“Know why you believe what you believe”
People should know why they believe what they believe.
Christians can be confident in the central claim of Christianity, that Jesus rose from the dead, not only because the Bible says so, but because it is the best explanation of the historical evidence available to us. As a young person I was interested in science because it seemed like it had answers to the ultimate questions. Now I can see that science, just like every other discipline when properly pursued, brings glory to the Creator of all things. In college, I thought I was an atheist. How foolish! In His mercy, God got my attention and saved me at age 30. Since then I have dedicated myself to the defense of the Christian faith (also known as ‘apologetics’) so that I can help others to be confident in their faith.
Apologetics broadens and deepens our understanding of God’s truth.
Sometimes I can’t understand why more people aren’t excited about the precious truth we have in the Bible. God’s word is consistent with the truth we find from history, archaeology, cosmology, biology, psychology, law, philosophy, and other disciplines because God created everything. The word “university” is based on this principle. Through apologetics more Christians can grasp the breadth and height and depth of the Christian worldview and its explanatory power.
Apologetics gives us answers to our doubts.
Without answers to their intellectual questions, Christians will have a shallow faith based on feelings and experiences. Many more of our Christian young people need to understand why C.S. Lewis said “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”[1] I was one of those half-hearted creatures in college! As Christians, we have been given the Holy Spirit, so why shouldn’t we expect more than mud pies? As Moses answered Joshua in Numbers 11:29 “…would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”
Apologetics helps explain why in a world full of fear, we have hope! (1 Peter 3:15).
Jesus is the only answer for a lost world that no longer dares to hope. As Malcolm Muggeridge said, “It is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, . . . that Christ’s hand reaches out sure and firm. Then Christ’s words bring their inexpressible comfort, then his light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness forever.”[2] With Jesus, there is always hope!
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (1949; repr., New York: Harper-Collins, 2001), 26.
[2] Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 56.
Defending Your Faith 