Latest / Gospel Talks Podcast / #76 - Apologetics and Evangelism: You Don’t Have to Be a Debater-Biblical Apologetics for Everyday Christians

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#76 - Apologetics and Evangelism: You Don’t Have to Be a Debater-Biblical Apologetics for Everyday Christians · Gospel Talks Podcast

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Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world to become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
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I'm George Benoka and with me today is Jeff Musgrave, the founder and author of The Exchange.
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A lot of exciting things happening in The Exchange ministry.
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We're excited to be talking about apologetics today.
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And I think the question is, it's a question in my mind since the last episode is, so when do you use apologetics?
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What's the right time?
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What's the right kind?
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all those things.
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So, Jeff, any thoughts about that?
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Yeah, I do.
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I want to eventually get to a verse in First Peter that I think really helps.
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It's the verse that we get our word apologetics from.
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But I think that the the main thing that I really want to help our listeners get into their minds, because this is what I try to keep in my mind.
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And that is that
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apologetics are helpful to answer normal valid sincere questions and objections.
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I mean, any anybody who is not a believer is is going to have some objections, they're going to say, Hey, this is where I am putting my dependence now, you're telling me to put
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my dependence over here.
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And so there's going to become up these objections, questions, I believe, frankly, most of those when we're in a soul conversation are genuinely sincere.
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and that we have a responsibility to answer those questions in a biblical, reasonable manner.
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So I guess in my mind where I went was so you feel like apologetics aren't great for arguments just for the sake of argument or academic debate that its sincerity, you know
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you should engage in apologetics when it's not what kind of question it comes down to the quality of the question in terms of sincerity is kind of where you're going with that.
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Yeah, well, I think the very first thing that I would say is, I want to start conversations about Jesus, I want to start conversations about the gospel.
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That's, that's where I am heading.
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And uh I if, if there are no objections, if there are no questions that I want to stay focused on the gospel.
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That rarely happens.
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I mean, I, I talked to people and they were whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, if that's true, what about
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that can't be true because and that's where we have to stop and answer sincere questions.
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And I would say that even if a person is totally discounting the gospel, their questions and their objections are sincere because they're coming from their heart.
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Does that make sense?
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It's really not a matter of I am going to
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talk about this if I feel like they're genuinely sincere.
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I think most people when they're talking about soul issues are sincere, they just disagree.
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And so we're going to help them see truth.
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I guess the other thing that comes into my mind is when I watch a video of a guy who's a famous, you know, at apologetics and is very gifted at it, I kind of tend to think I'm
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not, I don't have that same ability in gifting.
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So what kind of apologetics would you recommend for those of us who feel like, you know, we're not the kind of guy to stand up on stage and
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a Muslim and a Jewish scholar and you know all these people on our feet without much preparation
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Yeah, it does.
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And I guess my answer would be, we all have to be prepared for those conversations.
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It has to happen.
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And our preparation is not I have to know everything out there in the world to know.
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My preparation is I need to know the gospel well.
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I need to know the word of God well.
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So in those kind of conversations, I would agree with you.
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I listen to them and I admire them.
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But I think to myself, I don't know everything that they know.
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what I what I feel like I have become, and I don't really want to ever claim to be an expert.
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But but something that I have spent my life wrapping my brain around, and that is the truth of the Word of God.
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And so when I have these kind of conversations with people, my answer is always going to be, well, here's what the Bible says about that.
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Even if they say I don't agree with the Bible, I'm going to say, here's what the Bible says about that.
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I mean, those, it's going to be my answer every single time, because that's, that's what I know.
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And I really do believe that Jesus said, the truth will set you free.
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And that knowing the truth, and knowing that the truth is the word of God.
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gives me a confidence that I can speak to anybody, whether they're a Muslim, whether they're a unbelieving Catholic, whether they're kind of just a narcissist, whatever
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perspective someone's coming from, I feel like I have some answers because I know the Bible, if that makes sense.
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Yeah, you know what's cool?
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You shared that reference last episode 19 Psalm 19 seven
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Yep, I used it in counseling last week.
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The concept you gave me is so powerful, those words converting the soul, that scripture is so powerful.
