On this episode of the Evangelist Podcast, we're thinking about apologetics and evangelism.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelists Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03And welcome to you, Andy.
SPEAKER_02Oh, thank you. Right, uh we're this is pleasant. This is the second part of a two-part topic on apologetics and van and evangelism following your discussion with Tom Price on Twitter and then on the Chremere Christianity blog.
SPEAKER_04Yep. Yep.
SPEAKER_02After that. Let's have a quick look at what we did last time. Mm-hmm. Yep. Um we looked at uh the apologetics discussion that you had, and you were sort of explaining that you you weren't totally against apologetics in uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Depends on how you how to define it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So we had to define it first and that.
SPEAKER_03And the other thing about the I mean the title of the of the the motion that we were debating, if you like, is um apologetic sermons rarely work. And I don't think the working the working word does not work for me. I don't I don't like, you know. Because I I mean if if it's if it turns out that um apologetics is illegitimate, then one of the worst things that might happen would be that it works. You know, like if someone if someone is encouraging a whole congregation to put their trust in the wrong reason to believe in Jesus, then the worst thing might be if they actually do. Yes. You know, um Paul in one uh Corinthians two verse five says, you know, his his preaching was not with you know wise words or superior eloquence, so that your faith might not rest on the wisdom of the world but on on the spirit's power. Um so if if if it turns out that there's a form of apologetics that encourages people to trust in the wrong thing or to trust in Jesus for the wrong reason, the worst thing would be if it actually works. So um so there's all sorts of definition problems with uh with what we got up to. But yeah, we blundered on anyway, I blundered in anyway.
SPEAKER_02And uh out of that came sort of bigger issues, you know, what is preaching, what is the mission of the church, uh the fool and uh and wisdom of the world.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we were gonna look this time at uh some scriptures.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02To kind of uh put things in context and uh that's always a good idea. Correct ourselves, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I thought we'd just reason upon Plato. No, okay. Let's l let's look at scripture. You're right.
SPEAKER_02You're right. Okay. So what do you want to look at first then?
SPEAKER_03Well, I I suppose like 1 Peter 3.15 is is the verse, isn't it, on apologetics? And literally it is, though the one place that the word is used. Um, you know, whether it's used in quite the same sense in the scriptures as it tends to be understood today is another question. But 1 Peter, this this book written to suffering Christians, you know, God's chosen ones who are exiled, scattered throughout northern Turkey. They are just suffering, suffering, suffering, suffering, suffering, suffering, suffering, clinging to Christ, trying to be Christ-like. Um Peter 3 begins that uh, you know, wives submit to yourselves to your own husbands so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives. So that's interesting. The whole chapter begins with there's a way of actually, you know, witnessing to Christ without words. But by the time you get to verse 15, Peter says, But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. So the the word for answer is an apo logia. Apo against loggia words, a word against, uh an answering word. Always be ready with an answering word. If people asks you if people ask you, you know, how come you've got so much hope? And the reason they're going to ask the people in One Peter why they've got so much hope is because they are suffering, and they are exiles, they're strangers, and they seem to suffer differently. They seem to suffer with a kind of a hope. And Peter's just saying, just be prepared to put words to it. And what I imagine from One Peter is not people saying, Ah, let me turn you to Aquinas' five arguments for the existence of God. Number one, the cosmological argument. Number two, can you imagine like it's we're talking about suffering, you know, Christians scattered, and they're asked to put words to their hope. And for me, that looks like, you know, when I lost my job, I don't know how I would have gotten through, but Jesus got me through. And, you know, and knowing that he's risen from the dead gives me great, you know, hope when I, you know, I lost a loved one last month and it was so hard. But if it wasn't for the hope of seeing my loved one again, if it wasn't for the hope of Jesus and his resurrection, I don't think I could have gotten through with it. Peter just says, you know, be ready to do that. He explicitly says in 1 Peter 1, verse 3, what the hope is. And uh, we've been uh given new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So yeah, if people press us, I have hope because Jesus rose from the dead. Yeah, and if people say, How do you know Jesus rose from the dead? It says, Well, God's word told me. So have you read it? You know, that would be a good thing to do. Um But that's yeah, that's the origin of apologetics. So if if you mean, you know, am I against apologetics as Peter understands it? No, not at all. Of course. I'm completely into answering words. And and I, you know, spend a lot of time trying to train Christians to also be ready with their own answering words. But not every answering word is the same, and not every answering word is legitimate.