Apologetics and Preaching
Even a cursory reading of Paul’s epistles to Timothy and Titus makes it clear that their work involved a wide variety of communicative purposes. They were to instruct, teach, rebuke, urge, charge, guard the truth, remind, rightly handle the word, correct opponents, convince, exhort, and so forth. The list is long. It should not be assumed now, any more than then, that all of these activities are restricted to the Sunday sermon. The preacher has opportunities to teach classes, converse with individuals, debate issues, and speak to a general audience on subjects that relate to the Bible, like archeology or Roman history, depending on his facility with the subjects. This article, however, is limited to edifying the church through preaching.
“Preaching” is to be distinguished from “lecture.” Lecture is chiefly the extended, one-way transfer of information with little application to people’s lives, whereas sermons are to deal primarily with biblical material, making application to human belief and behavior. Both methods are valuable, and a preacher may use either on appropriate occasions. The focus of this article is on what a preacher does in the regular assemblies of the church. That stated, however, there are also times when one should preach on issues that challenge and complicate Christians’s lives, issues on which they need perspectives that flow from a Christian worldview but are not directly addressed in Scripture: abortion, Bible translations/ versions, relating to people who have AIDS, false accusations by the public, and so forth. Apologetics and Christian evidences are among those subjects. While a special class on apologetics and evidences may go into greater detail than a sermon, preaching on these subjects is also important. How does one preach on these matters, however, without losing the audience, without boring them uselessly? Preaching usually addresses audiences that vary in age, education, interests, and abilities. This is part of the general challenge of preaching.
Be Sensitive to Your Audience
Who are those people out there today? What percent, if any, are college-educated? A student of mine once asked members of a rural church to put their age and highest level of education on a 3 X 5 card, without signing their names. He knew they were intelligent enough, but he was shocked to learn that the average level of formal education was eighth grade. What did that indicate about their vocabulary? Luther said preachers should preach to the washer-woman on the back row (cf. Craig 58). True, but it is better to think in broader terms. It irritates people when one commonly preaches far over their heads or well beneath their understanding. Of course, teaching necessarily involves new materials, new perspectives, and new words, or learning will not occur.
Begin with Their Issues and Concerns
Most preachers know about “feedback,” a concept drawn from electronics and applied to human communication. When deciding which subjects or topics to treat in a sermon, however, it is useful to have “feed-in,” gathering from a specific church what it perceives to be the chief concerns, pressures, and interests of life. A preacher might think they ought to be concerned about thus and so, even if they are not; but since people operate with their perceptions it is important to begin where they are and lead them from there. Most people have some concerns, whether created by their life experiences, comments by associates, or the various media. Be sensitive to those concerns.
Loscalzo, an evangelical, has considerable experience in preaching to, and interacting with, the unbelieving millennials and post-moderns. Based on his interface with them he lists several questions on which Christian preachers need to focus if they are to make sense to post-moderns:
1. Where did I come from? Did I just happen, or was I an intentional creation? Why am I here? What am I here for? . . . [The preacher has much to say on that subject.]
2. How should I live? Are there any absolutes today? Should I expect someone else to accept my rules of conduct? What is right and wrong? . . . [These unbelievers need information and evidence on biblical ethics.]
3. How can I know that God exists? If God is good and loving, where is there evil in the world? Why doesn’t God do anything about it? With so many religions in the world, how can we know which one really leads us to God? . . .
4. Is there life after death? Where am I going after I die? . . . (37-38)
If Loscalzo is correct, is it not fortuitous that these unbelievers are asking these questions? Are not their questions evidence of being more confused and puzzled than belligerent and caustic? Of course, people in their teens or fifties may have several other questions.
Not everyone encountered today is a post-modern or a millennial, but a wise preacher will seek to know where his auditors are in their tensions and questions. It does little good to scratch people where they do not itch. That stated, based on my experience with, and reading about, preaching on apologetic themes, the following are my suggestions.
