#007 - Apologetics - pt. 2

FEBRUARY 2019

The gospel according to you.

Christianity is a very personal religion, and religion tells us to look deep inside ourselves for the benefit of others. I said the last part earlier. If we can take our own meanings from the Bible without sacrificing the integrity of the most sacred book, then how can this be perceived as a bad thing? 

In this new apologetic approach, personal meaning is lifted above literal interpretation, the latter being something Doctors of Divinity hold near and dear to their hearts. Though it is important to educate to find meaning to teach to others, it is wrong to assume literal translations for such a personal religion. The Bible should be contextualized and discussed. The because-I-say-so and I-went-to-school-for-it mentality does not fit into personal definitions and experiences with the Bible. When this pretense is dropped, the Bible becomes a book of beauty that is not strict and authoritative. It's far less scary to read it this way.

Living the true life of a Christian is to look to the Bible for wisdom and support, not for foundational meaning and support. I’ve never opened up the Bible looking for answers to foundational questions because my foundation has always been in God and Jesus. So why is a biblical foundation important in certain sects of Christianity? Do we, as Christians, need a set of rules by which we should judge ourselves and one another? Do we? 

If we look at our new foundation in Jesus, we can see that there is only one rule and compound commandment by which all of us are judged. Now, the Bible becomes a support column, not a building instability point. If you come to the table with the mindset that I need to judge others so they can judge me back, you may be using the Bible as your foundation. If you see others struggling and are likelier to point out the Bible verses where they are failing rather than offering a helping hand, then you may be a biblical literalist. Matthew 22:37-38 should be at the cornerstone of biblical truth, and using it to judge others is impossible! The rest of the Bible doesn’t have nearly as much significance as what Jesus came to abolish with those words. Amen.

When you approach the Bible with an authoritative viewpoint, it is more likely that you will fall short time and time again. With God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as your foundation and the great commandment as your starting point, you can see that we are all imperfect and need God’s grace. It opens you up to the life of freedom found only in Jesus and God. It is not a set of rules to fall short of or a bunch of rituals to mess up, but a story of God’s promises fulfilled to anyone who takes up the way, the truth, and the light of the world- Jesus. 

The Bible begins to take shape and form as proof of God’s great plan and fits into the overall narrative of what we now call Christianity. All of this is from a new perspective lens on how to view the bible. Though opponents may wonder why all this is necessary when the Bible has been an okay-ish foundation for the past millennia, the world we live in is quite different than ever before. Akin to modern enlightenment, our information age certainly dictates a new approach to apologetics and a more modern take on biblical authority. 

Greetings from the world of tomorrow!

Johannes Gutenberg, hands caked with ink and brow sweaty with the toil of turning the wheel of his newly invented printing press, couldn’t imagine the revolution that moveable type would cause. Or perhaps he had the forethought to invent such a necessity and knew its importance. Either way, his story is much entwined with the story of the Bible as the authors of the Gospels and letters. Just like Alexander the Great set the stage with his conquests of the modern world and uniting that world under the Greek language, Gutenberg revolutionized the delivery method of the Bible profoundly. 

Never again would commoners have to afford the expensive price of a hand-copied book. Never before could the Bible be printed in both quality and quantity, and this would make the holy book of books quite popular among an already insatiable and demanding crowd. Now, instead of borrowing copies or going to the local church to read a parishioner could own a personal copy of the text and explore the Bible in a new way and search for new meanings. Much like what is happening with the modern Bible translation movement Today.

Never before has the Bible been more accessible, nor has information about it and its history been more accessible. This has both a positive and negative effect. Positively, the language accessibility of the Bible and the reach of its text has never been greater. Negatively, opposition and new historical insights put the Bible at an even greater risk for scrutiny. Historically proven facts now back this scrutiny. This new criticism can be accessed as freely as it supports claims backed by a biblical foundation, and, more importantly, these tend to be faith-supported. 