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so that's uh 1 Peter 3. What about Acts 17 then? Um This is kind of most commonly quoted as uh the reason for doing apologetics. Yeah. Where Paul goes and reasons with people.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. And if this is what apologetics is, I'll I'll do this. I just think that so often what people claim Paul is doing here, there's no way he's doing what people claim he's doing here. Um what Paul does in Acts 17, verse 16, um he's waiting for Silas and Timothy while he's in Athens. Verse 16, he's greatly distressed to see that the city is full of idols. Okay? So the first thing is he's angry. He is angry at the idolatry that is around him. And I think this is so interesting, you know, as you begin reading Acts 17, don't think that Paul is like Socrates. Think that Paul is like Elijah. Okay? He's not like Socrates having this having this dialogue. He's like Elijah, angry at the idolatry. What would Elijah do if he got to if he got to Athens? I think he'd do exactly what Paul does, which is not to be a Socrates. It's it's yeah, to be an Elijah. And and so verse 17, yeah, he reasoned in the synagogue. I love that word. Yes, let's use that word, fantastic. He reasoned in the synagogue on what basis? On the basis of the scriptures, with both the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace, day by day, with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, What is this babbler trying to say? Okay, the impression that Paul was giving was n was not of a very erudite eloquent, you know, philosopher. He's a babbler. He is just a babbler. Advocating foreign gods, they said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. And it's interesting, he he goes into the Greek marketplace with the resurrection, which is the most nuts idea to a Greek mind you've ever heard of. You know, because the body is this yuck kind of shell, this husk, this tomb, this prison, and your soul, your soul is inside, and your soul is perfect and pure, and and you just can't wait to get rid of this body and slink off and and go and be purely spiritual somewhere. And and Paul's just coming in saying, brilliant, bodies forever! We've got bodies forever, you know. And and he's babbling on about the resurrection so much that they think he's you know the resurrection is as a second God uh alongside Jesus. And interesting, you know, Jesus and the resurrection are two foreign gods. Jesus is this foreign God. So like he's not he's not going in talking about the ground of all being and the reasonableness of you know there being some unifying principle behind the universe. He's kind of talking about this Jesus and using the human name of Jesus, you know, that the that Jesus of Nazareth guy and the resurrection, two things that are just nuts, absolutely nuts, to everyone who's there. Um so then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus where they said to him, May we know what this new teaching is that you're presenting? You're bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean. I love verse 21. All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.
SPEAKER_01I like the face in brackets. By the way, this is what they were like.
SPEAKER_03Here's philosophy in brackets. Yeah, philosophy gets a verse in the Bible. It's in brackets, it's what what these guys waste their time on.
unknownOkay?
SPEAKER_03Now, if you're a if you're a professional philosopher, then there's all sorts of glory in uh in in the pursuits of this world in the same way that you go and you'd pursue theatre studies in the same way that you go and pursue French and German and linguistics, which is a branch of philosophy, um, in the same way that you go and do physics. Um doing philosophy in that sense is fantastic, but to uh to imagine that it's a stepping stone to faith, that's where the problem comes. Um verse 22. So Paul he's asked to step back, he's he's just been leading with this babbling, incensed, angry stuff about Jesus and the resurrection. And now he's he's being asked to give this big picture. Okay, and the big picture is not anything that anyone would have agreed to. Um Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopacus and said, People of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious, or you can translate that word superstitious. Um for as I walked around to look carefully at your object of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship, and this is what I'm going to proclaim to you. Now is he is he looking at these idols and saying, Ah, what helpful stepping stones to true faith in God? Or is he looking saying, You guys, you guys are idolatrous and you're ignorant. As far as I'm concerned, what he's what he's saying here is there's one thing you guys know. The one thing you know is that you don't know God. What you don't know, I'm gonna declare to you. I'm gonna need to declare it to you, because you are just full of ignorance and idolatry. Verse 24 The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth, and does not live in temples built by human hands. Like he's not consensus building there.
