Commending and Defending Christian Faith:

An Introduction to Christian Apologetics

H. Lynn Gardner

Foreword by Gary R. Habermas

(Joplin, MO: College Press, 2010)

Endorsements:

“. . . an excellent introduction to apologetics.”

Norman L. Geisler, Distinguished Professor of Apologetics, Veritas Evangelical Seminary (www.VeritasSeminary.com)

“. . . specifically crafted for convenient use as a college textbook. . . . can be required along with a second text of Christian evidences to create a well-rounded approach to this subject.”

Gary R. Habermas, Distinguished Research Professor, and Chair Department of Philosophy and Theology, Liberty University

“His handling of the introductory and background issues . . . is thorough, sound, and much needed.”

Jack Cottrell, Professor of Theology, Cincinnati Christian University

“. . . contemporary and timeless introduction to the field that is both scholarly and devotional.”

David Peters, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics, Florida Christian College

“. . . strong defense of the concept of objective truth from God.”

Johnny Pressley, Dean of the Graduate Seminary, Cincinnati Christian University

“. . . mandatory reading for preachers, youth ministers, campus ministers, youth workers of all sorts, and anyone else who seeks to direct others’ spiritual journeys.”

David Embree, Director, Christian Campus House, Instructor, Department of Religious Studies, Missouri State University

A “how-to-think-about-apologetics” book.

Introduces the basic terms and concepts, key thinkers, and fundamental apologetic issues and questions. States the what, why, and how of apologetics preparing persons for further study of reasons for faith and answers to objections. It does not present the case for Christianity or answer attacks but rather introduces one to the study of Christian apologetics.

Contents:

Part One, Challenges to Christian Faith, helps the reader understand doubt and unbelief which make apologetics necessary.

Part Two, Foundations for Apologetics, discusses concepts essential to the defense of the truth of the Christian faith, including reason, knowledge, truth, and faith.

Part Three, The Practice of Apologetics, discusses reasons for apologetics, defense of the faith in the New Testament and in church history, methods of defense, practical uses of apologetics and guidelines for apologetics.

Audience:

The audience would be Bible college, seminary, and university students as well as leaders and thinkers seeking to defend the faith. It seeks to instruct and motivate Christians to be prepared to present an intelligent and effective case for Christianity.

The book challenges Christians to be good thinkers in how they go about defending and commending Christian faith. It could serve as a first book for beginning a serious study of apologetics.

Objectives:

• Be prepared to deal with doubt and unbelief.
• Be acquainted with the role of thinking, knowing, truth, and faith in apologetics.
• Know why we should defend the faith and how the faith can be defended.
• Learn from defenders of the faith in the New Testament and in church history.
• Gain practical suggestions and guidelines for giving a defense of your faith.

H. Lynn Gardner taught apologetics for forty years in Bible colleges, serving eighteen years as academic dean. A graduate of Ozark Christian College, California State University, Wheaton College, with a doctorate from the University of Arkansas. Included in his seven books are Where Is God When We Suffer? What the Bible Says about Suffering and Christianity Stands True: A Commonsense Look at the Evidence. www.lynngardner.info.

ISBN 978-0-89900-947-6: hardback, 501 pages.   Apologetics/Theology/General Bible

List price: $32.99. College Press—1-800-289-3300; email—books@collegepress.com

Internet price: $28.00, www.collegepress.com

The father said, “Honey, nobody knows what God looks like.”

Without batting an eye, she responded, “They will when I get through.”

Can we know God? Is it possible to know about him without knowing him personally? Knowing God is the most important knowledge because ignorance of God leads to evil behavior (Romans 1:21-31; John 16:2, 3; 1 John 4:8) and bears eternal consequences (John 17:3). Knowing God personally is what really matters.

How we view life depends on how we view God. For those who do not know God, life is a confusing maze.

Knowing God enables us to know why we are here on earth, how we should live, and what to expect in the life to come. Having God’s point of view on life and the world gives us perspective and stability. “Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).