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It's used in converting the soul that when I was counseling this couple about them counseling somebody else and their family, I just said, you know, you should remember that
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it's the word of God that has the power to convert the soul, not our opinions, not our logic, not our ability to verbalize in our own words, but
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I mean as much as we can go back to scripture, that's the best kind of counseling apologetic whatever It's going to be the best approach to anything
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And not every translation uses the word converting, but the word that's underneath of the language means giving life to and so it's it's, you know, just like Jesus said, the truth
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will set you free, the word of God will bring you life.
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That's that's that's the promise that we have about that.
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You know, one of our deacons got up on last Sunday morning and prayed for our offering, also prayed that God would use me, the preacher that day.
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And one of the things that he said is, Lord, your word is a sharp, sharp sword.
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Help our pastor be able to use it well.
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it just, again, it goes to expressing the power of God's word.
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I had one friend say that when we use God's words, we we hand the Holy Spirit his sword.
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And you know, we're, we're doing we're doing spiritual battle, we're doing mental conflict.
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And in in the battle, we have help.
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And I think that's really the key here.
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This is not just mental gymnastics.
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This is spiritual battle.
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And we are not alone.
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We have the Holy Spirit.
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And when we use the Word of God, we literally hand the Holy Spirit that sharp, sharp sword and let him do battle for us and in the heart of people, I can say words, but the Holy
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Spirit is the one who convinces in
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you just said it exactly the way i was thinking about it which is i watch some of these debaters or guys who do apologetics and feel like they're doing mental gymnastics that i
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can't do i'm not that flexible you know and so they're gifted in a certain way it makes me go every time i hear the word apologetics it makes me go i'm not that guy but the way
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you're putting it is so much more you know this is every christian and i think we just haven't been thinking about apologetics biblically
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Yes.
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And here, here's the definition of uh biblical apologetics that I like to use in my own mind.
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It's the practice of defending and explaining the reasonableness of our faith, using the Bible as our foundation.
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And that's, that's really the issue is we're helping people to recognize, look, I know you feel like this is absurd.
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But let me just show you the reasonableness of this by helping you see
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the whole of scripture because the scripture cannot be broken.
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i love the way you put that the bible is reasonable our faith is is reasonable and it's not that logic is the bible but it's that the bible is logical it's not unreasonable yeah
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that's the hope we give people when we defend it
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Yeah, and using this verse that I want us to talk about today, one of the words that we're going to find in the verse is the word logos.
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And it uses it in the context of logic, that's where we get our word logic from it to begin with is the Greek word logos.
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And God does want our words to be logical.
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It's just that we're not
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logically battling with people were just simply taking truth and helping them to be able to see the logic of it.
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I love that.
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You know, we don't even, it's not that we have to necessarily always explain its logic, but that the way you're saying it just makes it so clear.
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When you present it, it'll be logical to them.
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You know, it's not like there's a logic absent from scripture until you put it there.
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It's already in there.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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I by the way, I'm doing my podcast from the steep studio.
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And there's several folk coming in and out today.
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So if you see my eyes do just a little bit, I apologize, I am just greeting people with my eyes.
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So the the I love this thought apologetics to me.
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is using the Bible to answer normal valid sincere questions or objections.
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It it the idea would be that I'm going to lead with the gospel.
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I only get into apologetics.
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And and when I say apologetics, mean, biblically explaining the questions and the objections.
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I am only getting into that.
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when there's a misconception or whether there's a misunderstanding or even an objection to what's just been said about the gospel.
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Yes, I think that's exactly right because that's the foundation of our entire message is the gospel.
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And I think, you know, from what we were talking about before, I mean, that's exactly where 1 Peter 3.15 starts.
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It starts with Jesus.
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Yeah, yeah, it does.
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So let me just read that verse.
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I think it might help us.
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This is the verse that I want us to focus on.
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And we're gonna take seven different principles from this verse.
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And I think there'll be very obvious evidence.
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It's, we're not even plumbing the depths of what's being said here.
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In your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asked you a question.
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for a reason for the hope that is in you yet do it with gentleness and respect.
