A Monthly Reflection
“Winners of souls are first weepers for souls.”
Someone
This month we continued to wade our toe and walk in a bit deeper into the proverbial sea of apologetical vastness. Let me be clear: this sea is overwhelming. Questions and questioners, real vs relative truth, facts vs feelings, not to mention spiritual and physical constructs are all each but a single brick in a Jenga® puzzle or a makeshift raft onto the choppy squall of the sea – if of course you choose to look at it this way.
If you are a seasoned evangelist or apologist, you might be able to navigate or swim for a bit longer but sooner or later you might slip over the edge or the boat, take a step off an undersea cliff or pull out that block that was holding the whole tower together.
What are you to do?
The facts are clear, and I will point them pointedly and succinctly.
- You can not do anything, apologetics included, without G-d’s help!
- The Gospel is your lifeline and your audience’s too. Jesus is the simple and clear answer to the problem of sin and death and our hope for a better future.
- You don’t have all the rebuttals or the answers for every key question or questioner. At the end of the day while truth is NOT relative – it is faith to believe in that truth (the Gospel) that counts. And this is where conversation apologetics is so much a key to being able to have a start in the first place.
Let’s start with item #1. We can hope, we can strive, we can spend countless hours with our message in our head, our Bible in our hand, and our intended person in our heart sipping coffee at the local java shop – and can still yield nothing. Philippians 4:13, we have heard numerous times throughout our lives is clear. “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
Notice the word “all” – that includes everything, encompasses all. So if we are to be effective in evangelism and apologetics, we need to remember that it is by Him and for Him. Thus, in turn the spiritual disciplines. We need to pray for His help via the Holy Spirit, an open heart for our listener, and the right words and message to come through. We need to get to know our Bible so that we can refute lies with truth. We need to, perhaps, fast before a conversation as well if it may be a tough one we anticipate.
“Allow nothing to keep you from looking with strong determination into the face of God regarding yourself and your doctrine. And every time you preach make sure you look God in the face about the message first, then the glory will remain through all of it. A Christian servant is one who perpetually looks into the face of God and then goes forth to talk to others. The ministry of Christ is characterized by an abiding glory of which the servant is totally unaware— “…Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him” (Exodus 34:29).
Oswald Chambers – My Utmost for His Highest – The Light that Never Fails
Now that is the basis. We need G-d to help us, lead and guide us, and to open our mouths and ears to how to be our best for Him and this ministry call.
Continuing – we have seen how this world is shifting from fundamental and foundation truth to a “you do you” relative truth paradigm where not only does anything go for being permissible – we are even called to praise the sin, praise the lies, praise the pride. Of course it is all wrong. We are taught what to think and not how to think, to quote a pastor friend. The world has exchanged the truth for a lie.
God’s Wrath against Sin (Romans 1)
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.
26For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents. 31They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.
32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things are worthy of death, they not only continue to do these things, but also approve of those who practice them.
Notice how the Gospel message bursts through this darkness and gives us hope. Jesus is the light of the world and can cast darkness away as far as the east is from the west. That is the answer to the Scripture above. The question though is the willingness to acknowledge this and to accept it as the real truth it is.
And now that we know the problem, the solution, and who can help – what are we as Christians to do? What are we being called into? What is our role on the field?
This is the age-old call to share the Gospel with others.
The Great Commission.
From skeptics to G-d haters, from disbelievers or sin-filled lovers – we all need Him. We all deep-down inside wish for something more than a quick fix or a million dollars. We want to feel valued; we want to feel like there is a better tomorrow. We want a future.
We need to show this need to our neighbors, friends, co-workers, family, etc. We need to build the relationship via time and investment. We as Christians have this message – it is time to give it one person, one step, one day at a time with His help.
Quoting from Jim Rayburn, noted in bold, within the context of another author, the founder of the parachurch organization for kids: YoungLife:
“it is best to demonstrate love, kindness and friendship to people before confronting them with the issue of their salvation…Jim would later give it some names: earning the right to be heard, friendship evangelism and incarnational ministry. Ironically, organized religion found this approach to be an absolutely novel concept.
(Rayburn III, 2000, p. 37) – https://www.biola.edu/talbot/ce20/database/jim-rayburn
You must earn that right. You need to be in the trenches, in the dugout, at the hospital bedside, or holding their hand while they are in pain. You need them to know not of your intellect but of your heart. They need to know that you care. And if you have been blessed with this friendship you can start asking questions that can make an impact, whether it is through the “Columbo methods” proposed by Gregory Koukl in Tactics using the questions of “what do you believe of X” and “why do you believe X” or Randy Newman’s four principles in his book Questioning Evangelism of why questions work because it opens to finding out about the falsehoods and build “plausibility structures” that make believing in something more probable. You now can share what we all long for…
If we just come out of left field and say that the person is going to hell because of a sin or if we use all sorts of fancy theological terms with/without a high-and-mighty attitude – we have already lost. We need to love them to Christ. We need to listen them to Christ. We need to show them why they should believe, why they should care – all in a loving, non-confrontational manner, truly intentional caring for who they are and what they have suffered or are presently experiencing.
And honestly does not a conversation over a cup of coffee or a meal seem like a much better way to witness and share the love of Jesus than on a stage in a debate or on a street corner with a megaphone. I believe you will not only get to make and/or keep a friend, but you could also have an opportunity to have a front-row seat at their personal conviction and conversion moment.
Would that be a treat!
So application is key. Conversations are key. Friendships are key.
So the challenge is to ask G-d to help you, and to help me, to have those conversations with others one-to-one in a relaxed and loving atmosphere.
Coffee anyone…..
And He was saying to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;
therefore plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
(Luke 10:2,3 NASB)
I’ll end this paper just like the last time….
And remember:
We love because He first loved us….
1 John 4:19 (ESV)
Parting thought:
Let me look on the crowd as my Savior did,
Till my eyes with tears grow dim.
Let me view with pity the wandering sheep
And love them for love of Him.
—Author unknown