The true and living God wants to be known. He revealed himself to Israel through the historical experience of his grace and judgment. Through their obedience and righteousness he wanted the nations to know him so he could bless them (Genesis 12:2, 3; 18:19; Exodus 19:4-6). He wills that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14; see also Psalm 22:27, 30, 31). Today people from all nations can come to know the living God through the preaching of the gospel of Christ (Matthew 28:18-20).

Knowing God does not mean we always understand him. No one knows everything about God. We do not have a complete understanding of ourselves or others. It is not surprising that we do not understand everything about the infinite being who made and rules the world. In everyday life we trust others without fully understanding them. We can know and trust God with our whole heart even when we do not understand all he does. His thoughts and ways far exceed our thoughts and ways (Isaiah 55:8, 9).

How then can we know God? We know other people by what they say and do. We also know God by what he says and does. “But he is infinite and we are finite,” one may protest. God is not only infinite but he is also personal. God created human beings as persons made in his image. Because of this we can receive communication from God, express our thoughts to him, and have a personal relationship with him. We can know God’s thoughts because he has spoken. Knowing him involves our minds, emotions, and wills.

We Know God with Our Minds

From observing the world around us we can know the existence of a divine being with eternal power; but this knowledge alone does not bring us to a personal relationship with God (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20). Paul introduced the pagan Athenians to the true God unknown to them (Acts 17) by appealing to nature and then to Christ.

God chose to communicate in human language. Through his words we gain a personal knowledge of him. God expressed his messages through inspired spokesmen—through prophets in the Old Testament and apostles in the New Testament. God’s supreme revelation came in the life, teachings, and work of Jesus. In Scripture he gives information about himself. He is eternal, having no beginning or end. He created all things and rules the universe. He is holy, perfect, loving, and merciful. Through Scripture we learn about his thoughts, feelings, character, plans, and actions.

If you asked a godly Israelite how he knew God he would probably tell about God leading his people out of Egypt or returning them to Israel from Babylon. By the statement that they “may know that I am the LORD” God explained his purpose in the events of the exodus and in the events of the exile and return. He states this 12 times in Exodus and 65 in Ezekiel. We can know God through the stories of his dealings with Israel and the nations.

“No one has ever seen God, but the unique God, the one in the bosom of the Father, has made him known” (John 1:18, my translation). The living God made himself visible to humans through the incarnation of God the Son. Jesus declared, “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. . . . Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:7, 9; John 8:19; 10:38, 12:45; 14:6-11; 17:20-26).

“No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:23). “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20, 21; see also 1 John 4:13-16).

Well aware of the God revealed in the Old Testament, Jesus’ disciples identified Jesus with that God. The New Testament writers recorded Jesus’ teaching, actions, and claims identifying himself with the functions of the God of Israel—Creator, Ruler, King, Judge and Redeemer. God’s mission in the Old Testament of making himself known to the nations continues through Jesus and the Great Commission.

Without having a complete knowledge of God we can have true knowledge of him. Factual knowledge is a part of knowing God, but we can learn information about God without knowing him personally. We can know God intellectually but also we can know him by experience.

We Know God in Our Emotional Response

My friend consistently shows unselfishness, honesty, and kindness to me and to others. These actions create within me a growing sense of respect, confidence, and trust in him.

As we learn about God’s actions in history—his miraculous power, his faithfulness to his promises, and his compassion and love for his people—we grow in our love and trust in him. We stand in wonder, amazement, and awe at his divine majesty.

Without communication personal relationships suffer or die. Knowing God personally involves our speaking to him in prayer. Prayer is not merely asking. It is conversation and communion with the God of the universe who eagerly listens to his children. We must meditate on what we know about God as he asks us to “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

Continual expressions of love between husband and wife deepen their relationship. A continuing practice of worship deepens our knowledge and relationship with God. Worship helps us focus on God and rise above our selfish concerns, reminds of our total indebtedness to and dependence upon God, and inspires us to renewed love and service. Memorials such as the Passover and the Lord’s Supper remind the worshiper of what God has done and is doing.

Knowing God is not merely believing God exists but personally trusting him and loving him. We devote our whole being to pleasing him more than pleasing self or any person on earth. We honor, praise, and give him thanks as our God. With a whole heart we care about him and his cause.

