Do you ever feel like you have to have all the answers for your skeptical friends? Here’s the problem: it is way, way easier to ask a hard question than to give a good answer. In the space of five minutes someone can ask twenty incredibly difficult questions: how can we know anything at all? Maybe the Bible was altered by a group of powerful religious leaders – prove me wrong! How do you know Jesus is God? What about the violence in the Old Testament? How do you reconcile faith and science? What is your opinion on evolution? Doesn’t the Bible contradict itself? And on and on it can go…
evangelism
How To Answer Your Friends’ Questions
In this post I am going to teach you a process that will let you answer your friends’ questions. Seriously. You can do this.
Before we begin, though, we need to recognize a more general point. Whenever we decide to learn something new, there’s a three-step process:
- Decide that the new skill is worth learning.
- Overcome our initial fears of not being good at the new skill.
- Become competent at the new skill.
When it comes to apologetics, I have talked to hundreds of people who buy into #1. “Yes, apologetics is a skill worth learning. It would be amazing to be able to answer my friends’ questions. I would really like to be able to do that.”
Lessons from the Alex Rosenberg – William Lane Craig Debate
On February 1, Purdue University, in partnership with Biola University, hosted a debate between Dr. Alex Rosenberg and Dr. William Lane Craig, on the topic “Is Faith in God Reasonable?” You can already find audio of the debate and a summary of the debate online. The video can be watched at the bottom of this post.
I think there are a few valuable lessons from the debate:
Apologetics Is Important
Throughout the debate, Dr. Rosenberg presented a wide variety of terrible arguments.
What the Apostle Paul Can Teach Us About Evangelism
The Apostle Paul led an amazing life. It seems that everything he did somehow advanced the gospel. Even when he persecuted the church, dragging men and women into prison, and oversaw the martyrdom of Stephen, we learn that “those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4)!
Today, however, I want to look at how the Apostle Paul intentionally spread the good news about Jesus. In particular, I want to give specific attention to the time he was on trial before Festus the Governor of Judea, King Herod Agrippa II, and Bernice the sister of King Agrippa. Also present for this speech were the military tribunes and the prominent city leaders.
Five Ways To Answer A Question
Christians seem to have a poor reputation for answering questions.
Would you like to know why people don’t listen to our answers? And do you want some ideas for changing this situation? Then this post is for you!
Let’s start by understanding the problem a little better. There are at least three reasons why people are not always interested in our answers:
- For one, sometimes we are offering an answer when no one asked us a question.
- Two, sometimes we seem to have only one way of answering questions: by giving a lecture. People start to doze off, frustrated that their mild curiosity has been taken advantage of and that they are now subject to a rambling theological discourse and a full-bore presentation of, say, the gospel message. It is like asking to see a movie trailer and being shown the extended Director’s Cut version.
- Finally, the mismatch between our lives and words – this is called hypocrisy – means that others don’t really care what we think. They see our lives, they are unimpressed, and they decide they aren’t interested in what we have to say.
So today let’s break out of the box and look at five different ways to answer a question!
SEAL of God by Chad Williams – A Book Review
Looking for a fast-paced, exciting story about how a trouble-making washout became a highly-trained Navy SEAL who loved to party, but then gave his life to Christ and became a full-time evangelist?
Then SEAL of God is the book for you. I don’t know of any other book quite like it. It is a quick and easy read – I finished it in a few hours – and a definite page-turner.
Chad’s story is intriguing for several reasons.
Tactics by Greg Koukl – A Book Review
Want more friends? Better conversations? Frequent, life-changing spiritual encounters? But wait, there’s more! What if you could also avoid dead-end discussions, pointless arguments, and go-nowhere debates? Then you should be interested in Tactics, a book by Greg Koukl, the President of Stand to Reason Ministries.
The fact is that many Christians feel intimidated by evangelism. Many atheists are frustrated with the same old cliches being read to them from the same pre-packaged scripts. We all need a new way forward if we’re going to have important but respectful conversations about what really matters.
Tactics is an outstanding book for three main reasons: