This is Athanasius, Excelsior is really busy this week/end and so I am going to write today's post. I'm also going to deviate a bit from our current trajectory. We're both incredibly excited about our current series on God's love and logic, and an upcoming guest poster. However, I think this short aside will be both beneficial in understanding our blog and future posts.
In this post, I'd like to briefly discuss how, why, and when to use apologetics and theology. This will by no means be an exhaustive post. Please feel free to email or comment with questions, comments, or "You're crazy!" haha
One of them men currently alive who I admire the most is Ravi Zacherias (for information on Mr. Zacharias refer to this page). His ministry, RZIM has a simple, but profound mission statement.
HELPING THE THINKER BELIEVE. HELPING THE BELIEVER THINK.
I believe this idea is central to our understanding and use of the gifts God has given us. Thinkers here is used to describe non-Christians who struggle to believe what Paul calls "the mystery of the gospel." (Romans 16:25, Ephesians 6:19) For this occasion,we must show the Love of God, because this is the only thing that can save anyone. The incredible love of God that transfers those who believe from the kingdom of death and darkness to that of His son's glorious life and light.(Colossians 1:13)
The believer is obviously a Christian, and many times needs to be taught to think. Now, before anyone jumps up to say they think, hear me out. I mean by "think" to think critically and understand in their own minds the truths and defense of Christianity so that they may give a defense of the hope within them. (1Peter 3:15, Romans 14:5) It is incredibly important that we understand how reasonable and logical the Scriptures and God's existence are.
This can often also be helpful in opening stages of helping unbelievers to give the Gospel a hearing. In this though, we cannot get caught up in philosophy and logic and lose sight of God's love and his call on our lives. Three scripture passages explain this better than I ever could:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-2, ESV)
The believer is obviously a Christian, and many times needs to be taught to think. Now, before anyone jumps up to say they think, hear me out. I mean by "think" to think critically and understand in their own minds the truths and defense of Christianity so that they may give a defense of the hope within them. (1Peter 3:15, Romans 14:5) It is incredibly important that we understand how reasonable and logical the Scriptures and God's existence are.
This can often also be helpful in opening stages of helping unbelievers to give the Gospel a hearing. In this though, we cannot get caught up in philosophy and logic and lose sight of God's love and his call on our lives. Three scripture passages explain this better than I ever could:
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:18-19, 21-25 ESV)
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, ESV)
A future post will give an apologetic for apologetics and why we believe it is worth studying. For now, I hope this serves to explain how we must be discerning and prayerful in our study and use of both theology and apologetics, because otherwise it is incredibly easy to make Logic and Philosophy our God and lose sight of the scandalous nature of the Gospel and God's love.
In God's Unsearchable Love,
Athanasius
P.S. John 13:1-19 is this lived out by Jesus just prior to the Last Supper. As his disciples argue about who will be greatest and why, Jesus begins to wash their feet, and teaches them that if he as their Lord and teacher will wash their feet (aka serve and love them) how much more should we as the Body of Christ serve each other?
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