Andy has spoken before on what happens to your faith when fact-based questions are given faith-based answers with a child-like understanding of the Bible. When you are told to believe without being told why you should believe, you begin a faith with an inherently unstable foundation. The Bible is then given as the rickety support to the already unstable base, and an ensuing disaster normally happens to the thriving Christian when face to face with direct criticism of their childlike faith. This happens in college for those who grew up in the faith and to others in intelligent friend groups. 

Unfortunately, the opposition tends to have a more intriguing and often more convincing argument. Biblically centered Christians are then bombarded with these arguments and use faith as the answer when facts should be used instead. Yes, you should have faith, but faith in God's promises and faith in Jesus as atonement for sin. And yes, you should continue to argue for the cause of biblical affirmation, but gone are the days where you can win an argument by simply saying, “The Bible says so…” 

Because of this future world we live in, where anything can be researched instantly, the argument cannot be won on the contrary assumption that this is untrue. One that is locked in a state of assumed ignorance. Just like the world was changed thanks to the movable type, we are also changed by the internet. Thanks first to Johannes Gutenberg and now thanks to Al Gore. 

Save the Bible, save the world.

I was working for a group of Neo Calvinists recently, and besides trying to figure out how I came to be in such a situation, I began to wonder how much of their world would be rocked by such realizations. Then, I began to listen to their rhetoric and biblical ideals. They live in a world where the Bible is king, a world a lot of Christians grow up in. One of their main complaints was that men, the only ones who could do anything in their Christianity, were not held to the biblical standards in the New Testament book of Titus.  They were certain that this was the cause of their ineffective missions. They fail to mention their biblical stance on women in leadership roles because only men could serve as missionaries. There’s a verse in Timothy that supports that biblical foundation. 

For three days, I heard thirteen different pastors preach over fifteen hours on how Calvinists could be better at reaching people. Never once did I hear them preach from Matthew 22. Their message was never about loving the people they were trying to reach. They were more concerned with firming up their biblical foundation than reaching those who needed the gospel. They also complained about street preaching being ineffective because of the people (not listening), not the method (of communication). So once again, because they, the adherents to this form of Christianity, did not have a stable enough Biblical foundation, they were doomed to failure from the beginning. And it showed up in their fiery and angsty rhetoric.  

It’s easy to see how unobtainable this becomes, and Christianity is about the ease of obtainment. That is what happens when you use the Bible as the foundation of your faith instead of Jesus and the resurrection and God and the Holy Spirit. The Bible is a rich history of the world and its relationship to God. Not a strict code of laws that requires literal adherence. Topically, the Calvinist approach provides excuses for failure in terms of the great commission and interacting with unbelievers. To them, a lost person is permanently lost because God has predetermined them to be so. This becomes a self-righteous stance when someone doesn’t share the same viewpoint. The opponent becomes permanently a lost cause. Move on. Nothing to see here.

This is just one example of many that express the same principle. All of these must change or be forgotten entirely to begin a new era of apologetics. The new methodology should be the teaching of the historical context of biblical passages and a shifting of the focus away from literal translations. An astute reader may ask, “How can I argue the Bible this way?” Well, astute reader, the stories of those who wrote the New Testament, the stories of the apostles, and the stories of the eyewitnesses to the death and resurrection all affirm Jesus and God’s fulfillment of salvation through Christ. This is the foundation of any argument against and for Christianity.

All of this is affirmed through the Old Testament as God fulfilling promises and the New Testament as God’s final promise through Jesus. Suppose this becomes the new perspective of the Bible. In that case, faith can be strengthened through God and Jesus, as evidenced in its historicity and not in its contradictory passages or archaic notions of punishment. It once again becomes a book a beauty and of rich history, not as a make it or break it cornerstone. My encouragement is to look for inspiration and wisdom from these sacred words in a new light and always pair it with a strong faith and confidence in who God says he is and, most importantly, who Jesus said he was.