Doing Apologetics in an Anti-Apologetics Age

Doctor Bockamhol's degree is from Houston Baptist University, Southwestern and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminaries. He's done posttoctoral studies at Oxford. He is currently serving as the Dean of the seminary at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia. He is faithful wife Bridget and their seven youngest children of nine made the bold move from the heart of Texas to the heart of Africa in August of twenty fifteen. On a personal note, Vote is also an accomplished martial artist. He has won numerous tournaments and titles, including winning the twenty fourteen Pan American Championship in his division. Although when he came by my office this morning, I had to take him down. Fat chance of that happening. We're very pleased to have doctor Bacham on campus as our twenty sixth Seeing Spiritual Life Week speaker. Please join with me in welcoming him here to our DTS campus. Well, good morning, it is good to be here with you this morning. I have looked forward to this for quite some time. I appreciate you being so kind as to invite a stranger from the school up the road to come here and be with you this week. Our topic this week is apologetics. And you hear that, and you can think, wait a minute, this is Spiritual life week and you're talking about apologetics and that's all hetty and not spiritual, and well, you don't know apologetics, and you don't know me. I came to faith later in life. I was born and raised in my early life in Los Angeles, California, and came of age during the late seventies early eighties at the height of all the drug wars and crack wars and all of this other stuff. And I was raised by a single teenage Buddhist mother, never heard the Gospel till my first year at university, and so I came to Faith as an outsider and always thought about Christianity differently, always looked at Christianity differently than those around me who grew up in church and grew up around Christianity. And some of you in here may know exactly what I'm talking about, and so I've always had a bent toward apologetics. Remember the first time I heard the Gospel, I remember the name of Steve Morgan, came into the locker room to uh to share with me. You probably can't tell what I played football when I was in college and he started to try to present something to me. I think it was. I'm not even gonna say what it was, because you know, maybe you use that or whatever. I don't want to disparage it because it's nothing against that. But he used, you know, some canned approach to evangelism, and I didn't. I didn't have enough, you know, of the intellectual hooks to hang his thoughts on. I didn't, you know, some of the concepts weren't just weren't working for me. And so he just backed up. And he was from Wisconsin and was a big Green Bay Packers fan, and so I should probably call him my condolences, you know, And he says, he says, you know, when you talk about it now, he says, I was just thinking about, you know, that famous moment in Green Bay history, you know, goes man's a football, and he just picked up his Bible and goes, oh, this is a Bible. And for the next two and a half three weeks he came back every day. He answered my questions because I had questions, and then towards the end of it, he taught me how to go find those answers myself. So I always say I was being trained in apologetics before I was even converted, you know, and so I came to faith in that way. So I've always thought about my spiritual life through the lens of apologetics. But I also recognize that apologetics sort of fallen out of favor, and I think one of the reasons is because we've despiritualized it. We've turned, you know, apologetics into a sort of subset of philosophy or some such and full confession, I come at this as a presuppositionalist, but know this, I think there are two main reasons that today apologetics it is fallen out of favor. I think one is sentimentalism, if you will. There is this idea, there is this feel, especially among the younger generations, that anything confrontational, you know, that anything that there is an eleventh commandment. The eleventh commandment is thou shalt be nice, and we don't believe the other ten. Okay, we don't believe the other ten. And so anything that's just not nice and nice is defined as weak, soft, mealy mouthed, afraid, cowardly. You know, that's the way we define niceness. In Christianity and anything that's sort of confrontational and that would dare to say that someone is wrong. It's just not acceptable. This is why pastors stand up today and when they preach on a topic that's controversial, their message usually dies the death of a thousand qualifications. I ain't think about it. You will not hear guys stand up for the most part and preach on the issue of homosexuality without fifteen minutes of justification. Now, I love homosexuals, I have friends who are homosexuals. I am not here to say, you know, just say what the book says. Yeah, but people will be offended and letters will come in, and here's what those letters will say. Essentially, I'm more offended by the fact that you confronted that sin than I am that that sin offends God. This is where we live today, especially in younger generations. And so the idea of apologetics, the idea of confrontation, the idea of I'm right, you're wrong, that just doesn't sit well with us. And then the second reason, I think it's mysticism. Quite frankly, it's mysticism and anti intellectualism. The United Negro College Fund as a motto a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Modern American Christianity has a different take on that. We just believe a mind is a terrible thing. We talk about head knowledge as though it's a disease that needs to be cured. Right, And so this idea of being a credle or confessional, this idea of having structure around our faith. Some of you, guys, when you came here, you were warned, don't let them ruin. You don't let them ruin you. You go there and everything becomes so systematized and so formalized, and you lose your fire because everybody knows if you really want to love God, you got to be ignorant. And so in this mysticism, we really don't have the categories necessary to do apologetics. And my faith is all about my experience. It's all about what I feel, It's all about what I know on the inside. We're more like Mormons. To be honest, I bear you witness because of my