SPEAKER_02No, that's kind of that verse is proclamation. He says, I'm going to proclaim to you. Yes. Top that's not. So it's not um sort of trying to win an argument at that point.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it's not trying to tap into some god consciousness that they already have. It's to declare to them what they don't know. Because, you know, there are all sorts of gods in the Greek world, but they're not lords of heaven and earth. You know. The you know, God God never creates the heavens in any of the the ancient Near Eastern myths, in any of the Greek mythology, um, you know, the heavens just uh already exist and the gods are part of that whole thing. To have a God who's even, you know, beyond the heavens and creates the heavens is completely different. And he does not live in temples built by human hands. And the whole thing is he's gonna invert what they are practicing. What they're practicing is they're making little houses for God. And Paul's like, well, it's the other way around. You live in God's house. That's you know. So he's not he's not trying to build on, you know, you're getting this a little bit right, let me build on top of that. He's saying you're getting it 180 degrees wrong. Verse 25, he's not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. Now, from verse 26, he starts talking about Adam, from one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he marked out their appointed times in history in the boundaries of their lands. Does do do any of his hearers naturally believe in Adam? No, it's that that's a really strange Hebrew story that he's bringing to them. Verse 27, God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, but he's not far from each one of us. Which is important to say. You know, as as I say that they're getting it completely wrong, it's not that God is hiding himself. God is reaching out to people the whole time. But it is this madness, this this fallen mind that can't see uh the the obvious. And then verse twenty-eight, he um quotes a couple of sources in their own culture, for in him we live and move and have our being, as some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. Now that is interesting. I mean he does, you know, quote the pop songs of the day, and quote the poets of the day and the philosophers of the day. Um and I do that in my evangelism. I'll, you know, I'll I'll talk about the latest pop song that the kids are all into in the hit parade or whatever it is. Um But what he's doing is he's quoting it against them. He's basically saying, Look, you you all kind of think that you're, you know, or or at least some of your own poets have said we are God's offspring in this kind of wishful thinking moment, but nothing in your worldview allows you to say that. Nothing, you know, n none of your beliefs actually match up with the dearest and deepest intuitions um that that you in your better moments ought to have that we are God's offspring and that kind of thing. And so, you know, in evangelism I too will say, you know, everyone's Facebook wall says that love's the greatest thing, and everyone posts up these photographs on Instagram and you know, love and connection, groovy vibes, maybe, you know. But if you really believe that we're just the product of time and chance and survival of the fittest, you don't believe love's the greatest thing at all. You believe selfishness, struggle, chaos, and death are the greatest things in the world. And all the words of your poets are actually meaningless. And and so, you know, you can quote people's poets against them. That's what Paul does here. Verse 29, therefore, since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance. That's all it is, ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, for why should we repent? God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. Now he's talking about Jesus. He has given proof, ah, proof. He's given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. So, yes, the resurrection is proof, says Paul. He gives no proof for the resurrection at all. He declares the resurrection and says that the resurrection itself is proof for something else, namely judgment and offers not one single proof for the resurrection. And remember how nuts resurrection is to all these guys. You know, it's a it's a totally nuts idea, and still he's he's and he doesn't even say, look, and I met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. I mean, maybe maybe he did, maybe, and and Luke just forgot to write it down. But he offers no proofs for the resurrection, only the resurrection as his proof, and he declares it and says, on the basis of this nuts thing, which no nobody here really naturally believes, you've got to stop thinking the way that you're thinking. It's ignorant, you've got to repent. For verse 31, he said today, when he will judge the world with justice, by the man he's appointed, he's given proof to this of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because the issue of the resurrection is like a big issue for those in Athens, isn't he? I mean, right back in verse uh twenty uh when was it? 18, it says they said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Yes. And this was like a critical point, isn't it? 32 says when they heard about the resurrection, some of them sneered, but others said, We want to hear you again.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, and so for them, yeah, resurrection is just nuts. Jesus, um Paul begins by talking about something that is just nuts to them. He just he just goes in and they think he's a babbler. He doesn't care, he's not trying to look clever at all, he's not trying to look clever. And then when he steps back, he gives this big overarching story about God and Adam, and then Christ is the second Adam who's raised from the dead, and therefore there's going to be judgment. And he just gets back to this resurrection point, verse 23, and they sneer. Some sneer. Others say, this is interesting, verse 32, others say, we want to hear you again on this subject. We want a dialogue, Paul. Let's get into dialogue. What does Paul do? Verse 33, at that, Paul left the council. Now, what's fascinating to me is that this is the greatest example of a classical apologetic that anyone could ever turn to. Whenever you get into these discussions about apologetics, people say, Oh, but we must do what Paul did. Okay, I'm all for doing what Paul did, but I don't have the courage to be this rude. I mean, he's he goes in there, he is just incensed, he babbles on about Jesus and the resurrection. When he pulls back and gives the big picture, it is 180 degrees different to the idolatry and ignorance that he sees all around them. He just calls them superstitious, he calls them ignorant, he says, you must stop thinking about what things the way that you're thinking about them. Why, Paul? Well, because of the resurrection.
