A Living Apologetic

The counter-point to being able to speak to a given situation or cultural in a relevant manner is that one must live out consistently live out what they have or have not said. A living apologetic is perhaps much more influential and impactful than one just speaking the right words in the right context. Unfortunately I am not permitted to post the email that I received from Ravi Zacharias’ International Ministry due to copyright laws. Fortunately I can post a link to the email so that you can go to their website and ready it for yourself. Their daily email program is called A Slice of Infinity and this particular one this morning was titled The Apologetic of Being a Neighbor [Slice 1536].

If you would like to begin receiving these slices for yourself, you may register to receive them in your email daily (Monday thru Friday) from here: Subscribe to A Slice of Infinity via email

You will not be disappointed. The writing is always excellent and the thoughts are always insightful. I always come away learning something new from them.

Enjoy!

P.S. The book Jill references in her article, Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today by John Stackhouse, Jr. is a wonderful, short primer to the topic of Apologetics. I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about how to do apologetics properly by the one delivering the message keeping his or her ego in check. Pride is usually a pretty big obstacle in the realm of Apologetics and it is good to recognize and deal with it before dealing with people.

When Right Words Are Wrong

I facilitated a class about a year ago on Greg Koukl’s course Tactics in Defending the Faith. I believe that it was well received and well liked and that those who attended received something very beneficial from it. One of the foundational ideas for the class is taken from 2 Corinthians 5:20 “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”

The concept of an ambassador is rich and deep with meaning. Ambassadors need to be intimately knowledgeable of both the person they represent and their message; they need to know something of the people, culture, beliefs, etc. of the people that they are to be ambassadors to; they need to know how to communicate the message clearly and intelligibly to the people they are sent to which implies having an thorough understanding of their message as well as the obstacles they will face in delivering that message; finally, they need to have a character that does not undermine their message, afterall, ambassadors are on the job 24-7-365. However, this is not entirely everything within the ambassaors sphere of responsibility. They also need to be able to speak to the relevant issues to those people that they are carrying their message.

In reading Dr. Francis Schaeffer’s book The God Who Is There he writes, “The importance of understanding the chasm to which man’s thinking has brought him is not of intellectual value alone, but of spiritual value as well. The Christian is to resist the spirit of the world. But when we say this, we must understand that the world-spirit does not always take the same form. So the Christian must resist the spirit of the world in the form it takes in his own generation. If he does not do this, he is not resisting the spirit of the world at all.” What Dr. Schaeffer is telling us is that unless we have some reasonable understanding of those obstacles that have entangled those to whom we take our ambassador message to, then we do them a disservice by not addressing their most pressing needs as well as doing a disservice to ourselves by making out message irrelevant, even if the message we have delivered is a True one.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) said, “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

To get a really good example of the right way to engage the culture one finds themselves an ambassador to, one would do well to study in depth Paul in Athens (Acts 17:16-34). Before ever addressing them, he first educates himself on who they are by observing them. Then, only after he understands the spirit he is up against does he begin to give his lesson, and it is a masterful lesson at that.

If Paul does not suit, then one could do no better than studing the Master Ambassador - Jesus himself. Jesus, speaking on behalf of the Father, entering a foreign world, overcoming all types of obstacles in order to deliver his message, etc. He is the prototype ambassador to which we all should strive towards.

So it is imperative that we understand the context into which we are speaking, otherwise, we might be speaking into the wind. We might have the right words, but they end up being wrong because we are not speaking to the needs of the people we are engaged in conversation with.

Words of Wisdom…

At Long Last…

Well, it has been awhile since I last had the time to sit and post. I thought I would give a bit of a short update if, for no other reason, to let the readers/contributors know that I am still alive.

I am in the final week of the first half of the Fall semester at GCU. It has been going well so far, but extremely busy. I wrap up two classes on Sunday (New Testament History and Historical Theology) and then begin two new classes on Monday (The Pentateuch and Old Testament Prophets). It has been tiring but well worth the effort so far.

Work has been keeping me fairly busy - but that is not really news anymore, it has become more of the status quo.

Church has been good although I must confess I cannot wait to be done with the budgeting classes and on to another topic. It has not been quite what I envisioned it to be and I think if I were to facilitate another one (which I hope to do again) I will be more forceful with my desires and run one of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University’s 13-week courses. I believe it fits my personality much better.

Coming up for my Sunday morning class I will begin a series on the Life of Christ broken out into three phases. The first phase will be called In the Fullness of Time which will focus on the history of Israel, their captivity, some of the Messianic prophecies and the inter-testamental period looking at world history and how it helped shaped the context into which God entered his creation as the Christ. The second phase will be looking at the Life of Christ as portrayed in the Gospels in chronological fashion. This will also mix some historical aspects as we delve into the historical setting of first century Palestine under Roman occupation and how Christ performed his ministry within that context. Finally, if I have managed to survive that long (and if the class is up to tackling it), we will enter the final phase which is going through the book of Acts and the early church. This will actually take us through most of the New Testament as we pause and take in the letters of Paul and Peter in the appropriate chronological order while moving through the History of the Early Church.

It looks ambitious even in writing it down because there is a ton to cover. We will see if I am up to the task.

Hopefully I will be able to write something more substantial in the next day or two.