own burning in the bosom. These things are true because of my internal witness to these things. And in this mysticism and this anti intellectualism, we don't often gauge the rightness or wrongness of things by the facts that are presented. But instead we tend to gauge the rightness and wrongness of things based on the emotions that we experience when they're presented. That was powerful, that was awesome. Well did you recognize that it was heretical? You're so judgmental. There's how these two things work together. Right, So again, apologetics just don't we don't like that. Well, if you have your bibles, open your bibles to Jude, and I want you to see something here in Jude today. I want you to see that Jude answers many of the objections that we have to apologetics, and I'll take them in turn. The first objection that we have to apologetics is, you know, we object on the grounds that we believe apologetics is for special Forces Christians. Right, it's for Navy Seal, Green Beret, Marine Force recon. It's Delta Force Christians. Those are the people who do apologetics. People who are well versed in philosophy and in debate, and you know, all these sorts of things, and you know, world religions and this, that and the other. And if we're honest, people who are just you know, jerks, can we just go ahead and tell the truth and shames the devil. We believe that right that you have to have kind of a little bit of an arrogant, nasty edge to you to even like apologetics. Okay, this is what we believe. It's not for everybody. Well, Jude addresses that objection. First, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. Now Here in verse three, he's going to basically say to these individuals, I'm writing to encourage you to contend for the faith. So he's writing to encourage them to do apologetics. But notice to whom he's writing, Notice this trinitarian address called beloved in God the Father, kept for Jesus Christ. You might as well go ahead and say called by the Spirit, beloved by the Father and kept by the Son, or for the Son. And then notice that followed by that sort of trinitarian identification, there is this trinitarian greeting, May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you. Now again, if we believe that apologetics, which is what we're being called to here in verse three, is only for special forces, Christians then we would also have to agree that only special forces Christians are called by the Spirit, beloved by the Father and kept for the son. Well, we know that's not right. So we would have to then agree that we're wrong to think that this is a calling just for special forces Christians. Well, yeah, but maybe so, maybe in that text, but certainly not in other texts. Certainly not, you know, in the seminal texts about apologetics, certainly not. If you get to one Peter three. I mean that's where we get the word apologetics from, right, that apologia that he talks about there in three fifteen. Right, but if you look in three fifteen, one Peter, three fifteen. But in your hearts, well, who's the your go back to fourteen. But even if you should suffer, who's suffering verse thirteen? Now, who has there to harm you? If you should prove zealous for what is good? So these people are proving zealous for what is good. Let's back up some more. Let's back up to the top of this section here and look at verse eight. Finally, all of you, or if this was the Texas version, all of y'all. In other words, when Peter is addressing this issue of apologetics. He's addressing everyone. Every believer is called to be an apologist. This is not for certain select individuals. And I believe our understanding of apologetics being shaped in the way that it is currently and presented in the way that it is currently taken out of and away from ordinary spiritual life and turned into this sort of specialization is one of the reasons that we think of it in this way. The Bible doesn't present apologetics to us that way. It is part of the life of every believer. This is for you, this is for me. Well, I can't do that. Certainly you can. Certainly you can. We'll take some time and look at Peter's definition there, but let me just sort of give you a preview. I believe if you boil down Peter's definition in his text, it's knowing what you believe, why you believe it, and being able to communicate that effectively to others. That's apologetics. Know what you believe, know why you believe it, and be able to communicate that effectively to others. You do that, you're doing apologetics. Yeah, but I don't know all the world religions. You don't have to you don't believe them. Amen. I don't need to know that. I need to know what I believe, and when someone asks me for the reason for the hope that is in me, I need to be able to give them the reason for the hope that is in me. Here's what I believe, Here's why I believe it, and to be able to communicate that in a winsome and effective way. See when you understand apologetics by that definition, we no longer have this tendency to believe that you have to have this laundry list of specializations and expertise in order to engage in the practice amen. This is for everyone, for every Christian. Well, there's another objection. We alluded to it earlier, and this other objection is, well, it's just not very christ Like. It's just not very loving. And as Christians, we're supposed to be loving and we're not supposed to condemn. After all, we're flowers of Jesus, the sweet, kind, gentle man with hair like a shampoo model. It's not like we follow someone who would call people whitewashed sepulchers, or a brute of vipers, or someone who would torn turn over tables in the temple and run people out with a whip. What do you think this is? We follow the guy who walks around with a lamb on his shoulders and a slightly effeminate look in his face. And so it's not loving. Okay, to those who are called again by the spirit and beloved in God the Father kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. So again, this is what he wants multiplied to us, this sort of triune benefit that we get from being in the triune God. Then in verse three, he says, beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our commonsalvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Some of your translations say contend earnestly at pago NIZAMAI this might be my favorite word in the whole Greek Bible. You just got You gotta grit your teeth when you