First, use a language your people understand. One is often tempted to preach and teach in the verbiage and vocabulary by which one’s information is acquired. That can be communicatively disastrous when one gains insight from scholarly articles and books loaded with heavy and uncommon verbiage. People in the Sunday assemblies might be knowledgeable in physics or physical education, economics or education, and be ignorant of philosophical terms like epistemology, agnosticism, verification principle, and so forth. The same would go for various scientific terms. Obviously, the meaning of crucial and necessary terms can and should be explained at times. This point was made several years ago when Reader’s Digest carried those unfamiliar ways of stating simple concepts. Thus, “an addlepated beetle-head and his specie divaricate with startling prematurity” (a fool and his money soon part). C. S. Lewis was a master at conveying in common language various concepts for which there were sophisticated terms. When describing a person who seriously but wrongly claimed for himself the kind of things Jesus claimed, rather than using loaded psychiatric terms—delusional disorder, catatonic schizophrenia, etc.— Lewis referred to Him as being “on a level with a man who says he’s a poached egg” (45). Most people know how to regard that kind of person. Not surprisingly, when Lewis died a writer in the British press stated that he “had the ability to make righteousness readable.”1 So the thoughtful preacher will ask, (1) Who are these people to whom I speak? and (2) Which words and illustrations may I use to communicate accurately with them?
The preacher must work within the framework of his hearers. In a congregational sermon it is likely that the argument from design will be made better and clearer by using the old “watch in the desert” (or perhaps a smart phone) illustration, than by a reference to DNA since far more people know about watches and smart phones than know about DNA. On the other hand, the DNA argument was appealing to Antony Flew (cf. 74-75), but he was a philosopher with broad knowledge. He argued, however, that even scientists and philosophers often do poorly in each other’s fields of expertise. “Likewise, a scientist who speaks as a philosopher will have to furnish a philosophical case. As Albert Einstein himself said, ‘The man of science is a poor philosopher’” (90-91).
Happily, today one has access to marvelous diagrams and photographs on the Internet. Much useful information on archeology is also available. Used judiciously, these visuals can add immensely to one’s oral presentations to a picture- conscious congregation.
Second, give them perspective. In the decade of the 1960s I evangelized among the rank-in-file in the British Isles. Several of those brought to Christ from unbelief asked, “Philip, why is it that so many of these well-educated men don’t believe?” Perhaps we had made Christianity seem to them too easy to believe, even though dealing with apologetics and Christian evidences was “bread and butter” in our work. Nevertheless, they wanted to know why people persist in unbelief. It is almost as though they are asking within themselves, “Do they know something I don’t know?” They needed perspective on the situation, not more evidence.
About a hundred years ago there was a slight revival in the study of philosophy in the USA. One yokel responded to that new endeavor by quipping, “I don’t see the point of studying philosophy. It can’t butter your bread.” “No,” came a response, “but it does have a way of helping you to enjoy your bread when you have no butter to put on it.”2 It helps people to understand situations. Why were the Jews in John 9 so bent on unbelief even though the evidence was indisputable that a man born blind had been healed? Something else was operating besides evidence. My introduction to the various causes of unbelief was in the 1950s through James Bales’ Roots of Unbelief.3 Bad experiences with churches and Christians, emotional trauma, bitterness and disappointment in life, and vested interests all can produce a refusal to consider the evidence for a belief—or a refusal to believe even when exposed to the evidence. Legitimate persuasion involves other things along with evidence. Antony Flew observed:
. . . [T]here is the charge that in philosophy it is never possible to prove to someone that you are right and he or she is wrong. But the missing piece in this argument is the distinction between producing a proof and persuading a person. A person can be persuaded by an abominable argument and remain unconvinced by one that ought to be accepted. (41)
Often people refuse belief for causes that have little to do with evidence. Bales rightly observed, “When we think about the matter [sufficient evidence], however, we realize that it takes more than evidence to produce conviction. There must also be a knowledge of the evidence and a willingness to be influenced by evidence” (5). That is one reason the concept and practice of Christian love itself is a valuable link in apologetics, as argued well by Lindsley in Love, The Ultimate Apologetic. Christian behavioral love has a way of opening people up to consider the evidences and an appropriate response to them.