unknownWhat?
SPEAKER_03The resurrection is the least credible part of your message. And Paul like builds everything on it. And he says, Because Jesus was risen from the dead, you've got to repent. What's your proof, Paul? Give me your proof for the resurrection. He gives no proof for the resurrection. At that point, some people might say, Oh, well, Luke is only just writing down a selection of what of what Paul is saying. And probably in between, you know, verse 29 and 30, you know, maybe he does, you know, amazing apologetic arguments about, you know, the existence of God and the feasibility of resurrection within a Greek mindset. And maybe he does a little bit at that point. You're you're crowbarring in an argument from silence in the one chapter that you've got to prove that this is biblical apologetics. Yeah. Come off it. Come off it. Acts 17 is top-down declaration by Paul. And when people say to me, um, no, I'm I'm all for apologetics, I just want to do what Paul does. I just want to open up Acts 17 and say, I too want to do what Paul does. But I don't think I'm courageous enough to be as as rude as he is. He is not being Socrates in the marketplace, he's being Elijah, okay? This is this is like the contest between the you know Elijah and the prophets of Baal. And I think Paul is doing exactly what an Old Testament prophet would do. Can you imagine an Old Testament prophet touring around the ancient Near East and talking to these different nations? And can you imagine those, you know, such a prophet saying, ah, you know Baal? Yeah, the Lord, he's very much like Baal, only slightly bigger and less green, and you know, like none of none of the the Old Testament prophets are ever like that. They just they declare the word of God. Paul is not like that. I mean, I I think I get the point.
SPEAKER_02I get the point, but okay, so I mean, say you were you're preaching as you're speaking, um, and you preach, you say the word, and then you leave, maybe like Paul. Like Paul, yeah. Do we do we then just leave people, shake the the dust off our feet, move on till we find other people who believe? I mean, isn't it a loving thing to to actually continue to to talk to them and answer their questions and things?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I well it it depends who they are. If if you're on mission in the same way that Jesus sends people out on mission in Luke 10 or something, he sends them out two by two and he does say, look, if people won't receive the word, then do shake the dust off your feet and move on. And there are there are times when you've got a ministry like Paul's, a church planting ministry, an itinerant ministry um going out, then yeah, um don't waste your time with people who don't want to know. Um and yeah, Paul perhaps should be more of a model to us in in some of our interactions with unbelievers, and and you know, that challenges me when I, you know, get into debates with atheists on Twitter, and I should probably shake the dust off my feet a lot sooner than I do, and I keep on interacting when people don't want to know. But with those those with whom we've already got a relationship and we're called to love them, and and we are called to continue to to journey with them and love them and pray for them, and there's lots that we can do with such people. What always worries me is when people say, But if I can't have an apologetic argument with them, what can I do? And I just think, well, I don't know, love them, serve them, be Christ like, you know, seek to draw them into the life of the church in in less um intense ways. You know, if if your home group is going out to the cinema, invite your Friend to the cinema, and they don't you don't have to talk about Jesus and and all that kind of stuff. And you know, and just have conversations with people. And if some kind of uh philosophical question comes up in conversation, then sure, just chew the fat. But just don't think that that's what evangelism is. That's that's just loving people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I I think if if you preach the gospel and people don't respond, and and you've got people in your life who you've told the gospel too many times and they're still not responding, I think the scriptures just encourage us to keep on loving them, keep on being vulnerable to them, and keep on being the sort of person who, when suffering hits, you're the person they go to, and they say, Well, Glenn, what's the hope within you? Because I know that when you face suffering, you do it with hope. And then you bring your answering word and you do your apologetic, and that's what that's how it works.