say a pagoninzama. You just agonized greatly. There's a picture here of hand to hand combat. There's a picture here of wrestling. I would say it's a picture of Brazilian jiu jitsu, but I'm biased and so that's the word picture that's used here, of striving, of contending, and contending earnestly for the faith. Well, we've got a slight problem if we believe, on the one hand that this contending is not loving and not Christian. How do we explain, on the other hand that this verse exjuctstaposed with verse two, the apostle says on the one hand that he wants mercy, peace, and love to be multiplied to us, and on the other hand he says, agonized greatly contend. So if you can't have love and contention, why does the apostle give us love juxtaposed with contention. Somebody's wrong and it's not Jude. I think our problem goes all the way back up to verse one. To see. Our problem is that when we think about love, we think about love from a horizontal perspective. Ultimately, we define and love between me and you as me never doing anything to offend you, me never doing anything to upset you. And so this horizontal view of love has the other as its ultimate object. And I would argue that there is reason not only in this text, but in the Bible as a whole to reject that understanding of love. Love has to be understood vertically before it can be understood horizontally. God is love, so I can't look at another person and define my love relationship with that person based upon how I make that person feel. It has to be vertical. I can't even understand what love is until I go vertical. And this is why that tryune greeting is so important. Called again by the Spirit beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. It is God's triunity that basically communicates to us what love is. This is the problem that the Unitarian religions have. This is why it's so hard for the Unitarian religions to wrap their minds around a concept like God actually being love, because from a Unitarian perspective, if you do not have a triune God, and there was a time when the world wasn't and this triune God then made the world, this Unitarian God can't be loving because there was no one or nothing for this God to love. So either creation came into being and this God had to add love to his attributes because it wouldn't have been there before, or this God is not a god of love. But if there is a triune God, who has existed for eternity as one God in three persons, the Sun eternally begotten of the Father, the Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. This one God in three persons, in eternal unity and harmony within himself, this God manifesting love within himself, long before you and I were ever here. Then creation doesn't add love to a God who was lacking it. Creation merely expands the expression of the love of this God, who has always loved. So we look to God to define love, and we look to God in order to define how it is that we love one another. Jesus gives these two great commandments. You love it. They come to Jesus and they're trying to rapp him. You know, Jesus was the greatest commandment in the law. Some schools of thought, you know, it's actually it's the first one. It's the first commandment, that's the fountain head for all the other commandments. Some of them would argue that it was actually the fifth commandment, that it was the bridge between the two tables of the law. You go from vertical to horizontal with the fifth. Some would argue that it's the tenth because ultimately, coveting is where all of your other sin comes from. So Jesus, which one is it? Which school of thought will you line up with? Jesus? And so typically here's what he does well. The greatest commandment is the love the Lord your God, with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. In other words, one through four. The second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. That's five through ten. So Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? I'm gonna have to say one through four, followed closely by five through ten. There's an amazing apologetic opportunity in the world right now. You're hearing about it some over here, but where we live over in the other hemisphere, it's all day every day. They're these refugees who are pouring out of the Middle East. What are we going to do with these refugees in the Middle East? Listen, regardless of what your opinion is on how we should respond, please don't miss the apologetic opportunity. I love when people bring this up because usually what they're doing is they're arguing from the second table of the law, love your neighbor as yourself, and most of these people reject the first table of the law. Well, you can't uphold the second table of the law without the first. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. So when people are saying we need to respond to this tragedy with obedience to the second table of the law, I say, let's talk about the first. Because you can't talk about the second without talking about the first. So before we talk about you and your moralistic holding to the second table of the law apart from the finished work of Christ, let's talk about you not holding to the first table of the law and what that means about your soul and its destiny. We start vertical, we start vertical. And if we start vertical, and if that love of God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength is confronted with a horizontal relationship that demands for its own comfort, that I negate or neglect my vertical responsibility, it cannot be done. It cannot be done. I will always offend you horizontally if the vertical demands it, because true love can do nothing else. So, if you are not in right relationship vertically with God, and I'm trying to appease you horizontally and not confront you with the wrongness of your vertical relationship with God. I'm actually not loving you at all. I'm guilty of two things. Number One, I'm guilty of idolatry because I'm putting whatever benefit I get from my relationship with you above that of my relationship with God. Amen. I will offend God in order to not offend you, which means you are the object of my worship. And then secondly, I'm actually. Using you. Because whatever that benefit that I'm drawing horizontally, it's more important to me than your soul. And I will watch you bust hell wide open if that's what it takes from me to not do anything to compromise