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So those are that's the that is the whole of first Peter 3 15 and as you can see it starts with honoring Christ.
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I think that's exactly the way to start is to think about this is about honoring Jesus.
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This is about honoring who he is.
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This is about his person.
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And this is what we talk about in the exchange all the time.
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You're not introducing a plan like an architect.
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You're introducing a person to somebody.
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You you're putting your arm around your friend saying this is who Jesus is.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And I think that those first words of the verse, in your hearts honor Christ as Lord.
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I think it's really valuable for us to remember at the very beginning, when we're talking about apologetics, we're still aiming at the heart.
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The place where the seed of God's Word has to rest is the soil of a man's soul.
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We have to aim at the heart.
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goes through the mind and so we have to be logical, but we're aiming deeper than just convincing the mind.
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In your hearts honor Christ.
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And then I think it's those three words that we see here describing Christ is number one honoring Christ.
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That's the word Messiah, the Lord, and then as holy.
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So these three words describing him.
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Yeah, what I love about that is, you know, you get a chance right away to address the spirit, what has to be going on spiritually in the heart of somebody who's defending the
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gospel, who's defending the word of God, is that there's, you have to meet a spiritual qualification to being.
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effective at this, being good at it.
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It's not just about your ability to logic, it's not just about your ability to talk or think on your feet.
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Like the most important aspect of your effectiveness in defending the faith is are you honoring Christ in your heart?
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Yeah, and I think that if you read the context of First Peter three, that's the whole context.
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So you're absolutely right.
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That's that's the this verse we actually take out of context to be able to deal with apologetics.
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But the context is living a life that is not just compatible, but living out of the grace of the gospel.
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Yep.
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And I think the next word kind of starts to get at, you know, what you were talking about earlier, which is I made a comment like, hey, like, those guys can do this without
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preparation.
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And you said, well, preparation is part of the requirement.
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I think that's some of the next words we see in First Peter three.
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Absolutely.
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He says, he says, always being ready.
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And I and literally, the idea is being prepared to be able to make these defenses.
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And I think that part of the preparation is getting in our minds who God is, you know, he's saying to us here, we're honoring Christ, the Lord, as holy.
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And so it's not just we're going to talk about God, we're going to talk about Jesus, we're going to talk about a creator, we're going to talk about a higher being.
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This is talking about who God tells us he is in the Word of God.
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And that's really what we mean when we say let's let's be ready to give the gospel, let's be ready to talk about who God is and how we have a relationship with him.
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what's cool here in the verses as you as you read it i'm just looking at the first year's this jesus this christ holy is worthy of our preparation and worthy of and the next was
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our make a defense i'm guessing that's where we get the word of all of you
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Yeah, that the word make a defense is the definition or is the translation of the Greek word Apologia underneath of it.
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So I would like to just pause here a moment and and say if there are people in our listening group that don't feel like they're prepared, that's really what the exchange is
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all about is helping people to be prepared.
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And we have several books that would be helpful for you in that regard.
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I think probably the easiest thing would be to
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get the exchange online.
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It's basically our teaching on evangelism in a online course.
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It's rather affordable.
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We have it both for audiences of one or a different price for an audience of uh a larger group.
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And so the exchange online, you can find that on our first page of the website.
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I think it'd be something that would be really helpful to people.
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It is
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interesting that the idea of being prepared is not just being ready, but being eager.
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I think that when we are, I don't know about you, but if I were thinking about I have to do mental gymnastics with these people, and I have to, I have to be able to get the
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mastery over them in this mental gymnastics, I'm not going to be very eager about that.
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But if I'm going to be talking about honoring Jesus as
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Lord and as holy.
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I can get pretty eager about that.
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I love that.
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Yeah, it's what you're eager for.
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guess if you're eager to be right, that's not biblical apologetics, but if you're eager to show Christ, that that is biblical apologetics.
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Yeah, exactly.
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And and notice he uses the word always this is we need we need to live this way.
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This is we need to be prepared for this every minute.
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And that's why it's important for us to study and know the Word of God and specifically the gospel.
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So you were you were talking about the word of Paul, the word Apologia.
