Tag: Apologetics

Turf Wars

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Roughly speaking, the job of a salesman is to convince you to buy something you don’t want or need. In truth, though, the best salesmen understand that their job is to help you discover what it is that you do need, and to then help you see that need met. In sharing the Gospel in a post-Christian context, we are surrounded by people who don’t really understand what they actually need. It is our job as followers of Jesus to help them with that. In order to do that, though, we first have to establish a relational connection with them. That means learning to operate on their turf. This all what we are talking about as we continue our teaching series, When Faith Isn’t Assumed. Let’s dive right in.

Turf Wars

There’s nothing quite like a home field advantage. Personally, with the exception of the Royals, I’m pretty accustomed to cheering for teams with incredible home field advantages.I know this season was somewhat of a disappointment, but the Chief’s Arrowhead Stadium is the loudest stadium in the NFL. Props on their dominant win last week aside, Seattle fans tried to make a counter-claim that, actually, theirs was the loudest NFL stadium a few years ago. Chiefs fans promptly demonstrated the error in Seattle’s thinking by responding with the cold, hard reality of 142.2 decibels, a Guinness World Record that, no, Arrowhead really is the loudest NFL stadium. 

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A Class of One

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Last week we started a new teaching journey exploring how we can effectively share the Gospel in a culture that is post-Christian. It all starts with a foundation of truth, but that truth points us somewhere. It points us to someone: Jesus. Today we are talking about who Jesus is and what He has done through one of the most significant passages Paul wrote on the matter. Let’s marvel together at this incredible truth.

A Class of One

It all comes back to Jesus. For all the evangelistic tips and tricks that are out there—and there are many—for all the outreach programs and methods churches buy and put into use; for all the apologetic arguments both positive and negative we could use to promote and defend the Christian faith, there is one thing that everything ultimately comes back to: Jesus. If a person is going to make a rational judgment of the Christian worldview, no matter which worldview ground is his starting place—Christian, non-Christian, post-Christian, anti-Christian, and so on and so forth—he ultimately has to decide what he is going to do with Jesus. It all comes back to Jesus. If we are going to successfully share the Gospel in a culture such as ours, we have to be able to tell people who Jesus really is…which assumes we know that ourselves. Let’s see if we can’t tackle both pieces of this particular puzzle today. 

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 10:18-21

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“But I ask, ‘Did they not hear?’ Yes, they did: ‘Their voice has gone out to the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’ But I ask, ‘Did Israel not understand?’ First, Moses said, ‘I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that lacks understanding.’ And Isaiah says boldly, ‘I was found by those who were not looking for me; I revealed myself to those who were not asking for me.’ But to Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and defiant people.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

For the last two chapters now, Paul has been talking about Israel and their rejection of the Gospel. He has struggled with it emotionally even as he understands it experientially. But even though he understood the fact of it, he nonetheless marvels at it with his audience. Here, at the end of chapter 10, Paul begins asking some more hard questions about Israel’s rejection, God’s plans in light of it, and what this all means for non-Jewish followers of Jesus. Let’s start digging into this with him.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 1:19-20

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“…since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I love engaging with optical illusions. I especially like the kind where you can’t see something at first, but then, when your brain has wrapped itself fully around what’s really there, you can’t not see it. Sometimes it takes a little work to get to the place where you can really see—and sometimes you need help from someone else who can already see to adjust your mind and eyes accordingly—but that moment when you finally get it is always a pretty sweet one. Thinking about it, the world is kind of like an optical illusion. It looks one way at first glance, but once you see what really is, you just about can’t not see it anymore. This is where Paul goes next. Let’s join him.

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Giving An Answer

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Imagine you’re in a conversation and somebody asks you why you are a follower of Jesus. What would you say? For most of us, the very prospect of that situation unfolding is enough to make us break out in a cold sweat. The last thing in the world we want to do is to be asked a question about our faith that we potentially can’t answer. And yet, we are called to be able to give a response. Let’s talk today about the apostle Peter’s counsel on giving an answer and some practical steps we can take to be able to do just that.

Giving An Answer

We are a people given to fear. We fear all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. Go look up a list of phobias sometime. You won’t be able to pronounce most of them, but the definitions will at least amuse you. Some of them seem like they have at least some sort of a rational justification for them like a fear of snakes (herpetophobia) or heights (acrophobia). Others seem just silly like a fear of the number 4 (tetraphobia) or the color yellow (xanthophobia). Then there are some that seem like someone just made them up entirely so they could create a long, impossible to pronounce word like hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia which, of course, is the fear of the number 666 (which, in case you were interested, my spell checker actually caught and flagged as being misspelled; not because it is a random jumble of letters, but because I swapped and “e” for an “a”). Most of those fears, though, are pretty niche. I don’t know of many people who suffer from arachibutyrophobia, the fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth. But there are some fears that are common and which have plagued humanity from time immemorial like death. 

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