Peter tells us we are required to be ready at any time to explain something of our faith to others (1 Peter 3:15). Those who attend various educational institutions, seeking to obey that command as a vocation, have learned there is a fancy term for the study of those things which make it possible to answer when folks try to poke holes in our faith: apologetics. It’s not so much we apologize in the modern sense of the word for holding to ideas others find offensive (though the Political Correctness crowd would like us to do just that), but we have a ready answer for their objections to our faith.
One of my favorite teachers of apologetics is dead now, but he wrote an awful lot of books and such: Cornelius van Til. The one thing for which he is most famous among Christian scholars is the idea we have no common frame of reference with non-Christians. He talks about theories of how people come to know things — “epistemology” — how the human mind builds its internal structure for holding knowledge, and the mechanism for learning new knowledge. In an essay titled “My Credo” he says:
[A]ny non-Christian epistemology, i.e., any theory of knowledge based upon principles acceptable per se to the “mind of the flesh” … is doomed to utter failure; not only failure as an avenue to Christian faith, but as an avenue to any form of knowledge whatsoever….
To look for a point of contact with the unbeliever in the unbeliever’s notions of himself and his world is to encourage him in his wicked rebellion and to establish him in his self-frustration….
Why seek truth where only a lie is to be found? Can the non-Christian tell us, and therefore the Christ himself, what the facts are and how they are related to each other, in what way they cohere, while yet excluding creation and providence? If he can, and if he can tell us truly, then the Christian story simply is not true!
He connects this to Paul’s contention the sinner’s mind cannot accept the truth of God on its own terms (Romans 8:5-8). Remember: Paul did not come to Christ as a volunteer seeking truth, but was vanquished by the Holy Spirit while seeking to destroy the Church. Prior to the Damascus Road revelation, Paul simply could not accept what Jesus taught (Acts 9:1-9).
One of the things Jesus taught:
“I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished!
“Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided; three against two, and two against three. Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” (Luke 12:49-53)
Jesus knew there would be plenty of listeners who would reject His message. When someone claims to speak for God, they claim to reveal reality as God sees it. Since God is the Creator of all things, we can be certain His point of view is Ultimate Truth. Jesus proclaimed a way of looking at things contrary to what most Jews had taught or had been taught. Some would listen; some would not. The things He spoke about were eternal issues. By their very nature, these issues were all-or-nothing — either He was wholly right or completely wrong. One either agreed with Him or was opposing Him (Luke 11:23).
The message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is full of audacious and unreasonable claims. It starts with the assertion we are all evil by nature and deserve a short miserable life, a long painful death, followed by eternity in Hell. Then He claims to be the only escape from that fate, regardless of where and when one was born. He lived a sinless life, died in our place, and has risen from the dead. Now He lives in each of our hearts, if we accept His teachings. These claims are ludicrous from the standpoint of human logic.
Most humans living at any time since Jesus’ days on earth have predictably rejected these claims. Unless you live a sheltered existence, most people you know will also reject them. Plenty will claim to accept portions of them, or try to find parallels in their own beliefs as grounds for some sort of kinship in spirit, but that is not possible. God says, “This is true,” and anything but “this” is a lie and is sin.
This kind of exclusionary claim raises people’s hackles. It makes folks treat us as enemies. It polarizes everyone and everything, no middle ground. This is the fire Jesus spoke of and the fire consumed His life in a baptism of suffering. He came to bring peace between God and man, not between man and man. You don’t have to be confrontational and harsh to make enemies. Just love people the way Jesus loves them: enough to tell them the truth.
That same fire Jesus brought is a fire which cleanses souls from sin, a fire which gives new life, a fire which burns within to express His truth in how we live and speak. Do you stoke that fire, or do you quench it?
