Reasons for Faith: Making a Case for the Christian Faith
416
Reasons for Faith: Making a Case for the Christian Faith
416Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781581347876 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Crossway |
| Publication date: | 10/26/2007 |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Sales rank: | 291,310 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Chad V. Meister (PhD, Marquette University) is professor of philosophy and theology at Bethel College in Indiana. He formerly led the Defenders Ministry at Willow Creek Community Church. He is married to Tammi and they have two teenage sons.
E. Calvin Beisner (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is a spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and an author and speaker on the application of the biblical worldview to economics, government, and environmental policy. He is a ruling elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and has written over ten books and is a frequent guest on radio and television programs.
J. P. Moreland (PhD, University of Southern California) is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Biola University. He is an author of, contributor to, or editor of over ninety books, including The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters.
Louis Markos (PhD, University of Michigan) is professor of English and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University. He is the author of twelve books and has published over 120 book chapters, essays, and reviews in various magazines and journals. He lives in Houston with his wife, Donna, and their two children.
Scott Klusendorf (MA, Biola University) is the president of Life Training Institute, where he trains pro-life advocates to persuasively defend their views. A passionate and engaging platform speaker, Scott's pro-life presentations have been featured by Focus on the Family, Truths That Transform, and American Family Radio.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
An Apologetic for Apologetics
I'D LIKE TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN, but I still have a few questions that are hanging me up," said John Swift, a fast-talking, hard-hitting commercial banker who worked in downtown Chicago.
"Let's talk about whatever is holding you back," I replied to John, whom I had just sat down to meet with for the first time at the request of Ernie, a seeker small group leader from our church who had been dealing with John's list of spiritual doubts and objections for some time. "But you know you don't need to have an answer to every question in order to become a Christian."
"I realize that," John replied, "but if I'm reading you guys right, my main question deals with something you all think is a pretty big deal."
"Well, maybe. What is it?" I responded.
Emphatically, John shot back, "I don't believe in the resurrection of Christ!"
At this point I had to concede that, yes, that issue is a pretty big deal to us in the church. "I'll admit, John, that when I went to seminary, the resurrection of Christ was under the heading labeled BIGGIES. That's because the Bible clearly teaches that this is one of the truths that is essential for someone to believe in order to become a true follower of Christ. But I'm curious, why don't you believe that Jesus rose from the dead?"
"It just doesn't make sense to me that a dead person could come back to life. Everything I've ever seen supports the fact that dead people just stay in the grave, and their bodies rot there — or get eaten by wild dogs! Why should I believe it was any different for Jesus?"
It was a great question. As a friend of mine likes to say, "The last time I checked, the death rate was still hovering at right around 100 percent!" So why should we put our faith in a claim that contradicts everything we've ever seen or experienced related to people dying and then staying in their graves?
What would you say to a friend who challenged you with this kind of a question? Many Christians would simply reply, "Well, you have to take it on faith!" Or "The Bible says it's true, and that settles it. You just have to take God at his word!" Or some would just walk away and assume that the person was destined for judgment, unable to see the truth that God has revealed to his true followers. So why even try?
But the Bible tells us we should do whatever it takes to be ready to give a clear and thoughtful response. First Peter 3:15 says, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." The original Greek word that is translated "answer" in that verse is apologia, which means "a speech of defense." It's from this that we get our term apologetics, which is a reasoned defense of our faith.
So here's the deal: all of us who are followers of Christ are told in this verse to be ready to give good answers to back up our faith. This is not just for professional pastors, theologians, or seminary professors. But let's be honest: none of us ever feels completely up to the task! That's why it's so important to read and study books like this one, which is designed to help us do what the verse commands: "be prepared ..."
Please don't misunderstand. I don't think evidence or reason alone leads people into God's family. I agree with the age-old cliché that says, "You can't argue people into heaven." But I do believe, based on both Scripture and experience, that good arguments, logic, and evidence are used by God's Spirit to help clear the path of intellectual roadblocks so guys like John Swift and countless others can take the message seriously and eventually decide to follow the one who died to pay for our sins and rose to give us new life. As it's often stated, apologetics is the handmaiden to evangelism. It serves, when appropriately applied, the greater purposes of the gospel and of the Christian mission to "go into all the world and make disciples."
So you might wonder, what ended up happening in my conversation with John? Well, rather than initially presenting him with evidence and reasons for the resurrection of Christ, I decided to first ask him what he'd been doing to study this matter for himself.
"Mostly," he replied, "I've just read and listened to the scholars who are part of something called The Jesus Seminar — and those guys have all kinds of negative things to say about the idea of Jesus rising from the dead!"
"I'm very aware of that," I said with more of an impatient tone than I'd intended, "but have you read any of the great books that present the actual historical evidence for the resurrection — like the writings of Norman Geisler, Josh McDowell, or Gary Habermas?"
"Honestly, Mark, I don't know about any of those books, and I've never heard anything that sounded like real evidence for Jesus' resurrection. Maybe you can fill me in a bit?"
"I'd love to," I replied as we began an hour-plus discussion about some of the key points of evidence. The more we talked, the more encouraged I was by John's receptivity, while being amazed and frustrated that such vitally important information — which has been around for some two thousand years — was so completely unknown to this inquisitive spiritual seeker.
The minutes flew by as we talked, and soon we were just about out of time. "Before you go," I said to John, "I'd like to loan you a book I recently picked up that I think will help deepen your understanding of the overwhelming amount of evidence that supports the resurrection of Christ." As I handed him my brand-new copy of Jesus Under Fire, edited by apologists Michael Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, I added, "I'm sure the whole book would be helpful to you, but I'd especially like to encourage you to read through the chapter titled 'Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?' by William Lane Craig — I think it will be particularly helpful to you."
Then I said one more thing that surprised even me. "John, I know you're a businessman who relates to goals and challenges. So let me urge you to read that chapter right away and to look further at some of the books I've been telling you about so you can see that the historical evidence strongly supports the resurrection of Jesus. Then, assuming you find this to be true, I want to challenge you to become a Christian before Easter, which is only a month away. That way you can finally celebrate the holiday for its real meaning!"
The look of intensity in John's eyes told me he was taking my words seriously. It wasn't more than a couple weeks later that he sent my book back with a note informing me that he'd already combed through the chapter by Bill Craig several times, then read the entire book, and had already purchased copies for himself and a few friends with similar questions! And it was only about two weeks after that, while I was on a speaking trip to Australia, that I phoned in one night to get my voice mails and heard a message from Ernie, John's seeker small group leader, telling me with great excitement that John had trusted in Christ just a few days before Easter!
When I got back home I called John to congratulate and encourage him — and only a few months later I had the privilege of baptizing him in the pond by our church. What a joy that was, and what a thrill it has been to see him grow in his faith ever since that time, even to this day!
So why is it so important that you and I be able to give an apologia — an answer or reason for our faith? Let's discuss two simple responses to that question: the love of people and the love of God.
THE LOVE OF PEOPLE
The story of John Swift is just one of many I could tell to illustrate the importance and potential impact of our being ready to engage in effective apologetics. Countless other people have been helped in similar ways, including my close friend and ministry partner, Lee Strobel, who himself had been an atheist who needed to see evidence that Christianity made sense and was based on facts before he was ready to put his trust in Christ. Today he's helping many others discover what he learned — that truth really is on the side of our faith.
Lee tells the story of another skeptic, a Harvard-educated lawyer from the Los Angeles area who had resisted Jesus and his teachings for his entire life. The man's brother was a Christian who prayed for him daily and did his best to reach out to him with the gospel for more than forty-eight years. His brother tried everything he could think of, including finally giving him a copy of Strobel's classic book The Case for Christ. He ignored the book for some time, until he was diagnosed with cancer and realized he didn't have long to live. He read it on his deathbed and, having finally seen and understood the evidence that backs up the faith, prayed and received the forgiveness and leadership of Christ.
Another example came one time when Lee and I did an outreach event like we've done together in ministry for years — a free-for-all Q & A in which we invite Christians to bring all of their friends who have questions, doubts, and objections about our faith. We usually promote these events as Firing Lines, and we're the ones under fire!
The format is simple: after a brief introduction from one of us, we open up the house microphones for anyone who would like to throw a spiritual question or challenge at us, no holds barred. We've found that if we do this while treating them with respect — including those we don't agree with — they tend to respect us as well, and we have some great interactions!
That particular evening we were almost ready to end the meeting when I decided to take one more question. A man near the front of the room spoke up and said he'd heard that early Christian teachings were actually based on ancient pagan mystery religions and wondered what we thought. I sensed that the man was asking this question not just out of mild curiosity but with a deep concern to know what was true.
