It is my heartfelt contention that every church in the world needs an apologist. Here’s why I say that. I have found that the average member of the average congregation is riddled with doubt. They hear The Da Vinci Code proclaim that the Council of Nicaea suppressed contrary gospels. They hear that James Cameron has discovered the Lost Tomb of Jesus. They hear from the Zeitgeist movie that Jesus is just a rehashing of a long line of pagan dying and rising gods. And so on and on.
The trouble is that these confused congregants often don’t know where to turn. Those who do seek advice will often go to their pastor whom they considered to be the wisest man they know. The problem with that is that the pastor is usually very busy! Not only is the pastor preparing Sunday’s sermon, he’s probably preparing the Wednesday night sermon too. Then there’s counseling to do, church administration, hospital visitation, meeting with his staff, etc. I used to be a pastor and I know from experience that most pastors are really busy. And, honestly, for most of them, reading The Da Vinci Code or watching the Zeitgeist movie (both were silly, by the way), can’t be that high on their list.
So what happens? The pastor does his best. The trouble, however, is that unless that pastor really has studied these things he isn’t really going to be able to answer these issues so the congregant then walks away and thinks, “wow, I just asked the theologically smartest person I know and he didn’t know the answer.”
That’s bad.
What happens to the confused Christians then is that they push these questions down inside. The problem with that is that in time these repressed questions begin to build a wedge between them and real confidence in Jesus. As we like to say around here, You can’t love the Lord with all your mind and secretly suspect that Christianity can’t answer the hard questions.
That’s why Christians in the average church need to be studied enough to answer the tough questions! Now this person may be the pastor. After all, we have some graduates of our program who are pastors! But, if it’s not going to be the pastor, then we need Christians to study and come alongside to support the pastor so that they can answer these hard questions.
Did I ever mention that I teach in the Master of Arts in Christian Apologetics program at Biola University?
No?
But, seriously, if you are a smart Christian who is not afraid to study hard, then the Christian church needs you!
Ephesians 4:11-16: And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Amen.
Yes!
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This is why we set up a Bible Answers email address for our congregation. We have a place where the hard questions can get asked. I then have the freedom to do research before formulating a response.
That’s excellent, Mark!
We have a website at our church and on it there is a section that is titled Ask God Anything. My pastor answers, but also asks me to answer questions that come in to that site. I have seen how this works in our church. Our pastor is very pro-apologists and encourages and wants my input on things. We now have a small group of folks who I am teaching and are studying The Case For Christ. They are learning the basics and are really asking some great questions while learning how to think through their questions and answer those of others who may also have questions. This is a great article Dr. Jones. Once again, I appreciated your reminding us of this need at the recent graduation brunch and again here.
While I agree that pastors are severely overworked/booked with their schedules (I know mine is – I have no idea how he accomplishes what he does with his schedule), isn’t this part of the requirements and role of the elders? Shouldn’t they be able to handle these types of issues and protect the congregation from error? Isn’t that what Paul charged Timothy and Titus with when selecting leadership?
Your thoughts? I’m not saying that to absolve responsibility it any way from the rest of the congregation – I’m not an elder and I attend SES and their apologetics program. But I find is a tad embarrassing when I have leaders at the church I worship with coming to me to request either teaching in a particular area or wanting answers for a particular challenge. Shouldn’t they be equipping me? If anything, I think I should be learning my apologetic from them.
Thankfully the positive of all this is that for a tradition that is typically not open to the idea of apologetics, my church is very much agreeable to it and I am allowed a lot of freedom in teaching on worldview and apologetic classes. Even though they are not trained in it themselves, they recognize the need for it and give me the encouragement and endorsement to do so as well as mentor others in the church who are interested in getting involved in this important ministry.
A great question, Shawn! As of this moment I think it will be my next blog.
Good to hear. I look forward to reading it.
Good insight Shawn! I suspect that part of the problem is that many pastors have abdicated their role as teachers of sound doctrine for a role as psychologists. How many people become members of a congregation for the pastoral counseling services provided for free to members? We need to let psychologists be psychologists and let pastors teach and encourage the congregation toward Christ.
Bruce – I’m inclined to believe that this is just a small part of the problem. I’m not expert in these things, so I couldn’t say for sure what the root cause is. The one thing that I have learned is that these types of issues within the church are often multi-faceted and multi-layered and there isn’t really a “magic bullet” solution.
I do tend to agree with the idea that they have “abdicated their role as teachers of sound doctrine.” You comment reminds me of Acts 6:1-7
“Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. And the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, ‘It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. But select from among you, brethren, seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will adevote ourselves to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.’ And the statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch. And these they brought before the apostles; and after praying, they laid their hands on them. And the word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.”
I totally agree! It might be useful to join such a position with evangelism and/or missions too, due to the natural relationship between the disciplines. I think a Minister of Evangelism, Missions, and Apologetics would be very valuable to any and every church and would easily be full-time.
Do you think any of those apologists in any of those churches could help us out on your Blog Entry regarding the 200 Word Resurrection Witness? I don’t mean to be a pest, but we have waited almost two months for a reply to our questions, like whether you are claiming the Christians killed by Nero actually saw a physically resurrected Christ and what sources you use regarding Peter’s death.
Sorry about that, DagoodS! I do hope to get back to that shortly. Honestly, I wouldn’t even have posted my latest blog except I was asked to do it as a promotional tie-in. I’ve learned one thing about blogging: for about three months of every semester I am simply too busy. That being said, I would be thankful if some other apologists were to get involved in the dialog you mention.
Anyone?
I get your point about apologetics info being remote from most churches. Unfortunately though, it is one of those things that people have to want to know and “seek” to know. Blogs like yours can be places for us “lay” apologists to get info and disseminate it to our small group, family, etc. Thanks for this blog, hopefully you’ll find time to keep writing!
Much of what is understood about apologetics is, well, rather mis-understood.
As I mentioned elsewhere, “Rather than viewing apologetics as an intellectual exercise only for the highly educated who can afford to accessorize their faith with debates, studies in world religions, and lots of hard reading, [all pastors are called] to integrate apologetics into your overall philosophy of ministry so you can effectively prepare God’s people to engage God’s world with God’s message for God’s glory.” If that’s not the business of the Church and her leadership, I don’t know what is!
Recently some skeptic decided to post a rather long post in this dialog about how I haven’t gotten back to our discussion on the early martyrs. He (or she) was obviously hoping that by making a long unrelated post in this forum that that he could cajole me into getting back to that other issue. All I can say is that I’m still very busy and I’ll get to that dialog again soon. Since the post was unrelated I’ve deleted it, I suggest you repost your post in the appropriate discussion and I’ll get to it in the next couple of weeks.
Excellent idea. A challenge for each Christian to be purposeful in preparing ourselves according to our giftings, as well as for pastors to utilize (deputize) undershepherds in roles like this.
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