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The it actually means to speak on behalf of oneself or another against accusations presumed to be false.
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it's so when it says to make a defense it's saying I they're believing something that's not true and about God and I am literally going to defend the truth of God that's that's
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the idea of apologetics
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So as you've studied scripture, like, and I love, because this is one the things I love to do, scripture illustrates itself.
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Where would you go to kind of present this to somebody who's a laborer in the harvest and say, here's an example of apologia in scripture.
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Here's a biblical example of biblical apologetics.
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Yeah, I just kind of jotted down a couple of them for myself.
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Acts chapter 19 in Ephesus where there's the riot going on and they drag the disciples into the arena.
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And so I've been to Ephesus, this arena is humongous.
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And I just can hardly imagine what that crowd of people all shouting different things.
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And it says, so the city was in
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filled with confusion.
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This is in Acts chapter 19.
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And they rushed together into the theater, dragging them some of the Paul's traveling companions.
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And the crowd prompted Alexander.
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And it says Alexander motioned with his hand.
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That was just the Greek way of trying to get an audience.
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Okay, everybody listen to me motion with his hand.
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wanted to make a defense to the crowd and so that they had been accused were they're trying to destroy the livelihood of Alexander the copper or the silversmith and he's
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wanting to make a defense no that's not what we're doing this is what we're doing and that's that's the picture here there's another one when Paul is accused of bringing Greeks
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into the temple this is in Acts 22 is just a couple of chapters later and he
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has several things that happened there, but eventually he gets the ability to speak to the crowd and he says, brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.
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I'm going to speak on my behalf against these accusations that have been made.
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And by the way, he speaks primarily of the gospel in that defense that he makes.
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you know one of the things i found him find amazing about that you know i was preaching first print the in chapter one this last weekend and paul basically says that the gospel
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is is a is a foolish thing to the wise of the world and the and the reason he's saying that is not not because he actually believes that it's it is foolish like they will be
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foolish he's saying that because nobody would make up the cross nobody would think to fabricate this story it's it
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is not, it's not how you would do it.
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And so I think that's in and of itself a defense of the gospel and Paul just preaches the gospel uh plainly.
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Yep.
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That's exactly right.
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in the same context of that First Corinthians passage, he goes on to say, Look, look among yourselves.
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Not many mighty, not many noble, not many wise men.
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And, and, and literally what he's saying to us is look around believer.
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Just just notice who the believers are.
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And you're going to notice we are normal people.
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And all God wants us to do is be normal people speak and then he uses this in the context we preach Christ.
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That's what we do.
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Normal people preaching Christ, and the Lord is going to be able to take that and use it.
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you're preaching the sermon that I wrote without even looking at my notes.
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How'd you do that?
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No, I'm kidding.
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I know how you did that, because you're just preaching the word.
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It's the context.
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It's the it's the passage.
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Yeah.
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I do think that it's important to notice that in this passage back to First Peter again, he says be ready to give an answer to give a defense to anyone who asked you.
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And I am concerned that this phrase may be misunderstood by some
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And uh it's, it's like, I have to wait until people ask me before I tell them about Jesus.
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And the context here is saying we have been commanded to go to believers to be a witness of the transformation Christ made of my life can make in your life.
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This verse is not talking about waiting to talk about Jesus, it's talking about what to do when people ask us bring up
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objections and questions, as we're talking about Jesus.
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So the context of this making a defense when people ask is not wait to talk.
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It's when you're talking, and they have objections that they're asking you about.
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That's when you speak in this prepared manner.
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I'm so glad you brought this up.
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I mean, I was literally thinking that as I read it, I'm like, I wonder if he's going to say it's only when they ask, but it's, it's when they ask in the conversation, be ready to
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make a defense.
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Absolutely, absolutely.
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And I think another mistake that people make with this phrase is that they read, we have to make the defense.
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And they and they start with the defense.
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And, and literally, what this is saying is this is a defense, at a response to a question or a misconception.
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We lead with the gospel, not with apologetics.
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We lead with the gospel and then utilize apologetics to be able to answer the questions and the objections and the misconceptions that people have.
