WHY WE NEED APOLOGETICS - PART 3

I think increasingly we are going to need to be not only the bearers of the gospel to others but a people who have answers available to questions such as, “What about the problem of evil? and “How do I know God exists?” We will need to give basic answers to these objections. Typically, the same questions come up over and over again. You won’t need to learn lots of new material with each person you talk to. If we have a mastery of some of the basics, we can really go a long way. And, as we’re evangelizing, as we’re talking about our faith, we will have greater confidence in presenting the gospel and won’t be daunted by the potential questions that might come up, but rather will say, “I believe the Christian faith does a better job of answering these sorts of questions.” —Paul Copan

WHY WE NEED APOLOGETICS - PART 2

When you become a Christian you do not become immune to life. You will have questions, you will have bad days, you will lose hope and you will need answers. Enter apologetics. To outsiders this discipline answers objections, to insiders it builds faith and promotes intellectual inquiry. If you are a Christian and feel guilty about having questions, please don’t. Ask away, build your faith, learn whatever you can. First from Scripture, then from the teachers whom God gifted his church with. If you have lost sight of hope, do not get discouraged. —Glenn Hendrickson

WHY WE NEED APOLOGETICS? - PART 1

Thanks to the great blog THE POACHED EGG.

 The only way teens become truly “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks” (1 Pet. 3:15) is by wrestling personally with the questions. Ironically, those who have never grappled with diverse worldviews are actually the most likely to be swept away by them. As G. K. Chesterton wrote, ideas can be dangerous — but they are far more dangerous to the person who has never studied them…we should always couch discussions of Christianity in the language of reasons and evidence. We should be giving apologetics from the pulpit and in the Sunday school classroom. Every course in a Christian school should be an opportunity to show that a biblical perspective does a better job than any secular theory of accounting for the facts in that field, whether psychology, biology, government, or business. Apologetics should be naturally woven in to all our discourse.
—Nancy Pearcey