Why do I blog about apologetics?

Imagine, for a moment, that you're at a cookout with some friends or family – nothing formal, just some people getting together casually. While you're sitting around making small talk, someone asks you a sincere question: maybe something like this, “You go to church, don't you? I just don't know if I can believe the Bible. I mean, if God just made Adam and Eve, where did all the different races of people come from?” This person isn't trying to start an argument. He's not trying to play gotcha by asking you a trick question. He's simply telling you he has a question that's preventing him from believing the Bible. How would you answer? Would you tell him, “Well, that part of the Bible doesn't matter”? Maybe you couldn't answer at all and would just say something like, “Huh, that is weird. I don't know. Pass me another hot dog.” You can see that these responses would do nothing to resolve his disbelief in the Bible.

1 Peter 3:15 says, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” The word “answer” in that verse is the Greek word, “apologia” (ἀπολογία, Strong's word 627). It means, “properly, a well-reasoned reply; a thought-out response to adequately address the issue(s) that is raised” and it's from this Greek word that we get the English word, “apologetics.” When our friend from the cook out asks his question, we need to be prepared to give a Christ-centered, Scripturally-sound, well-reasoned answer. Too many Christians can't and I believe this is the main problem the church faces in evangelism.

As long as we're doing mental exercises, let's do another. If I asked you where I could learn about science or biology or anthropology or history or some similar subject, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? You would probably say I could ask a scientist or professor. I could read a science text book. Maybe I could enroll in college. OK, but what if I asked about morality, about religion, or about God, what comes to your mind then? Your first thought would probably be that I could go to church, ask a pastor, or read the Bible. Am I right?

Whether we like it or not, we live in a society where people think going to church is learning about religion and going to school is learning about the “real world.” They feel like God and the world are completely different realms that have little to do with each other. The fact of the matter is that science, the world, and God are all real and denying any one of them is denying reality.

Sadly, as Christians, we too often feed the stereotype. When our kids are growing up, we send them to Sunday School. They learn songs like, “♪O God said to Noah there's going to be a floody floody♪...” We tell them to be good and mind their parents because “♪The Father up above, He is looking down in love♪...” We teach kids that Church is kind of like Barney. Now, when they're old enough, we send them to school to learn about “the real world.” What does the school teach them? It teaches them that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, that there was no Adam and Eve and we descended from apes, there was no Flood, and so the Bible must not be true.

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Kids take field trips to museums, right? What does a kid think when he sees the fossils of dinosaurs with a display saying they're 65 million years old? He sees the stone tools with Neanderthal skeletons that say they lived 100,000 years ago. He sees the ubiquitous “Lucy” skeleton, reconstructed with artistically-rendered human-looking eyes, feet, and hands? He thinks he's learning about the real world.

When that same kid goes to church, he may ask his pastor about what he saw. What if the pastor answered, “Oh, we don't believe that.” The curious child, looking for answers then asks, “What do we believe?” Then the pastor replies, “We believe that, 'God said to Noah there's going to be a floody floody♪...'” You can see how the student goes to school and learns “science,” then goes to church and learns, “Barney.”

I read a book a few years ago titled, Already Gone. It talks about the phenomenon that 2/3 of kids who grow up in church will not attend church after graduating high school. The popular explanation is that kids become exposed to secular ideas once they enter college or the workforce and then lose their faith. The book did a scientific poll and found that most of the children had decided they didn't believe around the 8^th grade. They sat in the pews because their parents made them sit in the pews but they were already gone. When asked why they made that decision, they said they didn't believe the Bible or the church was relevant anymore.

This generation has been sold a bill of goods. They have believed a lie – namely that science has proved the Bible is wrong, we are not made in God's image but we are animals who are descended from apes, and stories about God's judgment, like Noah's Flood, are myths. 2 Peter 3 warns us about scoffers who come in the last days. The scoffers deny the Flood and walk after their own lusts. They also deny the Second Coming. I believe we live in those days and the time is now to expose the lie.

Christians need to show this generation how the Bible is the true history of the world and it is a history of disobedience, judgment, and forgiveness. It's more important now than ever. This is why I blog about apologetics!