Now, the story behind the story was that I knew that in the days prior to this Lee had felt compelled to do some extra study on that very question, just in case it might come up — and here it was, the last one of the evening! So, trying to sound casual, I turned and said, "Lee, would you like to take a shot at that one?" Well, Lee, loaded for bear, pulled both triggers of the intellectual shotgun and gave an answer that was so clear, so powerful, and so thorough that there was not a shred of confusion or ambiguity left when he was finished. Christianity, he made abundantly clear, did not borrow from any mystery religions, though sometimes the reverse may have been true!
We found out later that this was the last question holding this man up in his spiritual journey and that afterward he prayed to give his life to Christ!
Another time I met with a man who had been visiting our church and had a lot of spiritual questions. After responding to his issues and objections for a couple of hours he finally leaned back in his chair, looked me in the eye, and said, "I guess you've answered all of my questions ... so now what do I do?" I said, "Well, you talk to God, acknowledge that you now know these things are true, and ask him to forgive your sins and to begin to lead your life. Are you ready to do that?" He was, so we prayed together right then and there, and today he's a brother in Christ.
I tell these multiple stories to encourage and inspire us to remember that apologetics — the study of reasons for our faith — is not for the mere accumulation of knowledge. It's to give us the information we need to lovingly serve and help people for whom Jesus died and whom he sent us to reach.
The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son ..." So we should be ready to explain who that Son of God is and be able to articulate and defend the truth of his unique claims, mission, and work on our behalf, so that the much-loved people of this world will be able to "believe in him [and] not perish but have eternal life." This is, again, what the apostle Peter admonished us to do when he said to "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks," and it's what the apostle Paul echoed when he challenged us in Colossians 4:5 to "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity."
So the Bible says over and over that the motivation for and the focus of our apologetic efforts should be people — men, women, and children who matter deeply to the Father.
Let me pass on some helpful advice I received years ago from two of my spiritual mentors (to whom this book is dedicated), the late Bob Passantino and his wife, Gretchen. It was this: if you want to become a well-rounded and effective Christian apologist, then don't just read books and spend all of your time hanging out with like-minded believers. Get out there and actually talk with real human beings who have questions and objections. Try out the truths you've been learning in dialogue with them. Put your answers into play with some folks who will actually benefit from them!
Bob and Gretchen modeled this value together for decades, and I'll never forget the stories we heard at Bob's funeral from people who told of how he had been willing to interact with them for hours on end — sometimes even talking all night long — as he listened to their questions and gently but persistently challenged them with the claims of the Christian faith. As a result, many of them had entrusted their lives and eternities to Christ based on what they had learned and were therefore able to stand and speak that day as members of God's family.
When I was in graduate school I knew two fellow philosophy of religion students who loved God but who debated me and others constantly about whether apologetic arguments really do any good for nonbelievers. They said that because non-Christians start with non-Christian presuppositions, they could never rationally "get to God from non-God." I could never understand why guys who really believed that would spend so much time studying apologetics anyway, but I spent hours talking to them in the effort to try to understand their point of view — and them!
Finally, in exasperation, I asked these friends individually to tell me candidly whether their theories about what those outside of the Christian faith could and could not understand were based on their books and study alone or on actual conversations with people who really didn't seem able to access the information they were trying to communicate to them. Both of these guys, at separate times and locations, hung their heads and acknowledged what I'd suspected — that, no, they had never really talked to any non-Christians to try out their answers on them. They'd been so convinced by certain professors and books that it wouldn't do any good, they hadn't even tried! As I heard this I couldn't help thinking about how many people they could have helped but didn't — people like John Swift and Lee Strobel.
A couple years later, after one of these friends had gone into a program to get his doctorate in philosophy, I had the chance to get together with him to catch up a bit. When I asked him how his classes at the university were going, he said his studies were progressing pretty well. But then he somewhat sheepishly admitted that when his faith was challenged by his atheistic professors, "it seems to make a lot of sense to actually give them reasons and answers for what we believe."
Somehow being around people with genuine spiritual doubts and confusion helps us regain our bearings and reminds us of our mission: to bring the truths of the gospel to bear so that real people — people in our families and in our neighborhoods, people we know at work or at school, people who are like us as well as those who are very different from us, people on the other side of the town, the county, the country, and the world — will believe and receive Christ.
Before I move past the topic of what apologetics does for people, let me encourage you with a few thoughts on what studying and telling others about the evidence and logic behind our faith does for us as believers:
• It help us grow in understanding our own beliefs as we learn about the evidence, the Bible, and other belief systems in the effort to help our friends move toward Christ.
• It gives us clarityon what we believe, much as a final test in school helps us pull together all that we've learned — or should have learned — during the semester.
• It gives us confidence concerning why we believe what we believe as our faith stands up to scrutiny and challenges.
• It gives us spiritual stability, preventing us from being "tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching ..." (Eph. 4:14).
• It matures us in our faith and helps shape us for the leadership in the church as ones who can "encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it" (Titus 1:9).
• It expands our capacity to "love ... God ... with all [our] mind ..." (Matt. 22:37).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Reasons for Faith"
by .
Copyright © 2007 Norman L. Geisler and Chad V. Meister.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Editors and Contributors,
Foreword by Lee Strobel,
Preface,
PART ONE: WHAT IS APOLOGETICS AND WHY DO WE NEED IT?,
1 An Apologetic for Apologetics Mark Mittelberg,
2 A Relevant Apologetic Josh McDowell,
3 Apologetics for the Twenty-first Century John Warwick Montgomery,
4 A Biblical Argument for Balanced Apologetics: How the Apostle Paul Practiced Apologetics in the Acts H. Wayne House,
5 The Character of the Good Apologist: An Appreciation for the Life and Labors of Bob Passantino E. Calvin Beisner,
PART TWO: CULTURAL AND THEOLOGICAL ISSUES IN APOLOGETICS,
6 The Essentials of the Christian Faith Norman L. Geisler,
7 Post modernism and Truth J. P. Moreland,
8 Politics, Faith, and the Separation of Church and State Francis J. Beckwith,
9 Aslan in the Public Square Louis Markos,
10 Abortion, Research Cloning, and Beyond: New Challenges for Pro-Lifers in a Brave New World Scott Klusendorf,
11 The Value of Historical Theology for Apologetics Alan W. Gomes,
12 Open Theism Chad V. Meister,
PART THREE: DEFENDING CHRISTIAN THEISM,
13 The Cosmological Argument Winfried Corduan,
14 The Design Argument Miguel Angel Endara,
15 The Transcendental Argument Sean Choi,
16 God and the Evidence of Evil R. Douglas Geivett,
17 The New Testament, Jesus Christ, and The Da Vinci Code Richard G. Howe,
18 The Resurrection of Jesus and Recent Agnosticism Gary Habermas,
PART FOUR: WORLD RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS,
19 Mormonism Kurt Van Gorden,
20 Jehovah's Witnesses and the Doctrine of Salvation Jim Valentine and Eric Pement,
21 Oneness Pentecostals and the Doctrine of God Ron Rhodes,
22 Witchcraft Richard G. Howe,
23 Satanism Jon Trott,
24 Reasoning Faith and Global Missions: On Reaching Hindus and Hindu-Like Peoples David J. Hesselgrave,
Postscript: A Manifesto for Christian Apologetics: Nineteen Theses to Shake the World with the Truth Douglas Groothuis,
What People are Saying About This
"Reasons for Faith, edited by Norm Geisler and Chad Meister, is a handbook for defending the biblical worldview that every pastor should have on his desk and every thoughtful layperson could study with benefit. This is a timely and timeless book."—Charles Colson, Founder, Prison Fellowship and the Colson Center for Christian Worldview
"Norman Geisler and Chad Meister have gathered together many of today's top apologists in Reasons for Faith, a fresh, new book that serves as an excellent resource for anyone seeking answers regarding matters of faith. Well-documented, yet accessible for the everyday reader, this book sets a new standard for collaborative writing in the area of apologetics. I highly recommend it!"—John Ankerberg, Host of The John Ankerberg Show; President and Founder, The Ankerberg Theological Research Institute
"The church today faces a bewildering array of issues that challenge the truth or plausibility of Christian claims. Reasons for Faith provides an informative and helpful response to many of these issues. Even those who may not agree with every argument or conclusion will benefit from careful reading of this significant work."—Harold Netland, Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Intercultural Studies, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
"Chad Meister and Norm Geisler have delivered a tour de force for apologetics in Reasons for Faith, a treasure trove of rich apologetical information addressing a myriad of relevant subjects. For saints and seekers alike, this is a must read and an apologetics classic in the making."—R. Phillip Roberts, President, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
"Provides just the formidable, relevant, wide-ranging, and winsome defense of the faith necessary to equip any believer to participate effectively in today's marketplace of ideas."—Hank Hanegraaff, President, Christian Research Institute; Host, Bible Answer Man broadcast