whatever benefit it is that I am gaining from you horizontally. Folks, that's not love. That's not love. Third objection, the third objection is that you know apologetics is not primary, and in fact, you know those apologists they always made your own minders. Anyway, It's not primary where about the gospel, Beloved. Although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, can we just all go ahead here at DTS this morning and say that's primary. Amen, somebody I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Apostle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, sits down to write about our common salvation, and he turns the corner and writes about apologetics. Did he neglect writing about salvation or did he merely address a subset of that very issue. I'm arguing for the latter, it is primary, But how is it primary? Let's go into that next verse. I'll come back and then we'll wrap this up. For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation. Ooh, now we got condemnation ungodly people. Now we got name calling who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. There's the fourth objection, and I'll deal with the third and fourth together. The fourth objection is, you know, you're about all that stuff. I'm about souls. I'm about seeing people come to faith in Jesus Christ. First of all, this comes from that misunderstanding of apologetics that we talked about earlier, that apologetics is just about philosophical debates about secondary and tertiary issues. That's wrong if we understand apologetics properly. Apologetics is all about the Gospel. This is what I believe and why I believe it. And when the Gospel is being perverted and misrepresented, there are two possible responses. Number One, because of my horizontal relationship with you being the priority, I allow you to pervert the Gospel, putting your own soul in jeopardy and the soul of everyone who hears your perversion of the gospel. Or if my vertical relationship is primary, and you are perverting the Gospel, I confront and condemn the perversion of the God Gospel because of my passion for souls. This is not another issue. This is the issue. This is about the Gospel. The Gospel is front and center here. This is about my passion for souls. But in our passion for souls, we recognize that, like Paul, we're not ashamed of the Gospel because it and it alone is the power of God unto salvation. So when the Gospel is being misrepresented and perverted, the one who has a vertical passion for God and God's name and reputation will not allow that to go unchallenged. First of all, because of the vertical love for God. I love my wife. You sit around and talk bad about my wife. We have issues. I love my God. If you are lying on God, if you are saying that he is something that he's not, or if they's done something that he didn't, my vertical relationship with God demands that I confront that. And my hor is on a relationship with others demands it because my desire is for them to hear and know the truth of the Gospel. Notice the two areas here. One ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality. Again, I would say that they're dealing with the heart of the Gospel there, perverting the grace of God into sensuality. And two deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. All of the cults have to do this. You have to make Jesus something that he's not, someone that he's not. So ultimately, we're talking about the person and work of Christ, and that's where we got to get back to. We've got to get back to the person and work of Christ. All of that other stuff is great, it's wonderful, it's interesting. If you want to talk about all of that. Sure we can talk about all of that, but eventually the conversation has to come back around to the person and work of Christ. Who he is and what he's done. Notice that I did not say who he is to me and what he's done for me. No, no, no, no, that's not what people need. They can have that if it's gravy, but first they need to know who he is, period full stop, and then they need to know what he's done, period full stop. If you know who he is and you know what he's done, period full stop, then we have time for a conversation about my own personal experience of it. We can get to that. But the last thing you need, it's just my personal experience of whatever. You need to know who Christ is and what Christ has done. This is what we aim at. This is what we aim at because of our vertical passion, which feeds our horizontal passion. This is apologetics. Can we have philosophical discussions about creation and the existence of God, And it's sure if you want to go for it. But if I can convince someone that it's possible that the world was made and wasn't just an accident. What have I gained? You can believe that and go to hell. What matters to me is that they know of the person and work of Jesus Christ. So I'm not saying we neglect that discussion, but I'm saying, when we enter that discussion, if we have this as our focus, that discussion must ultimately lead us to the discussion of the person and work of Christ. Because nothing matters more. This is what my soul needs, this is what my soul loves, this is what my soul desires, and so this is what I defend. This is what I proclaim. So as we make this connection between this issue and that whole idea of the spiritual life, know this, Your spiritual life was never intended to be lived in isolation, not in isolation from the rest of the body of Christ, and not in isolation from a lost, hurting and dying world. And when your spiritual life comes in contact with this lost, hurting and dying world, guess what's going to happen. They're going to want to know the reason for the hope that is in you give it to them. Let's pray, Gracious God, our heavenly Father, we thank you and Praise you for your goodness and your mercy, and your kindness and your love. Praise you for who you are and for what you've done. Who are grateful to you for that. Grant by your grace that our lives might be shaped by that, and that our lives might be given to that. Open our eyes so that we can see this lost, hurting and dying world around us, And grant us grace and faith to believe and live like we possess that which they need most. And Lord, may we give it away to the end that Christ might have the fullness of the reward for which he died. This is our prayer, and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.