Third, immunize them. There is a concept in communication theory that involves the act of “pretreating” people “to make them resistant to persuasion” (McGuire 242f), especially to devious and illegitimate persuasion. Such “pretreatment,” McGuire pointed out, may take several forms. (a) It may involve increasing a person’s deeper commitment to a value or idea already embraced. There is great apologetic value, for example, in keeping before people the coherent and appealing Christian worldview. (b) It may involve linking one’s beliefs to other strongly held views (as Paul did when some at Corinth were being influenced by their culture to deny the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15:12-19). (c) The immunizer could seek to change a person’s “motivational orientation.” In cases where emotion dominates decision-making, for example, the person needs to be moved more into evidence-based beliefs and actions. Jesus engaged in some of these immunizing activities in preparing His followers to face persecution (Matthew 5:10-12; cf. John 16:1-4). Peter did the same for his readers (1 Peter 4:12). Similarly, in various ways a preacher can immunize his hearers against the most prominent local attacks on their faith. This is part of the process of “protecting” the flock. While elders have their responsibilities both to give positive instruction and to refute error (Titus 1:5-6), Titus was to preach sound doctrine (2:1-10), anchoring it to God’s grace that teaches new behavior (2:11-15).
When preachers fail to do their part in protecting the flock, serious consequences usually follow. In his Warrack Lectures for 1953, Scotsman A. C. Craig was bemoaning the inability of university students to handle the challenges to their faith. “How has this come to pass—and in Scotland of all places . . .?” He continued,
It would take a full-scale inquiry to discover all the reasons in all their complexity, but I strongly suspect that a central one would be found to be a failure of the pulpit in my generation to do its full duty by the pew. As regards the whole matter of biblical criticism we have been too reticent, too timid, too little trustful of the intelligence of the ordinary man. We have forgotten that the Church’s duty of instruction to its members, never less important than that of exhortation, becomes doubly important in an age of cultural upheaval, and that the pulpit is the keypoint of it. Topics neglected by the pulpit are topics unlodged in the general mind of the Church. (45)
In our day people in campus ministry report that many students arrive with very little faith to lose. Tragic. Happy is the congregation, however, that is informed in advance about both the challenges it will likely face and some initial means of reacting to those challenges. It is prudent to “immunize” them so they will be less vulnerable to the onslaught. Such immunization by sermons may induce members to pursue deeper levels of thought by attending classes and lectures or following recommended readings. The church may provide such lectures and classes, but the focus here is on the preaching dimension of the church’s teaching.
Fourth, use verbal “footnotes.” In preaching the biblical text one can give the evidence and state “book, chapter, and verse,” as the saying goes. Even though the preacher does not give the full volume of biblical teaching on a single topic, the church understands his references. In dealing with apologetics, however, that is harder to do since it often involves references to unfamiliar books, unknown people, and some uncommon words. It is unwise to flood people’s minds with too much information, putting them in an awkward position like trying to get a drink of water from an open fire hydrant. Too much information can confuse. Urban legend has it that Oliver Wendell Holmes once quipped, “Your patient is not entitled to all the medicine in your little black bag.” The patient deserves to know, however, that much more medicine is available in case he needs it!
In a sermon it is valuable to identify some of the available sources, both popular and detailed. It is valuable to hold up a printed copy of a debate between a responsible person and one of the prominent atheists, or of K. A. Kitchen’s 642-page On the Reliability of the Old Testament, or a work on archeology and Scripture. One could hold up a copy of Kenyon’s Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, state how he worked through the many available manuscripts of the New Testament, and then quote him as saying, “The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries” (23). People need to know that the details are available. It enables them to understand that help is available for them, and that declarations of unbelief are being challenged forcefully today, as in the past, by competent scholars.