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Yeah, I love that because it makes the main thing the main thing and then apologetics is a tool and not the main thing, which is the way I think this verse is presenting it.
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And it's an important tool because we need to be able to defend our Lord and Savior.
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What a beautiful picture.
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We get to defend Him who died for us.
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what an honor that is.
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He doesn't need us to defend him.
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mean, his account defends himself.
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He defends himself within the scriptures, but we get to be part of that.
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Yeah, I think that's awesome.
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And notice here the next phrase he says, and to anyone that asked a question for the reason of the hope and the reason here is the word logic.
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And so they're asking, we've got to make it reasonable, we've got to we've got to give them the logical answers.
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And, you know, you and I have talked about this before, the the
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Greek word Lagos is the source for the English word logic.
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And it has to be and by the way, the first use of the word logic in the English language was the art or the science of reasoning.
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And, you know, being reasonable and helping people see the reasons to trust Jesus.
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And I think that life is a big, big illustration of the reasonableness of God's truth because like, for instance, the Trinity, the way I explain my the Trinity to my daughter
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is that's family.
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This is where the concept of family comes from, is that God has a family.
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And so these are the roles in God's family.
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And so, yeah, is there a mysterious aspect to the Trinity?
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Yes, but I've come to so many things in life.
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Like when I got married, I understood even more about God just because there's the reality of marriage helps you to understand the truth of who he is.
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Same thing with children.
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When you have children, now you understand even more about him.
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And so life...
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Exposes us to the reasonableness of the truth of who God is Because the one who authored the word authored the world authored our lives And so it's all it all points back to him
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Yeah, I've actually heard people say about the Trinity, that I don't understand it all.
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But that doesn't make it illogical.
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It's very logical.
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It's just that it's bigger than I am.
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And some of these concepts are bigger than I am.
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But we can still help people see the logic of it all.
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I think it's important for us to remember that we don't have to be scholastic in our answers.
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We have to be reasonable.
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And there's a difference.
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Every day, people can have a basic logic and a basic reasonableness about them.
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All we have to do is use the basic biblical understanding and and wise logic that God gives to Christians as a result of knowing the truth.
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So I just remember this phrase.
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You don't have to be scholastic in your answers, but we do have to be reasonable.
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And so logistically, we have to we have to be a reasonable person and talk in a reasonable way.
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and hopeful.
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mean, that's one of his next words is hopeful.
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yeah.
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Yeah.
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In fact, the very next phrase is make it the hope that lies in you.
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And I've put in my little outline for myself here, make it hopeful.
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These, these answers are these debates that we have with people who don't know Jesus need to be one of offering hope and and not one of
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intellectually superior.
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I am not their intellectual superior.
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don't, I most of the time they're my intellectual superior.
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I can't really offer a superiority with intellect, but I can offer hope.
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can offer medicine for the soul.
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That's, that's what I have to offer.
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you
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Yes, and hope and all of it delivered with gentleness is what he says next, which is exactly along the lines of the first gift we give them as kindness a couple episodes back.
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We've talked about gentleness before, but I think this is so important because apologetics can sometimes become like a hammer and everything looks like a nail.
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And when everything looks like an air, sometimes you're going to take a hammer to a baby.
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And so it's like, you know, you have to be careful that you don't take your hammer and just start hitting things.
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You're going to do some damage.
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I think I told you a couple of weeks ago that my wife's been in the hospital recently.
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And we've been in and out of lots of doctors offices and seeing lots of nurses.
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And some nurses are more gentle than others.
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But all of them come with the thought process of I want to take care of you, I want to help you.
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And I really do believe that that's the key to gentleness.
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The key to gentleness is, look, you need hope.
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Hope is
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looking forward with confidence, expecting good expecting something beneficial, you need some hope and, and I want to care for you.
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And that's what that's what kind of drives our gentleness is is knowing that we we've got to help take care of the real need that this person has.
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I love that.
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That means it's not just what we say, but it's how we say it for the sake of the person we're saying it to.
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And if it's just about what we're saying, the delivery and the reception of it don't matter, then really what we're saying, it's a degradation of what we're saying.
