Defending Christianity…
Before we get into the discussion about “the most difficult question for Christians and the biggest, most legitimate reason non-Christians can give as to why they choose not to believe in the Christian God” that I mentioned last week, I want to take a few minutes to discuss something even more important.
While the Bible teaches that a Christian should be able to defend his or her faith and give reasonable and rational answers to anyone who asks them why they believe what they do (1 Peter 3:15)… this is not the main focus of the Christian faith … Jesus is.
That’s not to say that rational answers are not important… Christians have many examples of how appealing to proofs and rational arguments in defending Christianity is clearly demonstrated in the New Testament:
- The apostles and Gospel writers appealed to Jesus’ miracles, resurrection and fulfilled prophecy to prove He was the Messiah.
- Paul appealed to natural theology, creation, and to witnesses of the resurrected Jesus.
- Jesus Himself appealed to His own miracles and prophecy that was fulfilled in His own life. He also appealed to His own resurrection before it even happened as future proof that He was who He claimed to be.
However…no matter how many rational arguments we use in defending Christianity from the critics or explaining to faith seekers why we believe what we do, the main focus of Christianity is still the person of Jesus and having a personal relationship with Him. Whether you are a Christian defending your faith, or a seeker looking for truth, we all need to realize what Christianity really is all about: the person and life of Christ.
The Message of Jesus Christ
God created us in a perfect world…but with the freedom to choose to love and obey Him, or to reject and disobey. The first humans decided to disobey, and since then every one of us is born with the inclination to do the same. Inclinations soon turn into sinful actions. This rejection and disobedience breaks our relationship with God.
God is Holy and cannot tolerate sin, but He is loving and does not want anyone to be separated from Him, so He created a plan of reconciliation. Because of His holiness, His plan required a sinless, blameless, voluntary sacrifice. One that could love even those that rejected and tortured Him. Love them so much that he would be willing to take all of their sins on Himself and pay the price of their sin for them. Then we would no longer have to pay the price and remain separated from God…we could be reconciled with Him.
Jesus Christ willingly died for us so we could be reconciled with God and fix our broken relationship with Him. God arranged all of history surrounding the birth, life, and crucifixion of Christ. He is the the real message of Christianity…He is what all honest seekers are looking for…He is Truth.
I believe all of the other things I talk about in this blog are important in a lot of ways, or I wouldn’t take the time to write about them…but as a Christian, I have to remember that all of the logic and arguments in Defending Christianity, though important, should not be the focus of my faith. Jesus should.
He should also be our focus of discussion with others about our faith. Peter tells Christians to be ready to give reasons for their faith when they are asked…but the person doing the asking needs to know the gospel message before there is any real reason to defend it.
Christian Apologetics
Christian apologetics is about rational, historical, scientific, and philosophical arguments for the truth and validity of Christianity…it is about enabling a situation where the truth of Christianity is an intellectually acceptable idea amongst an increasingly skeptical culture…and we do have the tools to show that it is.
We just need to remember the reason why we want to show Christianity as a viable option: Because it leads to Jesus.
Soon we’ll start digging into ‘The Big Question’…if you haven’t figured it out, it’s what philosophers often call The Problem of Evil. This will probably take several posts and will still leave a lot of questions, so I encourage you to read more on the subject than what you’ll be getting from me on this blog. This will be one of the most common questions you get (and rightly so) if you are defending Christianity, and it’s probably one of the biggest questions you have if you are exploring the rationality of the Christian faith.
Until next time,
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