During the final few months of my radiation therapy internship in 1988, I began to seriously consider the claims of the Christian faith for the first time.
My fiancé at the time, now my wife of 36 years, encouraged me to attend church with her. She was hoping that I would like to meet the pastor who would be marrying us in the very near future, before the day of our wedding!
Reluctantly I agreed. I had not grown up in the church and was very much a skeptic of organized religion in general and Christianity in particular. As far as I could remember I had always believed in God, because I was convinced that the universe was much too complex to have arisen by chance, random processes. My college coursework in physics, chemistry, and biology confirmed the necessity of a Creator, although not necessarily the God of the Bible. Unlike my Christian acquaintances, however, I viewed Jesus as being merely a great moral teacher of the ancient world, not the Son of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. I based my beliefs on what I felt was reasonable, as well as my experiences with people from various religions – which were often anything but positive.
When introduced to the pastor, he asked me what I believed about God and Jesus. I was honest and expected a heated debate to ensue. Instead, I found a man who was humble, sincere, and genuinely wanted to listen – even to a skeptic like me. He challenged me to examine the evidence for Christianity. He informed me of scientific discoveries and historical insights that have served as powerful evidence for the truth claims of the Christian faith.
Although I was not particularly surprised to discover that there was strong evidence for divine creation, I was very surprised to learn about the facts which supported the divine inspiration of the Bible and the deity of Christ. Although it would be many months before I would read the words of the Apostle Peter in his first epistle, I had already had a 1 Peter 3:15 encounter, but from the skeptic’s point of view at this time.
In the first year after graduating from radiation therapy school I began working in my field, married, bought a house, and my first child was born near the end of that year. As you can imagine, I did not have ample free time to devour book after book on the case for the Christian faith, but I did stay interested enough to continue examining the evidence albeit at a very slow pace.
After years of considering the trustworthiness of the Bible and the claim of Jesus’ deity, I made a faith decision for Christ. I came to realize that reasoning would not always render truth, because our logic and ability to reason is imperfect, and people can and will twist ideas to fit their presuppositions. Emotions also cannot be fully trusted. Although I could readily see that some professing Christians received emotional strength from their faith in Christ, I did not want to place my faith in Jesus simply because it might make me feel good and give me hope. Like Pontius Pilate, I wanted to know what truth is (John 18:38). I did not care about how I felt emotionally concerning faith; I wanted a faith that I could trust based upon evidence as well. I wanted a faith based upon scientific principles and historical facts, not a blind faith based upon pure emotions.
That was my personal journey into the area of Christian apologetics, the area of theology concerned with knowing why we believe what we believe. In my case, the evidence really mattered, although I would be dishonest if I said that the emotional factor did not also play a role in my conversion to Christ: Being human demands that emotions will always be a factor in any decision-making, from the smallest of things to the most important thing of all, our worldview.
A basic primer on Apologetics: Defending the faith
Apologetics, which is derived from the Greek word apologia, was originally used to denote a speech of defense, and is generally employed in Christian evangelism to defend and uphold the faith by providing biblically, scientifically, and historically sound answers to common objections to Christianity. Apologia is used seven times in the New Testament (Acts 22:1; 25:16; 1 Corinthians 9:3; Philippians 1:7, 16; 2 Timothy 4:16; 1 Peter 3:15). Apologetics has been a facet of Christianity since the beginning of the faith: The moment the church was born, apologetics was born with it.
Like many other aspects of theology and Christian thought, apologetics is categorized in different ways. Many pastors and theologians categorize apologetics into defensive and offensive modes, with defensive apologetics commonly employed to answer the accusations of unbelievers and skeptics while offensive apologetics is most often used to address the claims of non-Christian philosophies and religions.
Regardless of how apologetics is categorized, 1 Peter 3:15 is the clearest command from Scripture to be ready to engage in apologetics: “But in your hearts set apart 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.”
Additional passages of Scripture compliment this verse quite well (Timothy 2:24-26; 4:2-5; Titus 1:9). All these verses make it clear that Christian believers must be prepared to explain to unbelievers not only what they believe, but why they believe it.
After studying this topic in some depth, I have noticed that many authors strive to construct a cumulative case for the Christian faith by providing persuasive lines of evidence in four areas, usually in the following order:
1) The existence and nature of God, usually with an emphasis on the evidence for divine creation.
2) The divine inspiration of Scripture, focusing on the Bible’s internal consistency, external verification, consistency with modern scientific discoveries, and fulfilled prophecy.
3) The evidence for the deity of Christ, with an emphasis on the plausibility of miracles and the case for the resurrection of Jesus.
4) Addressing challenges to the faith, such as the problem of suffering and evil.
Be ready to challenge others to “examine the evidence”
As Christian believers, it is imperative that we gracefully and lovingly challenge unbelievers and even skeptics to examine the trustworthiness of the Christian faith. If it worked for me many years ago, it could still work for others today. The evidence for the trustworthiness of the Christian faith is ample, which is why our faith is not a blind faith, but rather a reasonable faith.
I would encourage all believers to make themselves comfortable with the following websites:
Creation Ministries International (creation.com)
Reasonable Faith (reasonablefaith.org)
Reasons to Believe (reasons.org)
Stand to Reason (str.org)
In conclusion, remember these words from Jesus: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20).” Jesus will not let us share our faith without his guidance and encouragement.
Randy Hroziencik
Pastor at First Baptist Church, Kewanee, Ill.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Kewanee Voice.