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But because we deliver it with gentleness, it means that what we're delivering is all the more precious.
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Right.
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And notice in the context of the verse, it says yet, do it with gentleness.
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And I've already forgotten the next word respect.
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The thought process here is that in the heat of battle, and literally sometimes it's spiritual battle, we we tend to get a little too aggressive, a little too heated, you
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know, you're talking about taking a hammer.
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And I think we just have to be reminded here, literally yet, be like Jesus, Jesus says, I am gentle and lowly and hard.
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And we just have to remind ourselves that the concept of gentleness is mentioned way too many times in the Bible for us not to take it seriously.
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Galatians chapter six, where it talks about the fruit of the spirit, Second Timothy, to when it literally says correcting your opponents with gentleness.
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I mean, it just is said way too many times without us taking it seriously.
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You know, I hate to do this right here, but I have an idea just pop into my head about the next episode because of what you just said, which is this.
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How do we how how are we to be gentle and yet truthful and to somebody who has very, strong preferences?
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That are based on a worldview totally unbiblical for instance somebody comes up to me and this passage tells me make a defense Be gentle and respectful even to the person who comes
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up to me says my pronouns are they them?
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How do I as a laborer in the harvest?
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Reach that person that I'd love to jump into that at some point.
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I'm not Jeff will have to approve this offline.
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So he's not committed to it,
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let our our listeners look forward to that for next week.
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But just to touch on it with this next word.
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Worse yet, with gentleness and respect.
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So I've got in my notes for myself, stay respectful, do it with respect.
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Again, this word yet reminds us that when we get into a defensive
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posture, we tend to get combative.
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And I have to, I have to defeat you.
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And I think that the key here is for us to remember, we do have to defeat the error, but with the help the person so we'll get to that next week.
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I think that's really critical.
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But the word respect tip literally means to show value.
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And I think that's really the key in respect.
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in every circumstance is to remember, this person that I'm speaking to is valuable, that Jesus wants to rescue this person, no matter how far down they are, no matter how ugly
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they're behaving.
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Jesus wants to rescue them, they're valuable to Jesus, and they should be valuable to me as well.
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And I think that's really the critical thing.
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And frankly, one of the best ways to be respectful,
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is just to hear people out.
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You and I talked about the fact that I loved the fact that Charlie Cook gave a microphone to those who disagreed with him.
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And he said, Let's talk about it.
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And literally, he was willing to hear them out, to listen to their arguments.
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And and it was in listening to the argument that he could find the error and help them see the truth.
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And I think that
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One of the greatest soul needs that a person has is to be seen, to be known, to be heard.
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And we, we literally have the ability in the middle of an argument to show that person value by stopping and listening and giving them the ability to have their need met by my
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choosing to value them as a person.
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And some of those people that are let's say the porcupines of society that seem to kind of drive people away are the people that are most desperate for relationship and there are
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other reasons why they're like that But but I think you're exactly right.
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This is a soul need even in the prickliest of a person Everybody wants this and what they ultimately want is a relationship with God.
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They just don't know it
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Absolutely.
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And that's what they definitely need.
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I like to think of it this way.
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Every human needs human touch, even if they're prickly.
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the whole idea here is we want to lead people to a knowledge of the truth.
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I mean, that's that's it.
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They they get to choose what they want to with the knowledge of the truth.
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But we have to help them to see wait, this misconception isn't
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truth.
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This is truth.
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And that's what that's what these conversations are about.
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I love that.
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I can't think of a more important thing for believers and American around the world to be doing in this day and age that is full of lies and all sorts of instruments that are used
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to spread lies all over the world with extreme efficacy like social media.
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There's nothing more important than engaging in the exact thing you just said that we need to engage in, which is here is the truth.
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And doing it this way, doing apologetics biblically like this, man, that think about if believers all over
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world applied that to their interactions with unbelievers that would be the change the greatest change of a generation in hundreds of years it would be absolutely incredible yes
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let's do it well to those of you in the harvest pray with us as we pray to the Lord harvest that he would send forth laborers to do this exact thing that we talked about in
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this episode we love you guys and we will see you next week