Pastor's Perspective

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I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. Jude 1:3 

 As a wordsmith who makes a living by communicating, I used to love the Word of the Day segment to Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin Zone show on Fox News. Over the years, I’ve been fascinated with words, their meanings and how those meanings change over time. If, for example, one hundred years ago, someone described themselves as a gay Christian man, folks would respond to that description with a universally positive attitude. Today, such a description would take on a whole new context. Obviously, the word gay has taken on a very different meaning that its original one. Most of the time, the meaning of words doesn’t change over time. For some words, while the meaning of the word is the same as it’s always been, the word remains obscure. Such words were the whole purpose of O’Reilly’s Word of the Day. With that in mind, I would like to offer up one: Apologetics. What is apologetics? In our context, apologetics is quite literally defense of the faith; the Greek word apologia means “defense” as a lawyer would give at a trial. Why are Christian apologetics important? Because every generation produces challenges, questions and concerns about the message of the gospel and it’s up to the faithful to defend the position. Christian apologetics are understandably vital, but here’s what I really want you to hear: it’s not just up to the clergy and the theologians to be apologists for the faith. It’s up to every believer. Why are apologetics important and why is it important that you understand what they are and what to do with them? Author and theologian Ken Ham puts it best when he says. “It’s as if the devil has said, ‘You Christians can go on teaching kids about the miracles Jesus did in the New Testament. You can teach them about the babe in the manger, and the Resurrection. You can teach them about Jesus healing of blind people and raising the dead. Teach them about the feeding of the 5,000, about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, about Jonah being in a great fish for three days. Go ahead. Teach them these stories. “‘And while you are doing that, I’m going to be indoctrinating those same kids not to believe the Book. I’m going to use the fake news of evolution and millions of years to brainwash them into believing science has effectively disproved the Bible, making it nothing more than an outdated, obsolete book of “stories.” And since you won’t be teaching apologetics, I will teach my own apologetics through the education systems, media, and the internet to make sure that they doubt God’s Word. The more this happens, the more most won’t listen to the message of the gospel.’” Last spring, thirty plus people from Leo Methodist Church have a far more profound understanding of the concept of Christian apologetics than they did a year and a half ago. Why? Because they completed the chronological bible study. They spent seventy weeks over the course of a year and a half learning not just about the bible, but the powerful truths represented there. In so doing, they have become defenders of the faith. They are prepared to defend the faith far more effectively than they were before. And their pastor is very, very proud of them. 

Blessings, Pastor Jeff