Salvation through Christ gives us assurance of forgiveness of sin and hope of eternal life. We experience peace of mind and the joy of being in Christ. As we express our feelings of dependence, loyalty, and devotion to the Lord, our love grows and we come to know him better.

We Know God in Our Ethical Behavior

In addition to mental knowledge and emotional response, we need to obey him because he is God. We submit to his word and will. We come to know him better as we obey him. As we surrender to his lordship and obey his commandments, the thoughts and emotions of our inner spirit come more in line and in tune with God. John said those who claim to know God but disobey his commandments are liars (1 John 2:4).

When we choose to do the right thing in the teeth of powerful temptations, when we trust God when horrible things happen to us, when we put God first when everything is going great, our knowledge of the person of God becomes more real. As we walk daily with the Lord, loving and obeying him, our knowledge of him deepens and grows.

The Lookout, August 16, 2009

Sociologist Christian Smith identified the religion of American teenagers as “moralistic therapeutic deism.” He lists its beliefs as follows.

1. God created the world.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other.
3. The goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God is uninvolved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

(Christian Smith and Melissa Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, Oxford University Press, 2005).

This set of beliefs describes many adults as well as teenagers. Many I have known do not have a personal relationship with Christ or participation in a church. They use God’s name to forcefully punctuate a sentence but expect him to help them when they need him and confidently expect to go to heaven when they die.

An interest in spirituality does not make one a Christian.  We must teach people to know Christ who has revealed God to us. Generic religion does not produce godly lives and does not save.  In our lives and church we must help people know the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Ashamed of your body? Dislike your body? Preoccupied with your body? Is your body the most important part of you? Who influences what you think of your body? What is the Christian view of the body? We may view our bodies as a prison, as a god, or as a temple of God.

The Human Body as a Prison

Some pagans viewed the material world, including the human body, as evil. Plato thought the body hindered the soul from gaining truth, contaminating and imprisoning the soul. Epictetus saw himself as a “poor soul shackled to a corpse.” Seneca called the body a “detestable habitation” imprisoning the soul. Virgil spoke of the body as “blind darkness of this prison house.”

The Old Testament does not picture the body as evil, yet Philo, a Jew, thought of the body as a corpse, a prison, and a hindrance to the knowledge of God.

Gnostics taught the body was evil and denied Jesus Christ had actually come in a flesh body. This led to two extremes: one demanding abstinence from marriage and sex and the other advocated full gratification of bodily desires because the body had no effect on the soul.

Some early Christians considered the body a prison and a corpse, which makes belief in God difficult. Origen held that the soul was assigned to the body as a prison, as a penalty for sins. His disdain for the body is evidenced by his self-emasculation. Augustine viewed celibacy as holier than marriage. He taught that procreation in marriage was the only legitimate use of sex and even this was tainted because the child inherited the guilt of original sin. Contempt for the body contributed to monasticism in the church.

Paul Tournier, Christian psychiatrist, states, “The body is like a dog: if it is treated as an enemy, it snarls. To live in contempt of one’s body heaping it with abuse and vexation, is to wage a sort of civil war within oneself and to endanger one’s health.” Those addicted to food, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or sex have lost the sense of their body as holy. Contempt for the body results in shameless, sinful misuse of it.

God created human beings with bodies and declared his entire creation “very good” (Genesis 1:27, 31). We need not be ashamed of the way God made us.

The Human Body as a God

When Enlightenment thinkers lost confidence in God, they deified man. Reason, feelings, or bodily desires became their god. Rousseau, a Frenchman, taught that nature is good and one should do whatever comes naturally.

When a spiritual focus in life is lost, a physical focus becomes dominant. Bodily pleasures become the preoccupation. When one rejects the true God, false gods are substituted.

Today’s pagans practice the idolatry of body worship. Hollywood, TV, and the Internet feature gods and goddesses whose focus is on the body and sex. The worship of the body is screamed at us today by all forms of media as the focus of success and happiness.

Having rejected the Bible, D. H. Lawrence looked to the body for truth and meaning. He said: “Give me the body. I believe the life of the body is a greater reality than the life of the mind; when the body is really awakened to life . . . the human body is only just coming to real life. With the Greeks it gave a lovely flicker, then Plato and Aristotle killed it, and Jesus finished it off. But now the body is coming to life.”

“I want it” and “It feels good” do not justify “doing it.” Many feel that sexual pleasure sanctions any action. Physical health and beauty, eating, sex, or any other bodily pleasure or function makes a bad god. The body does not know right from wrong. Unless the mind and will are committed to normative standards, the strong impulses of the body can lead one to rationalize any behavior.

When Solomon kept his heart from no pleasure, his life was meaningless and “a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:10, 11, New American Standard Version). One who lives for pleasure is dead while he or she lives (1 Timothy 5:6, NIV). Those who worship their bodies submit to a very fickle and foolish god.

The Human Body as a Temple of God

The word body can mean the physical body (1 Corinthians 13:3) or the whole person, the self (Romans 12:1). The New Testament word for flesh can refer to the material covering our bones (1 Corinthians 15:39), the physical body (Galatians 2:20), or to persons (Galatians 1:16, Acts 2:17). Paul often uses flesh to mean life apart from the will of God following one’s selfish desires.

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20). Do not use your body selfishly but glorify God in the use of your tongue, eyes, ears, dress, habits, and entire lifestyle. Present your bodies as an offering to the Lord (Romans 12:1; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:17).

Marriage should be marked by honor and purity (Hebrews 13:4). Marriage is the general rule; however some are celibate for the kingdom’s sake. Sex is not sinful but is a wonderful gift to be exercised only within marriage, directed and disciplined by God’s guidelines. Marriage partners must control their own bodies out of mutual love and concern for the best interest of the other (1 Corinthians 7:4). “Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies” (Ephesians 5:28, NIV).

The body can be an instrument for good or evil (Romans 6:12-19). The body itself is not sinful but can be misused in sin. Babbage states, “Our Lord was sinless with a body. The devil is sinful without a body.”

The body is subject to the spirit’s control. “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8). Tournier suggests that the spirit is like a good horseman who holds the reins firmly not to mistreat or paralyze but to guide and direct.

Do not let your body be enslaved by alcohol, smoking, drugs, immorality, gluttony, or anything (1 Corinthians 6:12). Discipline your body to keep it subject to your spirit (1 Corinthians 9:27). Mastery of the body is essential to holiness. Tournier says, “It is not a matter of treating the body as an enemy and raining blows upon it but rather as a friend whom one helps to play his part correctly.”

The body was not meant for fornication but for the Lord (1 Corinthians 6:13). “Flee from sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). Don’t deliberate or debate. Flee! Get away from any compromising or tempting situation as fast as possible. Sexual immorality is a sin against the body (1 Corinthians 6:18). Sexual sin results in far-reaching physical and psychological scars and consequences, harming the person. Paul Tournier said men and women in his counseling room believe God will forgive all sins except sexual ones because “they are projecting to God their own contempt of themselves.”

We must “cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1, NASB). Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20) and our bodies are members of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:15). Live by the Spirit not according to the flesh (Galatians 5:16-25). “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Romans 13:14).

Clothing provides protection, modesty, and adornment. Dress modestly (1 Peter 3:3-5). Immodest dress—sexually provocative, ostentatious, or weird—calls inappropriate or undue attention to your body. Live with hope and courage that Christ will be honored in your body (Philippians 1:20). Our bodies will be raised up on that Great Day (1 Corinthians 6:14) as glorious bodies (Philippians 3:21). Regardless of how dilapidated or diseased our bodies become in this world, we will have new bodies fit for eternity.

A young boy in the Midwest had scrubbed his pig, ready to enter it into the show ring at the county fair. On the way to the show ring the pig managed to get dirty in a mud puddle, frustrating his owner. Sitting on his back steps that evening, the boy observed a cat cleaning herself. He thought, “If I could only get the spirit of the cat into the pig.”

Christ makes us new creatures as his Holy Spirit comes and dwells in our bodies as his temples. What a privilege! We must not degrade our bodies as a prison. Hate for our bodies shows contempt for the God who made us. We must not deify our bodies as a god. When we make our bodily desires supreme we worship a false god. We must continually dedicate our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit so that God is glorified and Christ is honored.