SPEAKER_02So uh also we wanted to look at uh Romans 1 18 to 20.
SPEAKER_03Hmm. That always comes up in these debates.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godly godlessness and wickedness of the people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, having been understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse. And you often find on apologetics' websites um, you know, Romans 1, front and center, to say, look, you can look at out of the world and and there is God, and and so um and I want to say, yes, exactly. Um what may be known about God is plain to everybody. Therefore, the problem that anybody has in you know not having faith is is not lack of information. Isn't that what these verses are saying? It's it's it's not as though people haven't quite, you know, got the hang of this tiny little aspect of creation and the way in which it testifies to the Lord. They haven't quite wrapped their heads around this particular argument, and when they do, you know, then they will then they will know God. I mean, this verse is just saying there's just this maximal revelation of God to everybody, and everybody suppresses the truth. And and and we push down the stuff that is just so obvious. God is made obvious in creation, we push that down, and as Romans develops, the thing that opens blind eyes is the preaching of the gospel. You read through Romans, and and the and the thing that brings people to faith is the gospel. You get to Romans chapter 10. Faith comes by hearing. So it seems to me that again, Romans 1, which is often pointed to um as a support for certain kinds of apologetics ministries, if you actually took it seriously, you would say, yeah, creation is just proclaiming God in such a a massive way, and we manage to even suppress that. Why then do we spend so much time on like let's let's talk about the Kalam cosmological argument and and and go through these these sort of sort of steps? Because that's not what Romans 1 is saying. Romans 1 is saying is that everyone's rendered without excuse because what may be known about God is plain. If that's not doing the job, then a clever argument that's only understood by a small minority of people is not going to do the job. What's going to do the job? Paul tells us in Romans, he's preaching the gospel. Okay. Have I convinced you yet, Andy?
SPEAKER_02I've always been convinced.
SPEAKER_03I know, I know.
SPEAKER_02Uh we're nearly there at the end. Uh, what would you say to those who love the word apologetics and who love doing it?
SPEAKER_03I want to say I love you. I I do, I really do, and so much of what a lot so much of what people think of as apologetics, I'm 100% for. Um if it just means engaging non-Christians with the gospel. I live for that. I absolutely live for that. Uh I'm just raising a couple of queries about whether the wisdom of the cross and the wisdom of the world actually coordinate together or whether they're at odds with one another. And and I I want to raise some questions about the fallenness of our rationality, the fallenness of our thinking. I want to raise some questions about the direction of travel in our preaching, that it should be top-down declaration. Um and and I just want to make sure that we're not doing what is excluded by Scripture. 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, excludes something. What is it? You know, when when Paul talks about I didn't come with superior eloquence and wisdom, and I don't want your faith to rest on the wisdom of the world, he's against something, isn't he? And in Colossians 2, he says, see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy that depends on the human traditions and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. Again, he's against something. What is that something? And and if if you can see that I too love engaging with non-Christians just as you engage with non-Christians, let's together turn on the illegitimate forms of answering words, and let's turn on the things that that are not the right ways. Because Scripture does rule out certain ways of doing evangelism, and let's just, and even if you yourself are not doing those certain ways, it'd just be good to think through what those certain ways are, to identify them, and just to make sure that the that the whole tenor and tone of of our evangelism is that top-down proclamation that just is so sure that Jesus is Lord, that he rose from the dead, that the scriptures are true, and let's get out there together and preach the gospel to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Good ending. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Let's be friends. Yeah, good.
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SPEAKER_03Wonderful.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so uh without much further ado, we'll leave it there.
SPEAKER_03Without much ado, it's the end. Bye bye. See ya.