What Is Apologetics?

On renewing your blood wherever Christianity flourishes it is distorted, misrepresented, and it's a policy of enemies will accuse Christians in the church of all kinds of things and so the task of the apologists at that point is to offer a defensive posture to repel these false accusations talk to someone. He claims to be an atheist or agnostic notice given fairly quickly and are quite confident in their unbelief they usually appeal to philosophical and scientific arguments to make the case as Christians since the apostle Peter reminds us we need to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is within us and with that in mind we begin Dr. Darcy's postclassic series defending your faith frequently when I'm in conversations with people often when I meet them for the first time and they asked me what I do I mention, among other things that I teach in a seminary, and so invariably they asked me what do you teach and when I replied that I'm the professor of systematic theology and apologetics. I usually get a blank stare in front frequently a double blank stare because most people don't have any clue as to what systematic theology is all about.

And if I am able to explain that to them. Then there really perplexed by this other subject. Apologetics and they say what in the world is apologetics.

Let's write the word on the board because that's what this course is going to be concerned with the discipline or the science of apologetics, which in the world of theology is normally considered a separate science from theology itself or from biblical studies and the science of apologetics is devoted to providing an intellectual defense for the truth claims of the Christian faith.

We like to say it like a near that one of our task is to help people know what they believe and why they believe it. And so the case that is presented for a particular truth claim the evidence or the reason that is advanced why we should believe this rather than that is what the task of apologetics is about now. The term apologetics involves the science of giving an apology now in our language to give an apology means to say I'm sorry for having offended you or from having done something wrong, but that's not the meaning of the term. Here the word apologetics comes from a Greek word apologia which means literally to give a reply or to give an answer. Now let's take a moment and look at the biblical text where we encounter this concept of apologetics and its responsibility for Christians if we look at the first epistle of Peter in the third chapter in the 15th verse we read these words but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

Having a good conscience that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.

And so the first aspect that we are told to be concerned about here is that we are told to be ready stand ready to give a defense or a response or an apologia, a reply to anyone who asks and wants us to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and then he goes on to say in this injunction that the end of this is that those who revile the truth of Christianity might be ashamed. And that gives us a pretty important clue as to one of the main reasons for apologetics, but in the early church. The first century apologists and into the second century, the Christian intellectuals of that community had to be engaged in a defensive work answering false charges that were leveled against the nascent Christian community. For example, if we would read the writings of the one called Justin martyr, who wrote the apology for the apologia. Justin Martyr was responding to the critics of the Christian church who were accusing Christianity of several thing.

First of all the charges against the Christian community included that the Christians of the early days were seditious.

That is, that they were traders were undermining the authority of the state. By this time in Roman history. The cult of Emperor worship had emerged, and the loyalty oath was in effect to Roman citizens to proclaim their loyalty. They had to recite the phrase Kaiser curio's and that Christians who believed that Caesar was to be honored as the New Testament teaches responded by saying, as Justin Martyr did look Christian people are models of civic obedience were not keeping the police of Rome busy chasing us around trying to capture us for theft or for murder for these other crimes. We try to be good citizens. We obey the speed limits we pay our taxes.

We do all of these things, but we can't say Caesar is Lord, but rather we say the Asus ho curio's Jesus is the Lord now in American history, one who was nominated to the position of cabinet member in George W. Bush's cabinet. Mr. Ashcroft was brought under sharp criticism because at a speech at a Bible college in the South. He had once quoted an early Christian founder of America by saying we in America have no king but Jesus and as a Christian.

Mr. Ashcroft was trying to confess his supreme loyalty to Christ as King and it got him in all kinds of trouble will that's the kind of problems that Christians had in the very first century, when they said we will honor the laws of the land. We will pay our taxes, but we will not call Caesar Lord, nor would they call himself a toss or august because from the Christian perspective, the only one who is august is God himself. And so the reply was to show the Emperor by the way, the apology of Justin Martyr was written to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, appealing to his name as well as to his reputation for fairness to be just in his judgment of Christians and not convict Christians on invalid rumors. The other charge that was brought against the Christian community was that they were atheists because the Christian community would not embrace the gods and goddesses of the Roman Pantheon. We remember the martyrdom of Polycarp when as an old man in his late 80s was brought into the arena in the presence of the Emperor and the Emperor did not want to make a martyr out of Polycarp, who was Bishop of Smyrna at that time the venerable St. because the Emperor understood that if he executed this defenseless old man that it would look bad on the government and so the Emperor was trying to find a way to help Polycarp escape the death penalty and he said to Polycarp, as Polycarp stood in the middle of the arena. All you have to do to have your life spared is to say a way with the atheists because Christians were regarded as atheists in Rome because they didn't believe in the Roman doughnuts and so Polycarp in his wisdom said all that's all you want me to do or say where the atheist.