Fifth, work for balance. Batsell Barrett Baxter used to give his homiletics students a sheet entitled “The Whole Counsel of God” that contained seventy-two subjects one should preach over the course of one-and-a-half to two years. That was in the South in the mid-1950s. Today Baxter would likely make some changes in his list, even though he included several categories that deal with apologetics and evidences. His chief concern, however, was to encourage balanced preaching. He knew the tendency of men to specialize in a few subjects and preach so much on them that they neglect biblical subjects that were also vital to a church’s well-being. A preacher will serve the church well by preaching occasionally on current issues that challenge the Christian’s faith. Of course, there are times when the church is so confronted by severe threats that a disproportionately large number of sermons should address those threats. That was true when Scottish Presbyterians were being both severely persecuted and killed in the late 17th century for their refusal to yield to the behests of Kings Charles I and II who were Roman Catholic sympathizers. Men had to stand as watchmen at the door of the assemblies to alert the group should they see the King’s soldiers approaching. On the two hundredth anniversary of those “killing days” James Kerr edited a volume, Sermons Delivered in Times of Persecution in Scotland. The sermons were characteristically long and involved, more often than not affirming the vital biblical basis for the beliefs more precious than physical life itself. That was an appropriate response to the pervasive nature of their persecution. Given what the seven churches of Asia faced as reflected in the book of Revelation, one wonders what kind of sermons faithful preachers gave those churches?
Men who are capable of preaching on apologetic themes should not major in that to the exclusion of other vital subjects necessary to the maintenance of a godly life before God. There is little virtue in being a “one trick pony” as a servant of the word in a local church. While some heads are bothered by the onslaught of unbelief, some hearts are heavy with pain and suffering. Both groups should be addressed. As surely as faith, hope, and love are vital components of the Christian system, they need to be fertilized as well as defended. Preaching with balance is the best framework within which to preach on apologetic themes.
When I worked in England in the decade of the 1960s, dealing with apologetics was common in our work, especially in personal evangelism. We rarely encountered atheism and existentialism then. Those views were found more prominently on the European Continent and only limitedly in Britain. Most of the people we encountered were skeptical, doubtful. They brought up a broad array of doubts, from old line liberalism to J. A. T. Robinson’s Honest to God. “How do I know the Bible has not been changed over the years?” a thoughtful Indian asked me. “Is it true that the God of the Old Testament was cruel while the God of the New Testament is loving?” asked a lady in a Sunday morning Bible class. “Why would a good God allow the Germans to do what they did to us?” was often asked. True, many young people fashionably referred to themselves as “agnostics,” even though they were in reality skeptics. Thus, in contrast to the Tennessee and Kansas churches I had served in the 1950s, preaching on apologetic themes was a greater priority as we sought to strengthen Christians in a sea of unbelief. To preach with balance the preacher needs to be sensitive to the threats and opportunities in the zip code where he works. Answering many 19th century questions may not be appropriate today, anywhere. Preaching an out-of-date apologetic will surely fail both the church and unbelievers. Sensitivity to their real needs, challenges, and threats can allow one to be a good “servant of the word” who feeds and protects, who encourages and corrects, who prods to service and upholds in duress.
Dr. C. Philip Slate is a Christian scholar, educator, former missionary, and school of theology and university professor, with expertise in the fields of Homiletics and Evangelism. He may be contacted at cpsmissions@gmail.com
Works Cited
Bales, J. D. Ruth of Unbelief. Rosemead: Old Paths, 1948.
Craig, A. C. “Preaching in a Scientific Age.” The Warrack Lectures for 1953. New York: Scribner’s, 1954.
Flew, Antony. There is A God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
Kenyon, Frederic. Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts. 4th ed. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1939.
Kerr, James, editor. Sermons Delivered in Times of Persecution in Scotland by Sufferers for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ. Edinburgh: Johnstone, Hunter, 1880.
Lewis, C. S. The Case for Christianity. New York: Macmillan, 1954.
Lindsley, Art. Love, The Ultimate Apologetic: The Heart of Christian Witness. Downers Grove: IVP, 2008.
Loscalzo, Craig A. Apologetic Preaching: Proclaiming Christ to a Postmodern World. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000.
McGuire, William J., “Persuasion, Resistance, and Attitude Change.” Handbook of Communication. Eds. Ithiel deSola Pool, Frederick W. Frey, William Schramm, et. al. Chicago: Rand McNally College, 1973.
Endnotes
1 I read this statement in a London newspaper in 1963, the week John F. Kennedy was killed, and both C. S. Lewis and Aldus Huxley died.
2 This incident was reported by Dean J. P. Sanders in a philosophy class at Lipscomb University in the mid-1950s.
3 Roots of Unbelief (Rosemead, CA: Old Paths Book Club, 1948) was issued in a revised edition as How Can Ye Believe. Shreveport: Lambert, 1976.