular and commonly used type of Apologetics.
- Pressupositional Apologetics
Presuppositionalism is a school of Christian apologetics that believes the Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. It presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation and attempts to expose flaws in other worldviews. It claims that apart from presuppositions, one could not make sense of any human experience, and there can be no set of neutral assumptions from which to reason with a non-Christian. Presuppositionalists claim that a Christian cannot consistently declare his belief in the necessary existence of the God of the Bible and simultaneously argue on the basis of a different set of assumptions that God may not exist and Biblical revelation may not be true. Two schools of presuppositionalism exist, based on the different teachings of Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Haddon Clark. Presuppositionalism contrasts with classical apologetics and evidential apologetics.
Presuppositionalists compare their presupposition against other ultimate standards such as reason, empirical experience, and subjective feeling, claiming presupposition in this context is:
a belief that takes precedence over another and therefore serves as a criterion for another. An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence. For a Christian, the content of Scripture must serve as his ultimate presupposition… This doctrine is merely the outworking of the lordship of God in the area of human thought. It merely applies the doctrine of scriptural infallibility to the realm of knowing.
2. Classical/Evidential Apologetics
Classical apologetics is a method of apologetics that begins by first employing various theistic arguments to establish the existence of God. Classical apologists will often utilize various forms of the cosmological, teleological (Design), ontological, and moral arguments to prove God’s existence. Once God’s existence has been established, the classical apologist will then move on to present evidence from fulfilled prophecy, the historical reliability of Scripture, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus to distinguish Christianity from all other competing forms of theism.
Classical apologetics (also known as evidential apologetics) has as its distinctive feature a two-step approach to establishing a Christian worldview. Classical apologists are often hesitant to make an argument directly from miracles to the biblical God. Rather, they prefer to appeal to miracles after having already established a theistic context.
Evidential: Evidential apologetics or evidentialism is an approach to Christianapologetics emphasizing the use of evidence to demonstrate that God exists. The evidence is supposed to be evidence both the believer and nonbeliever share, that is to say one need not presuppose God’s existence. Evidential Apologetics is that style of Christian defense that stresses the miracles found in the Bible, particularly Christ’s resurrection as an evidence for the existence of God and the validity of Christ and His words. It also uses historical evidences to support the veracity of the Biblical account(s). In this, it is very similar to Classical Apologetics, which stresses reason in its approach to evidences. Basically, evidential apologetics stresses evidence such as miracles, fulfilled prophecies, etc., and uses reason to support them.
When it comes to Apologetics, I don’t play around. Defending the faith is extremely important to me, but let me make it clear why it’s important to me……I have a burning desire to see people saved. I love people, and I want to see them open their hearts to God. I never used to have much love in me, especially before I was a Christian, I didn’t like a lot of people, sometimes people’s presence would be enough to annoy the hell out of me. The idea of loving my enemies was foreign to me, I used to think people were off their head for loving those who wouldn’t love you back, I struggled to love the ones closest to me nevermind my enemies.But God changed all of that in me, I no longer hold resentment for people. This is why I have a burning desire to show people the truth, even if they reject it, which many will.
So let’s stop the nonsense. Let’s show people the truth that changed US. They can have it too, if they Repent, believe and put their trust in Jesus Christ, this life is too short to reject warning signs. If somebody was headed towards a cliff, you wouldn’t listen to the guy who talks to you about how “nice a day it is”, you’d listen to the person that shouts “STOP, THERE’S A CLIFF!”. We are warning you, because we love you…..This is why I urge you, whoever has clicked onto this either out of curiosity, or boredom, or genuine interest, or maybe they want to strengthen their faith, listen to the voice that warns you. I want to love people like Christ loved me, through his Grace and Mercy, he saved a wretched sinner like me, that’s true love…….and that love, might just be what saves your life.
Don’t be a fool. Listen and learn from the God you know exists, and if you want to engage in defending you faith, do it out of love… and for goodness sake…..do it right!
Romans 1:22 “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools”.
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