He pointed up to the stand install Romans and he said all right away with the atheists with happy.

He replied by saying I'm not an atheist. You people are the atheists and of course pampered and like that and Polycarp was kill, but Justin Martyr was trying to answer the charge that Christians were atheists, and he pointed out, that's a distortion of who we are.

We are not atheists. We are theists and we are totally committed to the reality of God. It's just that we reject the religion of polytheism also. The Christians were considered cannibals because the rumor was spreading around Rome that these Christian people the strange people were meeting in the catacombs and meeting in secret. Practicing cannibalism because the word got out that they were engaged in eating somebody's body and drinking somebody's blood and so the apologists had to reply to these charges and say that's not true that what we do in our meetings is that we celebrate a sacrament of the Lord's supper where the bread represents the body of our Lord, who was killed for us, and so on and so at that point, you see that what the apologists were doing was clarifying and replying to. Charges and false accusations leveled against the Christian church and beloved that task of replying to distortions and false misconceptions of what Christianity is, did not end in the first century were in the second century. That's a task that the apologists has to do in every generation because it wherever Christianity flourishes it is distorted, misrepresented and its opponents and enemies will accuse Christians and the church of all kinds of things and so the task of the apologists at that point is to offer a defensive posture to repel these false accusations, but in addition to that, there was also the real struggle in the first three centuries with respect to the intellectual credibility of Christianity and what it happened was that Christianity arrived on the scene at a time where Greek philosophy that had ruled the intellectual world in antiquity was in sharp decline. In fact, some historians will say that Western civilization was saved from the internal corruption and decay of the Greek empire as it was conquered by Rome and so on. And that civilization was restored and recovered by a new worldview, a new ethic that was articulated from Jesus and through his apostles, particularly from the apostle Paul, so that there was a new, not just religion but philosophy on the scene that was taking the place of ancient Platonism and Aristotelianism were Stoicism or Epicureanism and the other philosophical systems that were competing with Christianity for human commitment.

In fact, we get a little glimpse of that in the pages of the New Testament one Paul visits Athens, which was the cultural center of the ancient world. It was the place where Plato had established his Academy and Aristotle. The Lyceum and where Greek philosophy and Greek culture had flourished and you remember when Paul finally came to Athens and he beheld the city we read in the Scriptures that his spirit was moved within him because he observed that the entire city was given to idolatry.

Now that was not the normal perception the normal perception of tourists and visitor to Athens was that this was the zenith. This was the Acme of the greatest culture of human history that this was the substance of human grandeur that had been incarnated in the city of Athens.

Paul saw Athens as a city totally given to idolatry and so he goes to the Areopagus, and remember that the God of war in Greek mythology, was known as Aries and his counterpart in Roman mythology was Mars and so you will sometimes read an actual say that Paul visited Mars Hill which is simply the English translation of the Greek which orgasm at the Areopagus, which is the Greek version of the God more than anywhere there's this hill where there's a temple to the God of war and Paul goes there to proclaim Christianity and to work as an apologist in the middle of this intellectual culture and their he encounters philosophers from the schools of Stoicism and Epicureanism and by the way, those are the only two schools of philosophy that are explicitly mentioned in the Bible and see we see the apostle Paul, engaging in debate in apologetics in the public arena with representatives of other philosophies. In this case, Stoicism and Epicureanism, and it's an interesting study and will look at it later on on how Paul deals with the pagan philosophers. On that occasion, but that little incident represents what the church was encountering all over the place in the first three centuries head on collision with Greek philosophy and with other philosophical movements and so the Christian church was called upon to respond or to reply to the challenges brought against the church from the advocates of Greek philosophy and again if you study at the naggers and if you study Justin Martyr you will see something jump out of the pages that their favorite motif in dueling with the pagan philosophers of that day was their appeal to the low costs which is the word of God that John introduces in the first chapter of his book. You know that when John introduces his life of Christ, his gospel.

He begins by saying in the beginning was the word the logos and the Word was with God and the word was God jarring isn't it were, on the one breath drawn us distinguishing the word from God saying the word was with God and then in the next breath is having an identity between the word of God saying in the word was God and that he goes on to say how the everything. It was made came into being through the word and nothing that was made came into being apart from the word and that is consistent with other aspects of Christology that we find in the Bible that says that Christ is the one by whom in-home and for whom all things exist, that we may not get all excited about that kind of a statement, but to the Greek philosopher. This was dynamite stuff because in the history of Greek thought this very word low-cost not only functioned as the simple everyday word for word, but it was a concept that was filled with philosophical baggage, whereas in, for example, the philosophy of Heraclitus and later in the philosophy Stoicism the logos was seen as the superior power in the universe that ordered and regulated all things in the universe. The big question that the Greek philosophers were trying to answer was what we call the question of unity and diversity where the question of the one and the many we look out the window we see birds we see grassroots E telephone poles. We see automobiles we see people all this diverse manifestations of the world around us and we look at that only say how does this make sense is the experience that we have of nature and life chaos that is the disjoined mass of meaningless incoherent database or is there something that makes all of this intelligible Carl Sagan when he had his program on television, and later his book uses his title for that program. The word cosmos and at the very beginning of that he makes the distinction between cosmos and chaos and the whole point of cosmos in Greek thought is that the world ultimately is orderly. You can know it. It fits together it makes sense, but there has to be some overarching principle or power that brings unity to the diversity that makes the world in which we live in a universe rather than a multi-verse so that it can be known, and in Greek philosophy.

The concept of unity and order and harmony was called the logos now. It would be a serious mistake to go to the first chapter of John's Gospel and say that what John does. Here's just lift up the Greek concept of logos in their philosophy bring it over and stick it into New Testament theology and just bring it over without changing up. He feels it with Hebrew content from the personification of God that is found in the Old Testament. From the wisdom of God that is found in the Old Testament that sort of thing. But there are parallels their points of contact that the early apologists jumped all over.

They said you're interested in low-cost sewer we were to tell you that that which brings order and harmony to the whole created world that which Plato contemplated in his metaphysical philosophy. The thing that Aristotle was trying to penetrate in his philosophical inquiry was the mystery of the divine logos.

Who is the one who brings order, purpose and harmony out of all things. One professor of apologetics points out that you could translate the first verse of John's Gospel like this in the beginning was logic, and logic was with God and the logic was God and the logic became flesh and dwelt among us know the difference, of course, between the logos of the New Testament in the logos of Greek philosophy is that this logic is not some impersonal force or power may the force be with you stuff. But the thing that was a scandal to the Greeks was so profound to the thinkers of the time was that the one who is the logic of all the universe is a person and eternal person. A person with the mind with the will for personal identity and that is the contribution at that moment that very early primitive Christian apologetics made in the Greek world and will explore that idea and others like it. As we continue later on in this development and with an enticing preview we wrap up the first lesson of Dr. RC Sproul series defending your faith glad you've joined us for the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind by Willie Webb. Dr. Strohl reminded us today that the part of the mission of leader ministries is to equip Christians to articulate what you believe in what you believe it, the series defending your faith is foundational in fulfilling that mission, we will be airing the entire 32 part series are in the Saturday edition of our program and we hope you'll tune in each week were also making the entire series available to you for a gift of any amount is an ideal teaching tool for a high school or college Sunday school class at your church or small group meeting in your home, so I hope you'll contact us today and request the 11 DVD set again. It's titled defending your faith to donate online. You can go to Renewing Your Mind.org or you can call us. Our number is 800-435-4343.

By the way, this is a special edition of the series includes a digital study guide plus the audio files for each lesson. We also recommend table talk magazine to you. This is a another helpful tool in equipping you to defend the faith you find guided devotions for each day of the month plus articles devoted to a particular theological theme. For example, the February issue looks at what Jewish life was like during the days of Jesus. You can learn more and subscribe.

When you go to table talk magazine.com there are different views of apologetics. And it's important to know the difference disarmingly consist of having our historical and archaeological evidence lined up or is it more of a spiritual exercise. I hope you'll join us next Saturday is RC answers the question why apologetics is next week here on Renewing Your Mind