Big Beliefs Mean Bold Action: What Is Faith? Pt. 3

[Continued from Part 2]

I: Involves Action

In the last two articles in this series, we’ve established that faith isn't a feeling or a sense of optimism. The Bible clearly teaches justification by faith and not works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Still, we all know that ideas have consequences. Beliefs determine behavior. If you believe that you can please God with your own righteousness, you’ll try to get into heaven by doing good works. If you truly believe that Jesus is Lord, God’s promised Messiah raised from the dead, you will begin to act in accordance with His lordship over your life.

This principle is how Scripture can say both that “one is justified by faith apart from works” and that “faith apart from works is dead.” (Romans3:28, James 2:26) One version of the law of non-contradiction states that “It is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, emphasis mine) Since Paul and James are talking about different kinds of works, there is no contradiction.

The passage in James mentions Rahab, the prostitute who helped the Israelite spies when they came to Jericho. (Read the story in Joshua 2!) She told the men that the entire city had heard about the Lord’s miracles and was afraid. So why was she saved when the rest of the city was destroyed? Her actions proved that she believed that God would follow through with His promise to give the Israelites the land. Her faith was not an abstract fantasy; it involved taking bold action.

T: Takes Courage

Not only does faith require action; it sometimes requires bold, risky action. Hebrews 10 pits fear and faith as opposites: “But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.” (Hebrews 10:39) 

The next chapter tells of saints who did outrageous and even impossible things through faith. For some, God came through with impossible miracles in their lifetime, such as Noah, Moses’ parents, and Rahab. Yet many of them, as both verses 13-6 and 35-40 point out, actually suffered for their courageous faith and weren’t rewarded—at least not yet.

It takes courage to give everything for an unseen future. Martyred missionary Jim Eliot is often quoted as saying, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” When God makes promises, He keeps them. God does reward those who seek Him, and He has prepared a much better city for us. Yet that doesn't exempt believers from suffering in the meantime.

So believer, don’t be afraid to take action based on God's truth and promises. Whether you see people raised from death or you face death yourself, know that you were created for an eternal country of glory, and keep “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2)

And the plot thickens... take a shortcut to the conclusion in Part Four!

Being a Winner

When you think of winning in apologetics, what comes to mind?

Maybe you’re focused on winning in competition. You have your eyes set on the medals and trophies at the end of the tournament, and you’re dead set on dominating the competition, one round at a time.

Or maybe you’re focused on winning the argument. Whatever ungodly worldview the other person throws out at you, you know your stuff and can shoot it down, leaving that heathen floundering for a response.

Trophies and good arguments are great, but (you guessed it) the attitudes I’ve just described are obviously wrong. Consider what the Bible says about winning:

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise. (Proverbs 11:30, NIV1984)

When we do apologetics, it’s easy to focus on the wrong type of winning. Think about it: how much effort do you put into winning souls to God? Trophies will collect dust, rankings will be forgotten, and even knowledge will pass away. Souls last forever.

Always remember, the point of speaking truth is to persuade another person—a valuable human precious to God and made in His image—not just to be right! Make the most of each opportunity to speak the truth.

Be wise: win souls, and you’ll always be a winner!

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men… For Christ’s love compels us…  So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.
 And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
 We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:11, 14, 16-20) 

Word Up! Divine Revelation, Pt. 2

When God reveals Himself, He often uses words. Part one discussed revelation through creation and conscience.  Part two explains the words of special revelation.

3. His Inspired [or Prophetic] Word: Scripture

God has revealed Himself through His Inspired Word. He breathed out words to the prophetic authors, both spoken to their generations and recorded, and these writings are scripture. The Greek word “scripture”, graphe, literally means “writing”. Scripture tells all about God’s character and historical actions. Unlike creation and conscience, it conveys God’s message of redemption.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets (Hebrews 1:1)
 

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17) [*Note: Everyone should memorize this. No one should quote it in a Category II round. It’s a great passage that’s over-overused.]

4. His Living Word: Jesus Christ

Jesus is the Word of God. He is God, and he spoke and acted on earth as God. He revealed the Father, being His exact representation for anyone to see.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (John 1:1, 14, 18)

 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:2-3)
 

[Jesus said] If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him… Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. (See John 14:6-9a) 

God reveals Himself using words. He spoke creation into being, wrote His law into human hearts, inspired holy writings, and lived on earth as a human. Although God (being infinite) is not fully comprehendible, He certainly has made Himself knowable to humanity.

A note of caution: in the first speech I gave with this outline, I didn’t mention General and Special Revelation.  A parent judge wrote multiple constructive comments (and marked me down several ranks relative to both other judges) about needing the traditional categorization.  He wrote that he liked my outline but still seemed to think I missed the “right” answer.  So be sure to mention it if you use this pattern. 

A Leap into the Light: What is Faith, Pt. 2

[Continued from Part 1] 

Anything is possible if you believe it, even if it makes no sense! Right?

Wrong. That idea is repeated throughout our culture, but a biblical understanding of faith is different. There are several notable truths about faith, illustrated with an acronym FAITH:

F: Focused on God.

In the Bible, it isn’t enough to just believe in anything. Nor is it enough to “believe” in nothing in particular; “faith” without an object (or faith in faith itself) is just optimism, a useless fuzzy feeling. Effective faith is belief in truth about God: “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6, ESV) I notice that it’s easy to confuse believing that with just believing in. There is no believing in God without believing that—that He exists, a good place to start; that He is faithful; that His promises are true; and so on. Otherwise, you may have positive feelings about the idea of God, but you have no faith.

The simplest description of faith comes from God’s covenant with Abraham: “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6) Having faith meant taking God at His word. This is a good idea only if God is true to His word. Otherwise it would have been deception, not faith. The only reason Abraham’s faith was effective in justifying him was because God was able to justify him, not because Abraham “just believed” hard enough. Faith must have God as its object to be effective.

A: Always Reasonable.

God may call us to believe something hard to accept, but it will always be reasonable—in the sense that it fits with what we already know about Him. For instance, the virgin birth is a miracle that is humanly impossible, but considering that God made a whole man at creation, it was perfectly reasonable for Mary to believe that God could conceive within her the human body of her Lord. Faith is never a leap into the dark; how can that be when God is light? On the contrary, “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” (Psalm 119:130) 

In one of the Old Testament’s greatest examples of faith, Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac in obedience to God, even though God had promised to make a nation of his descendants. When I've heard this story taught, the emphasis is usually on the unreasonableness of God’s initial command, and I admit that it would have been hard to obey. However, the Bible teaches that Abraham was logical to obey, in that “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead”. (Hebrews 11:19, NIV1984; emphasis mine) Abraham knew that God would keep His promise, and from the Genesis story, he seemed confident that both he and Isaac would come back alive. (Genesis 22:5) He acted based on what he knew about God, an act of both faith and reason.

My suspicion is that faith is so hard for us because we would rather figure life out on our own. It’s more comfortable (at first) to go with what we think makes sense. The idea of trusting God, Someone Whom we can’t figure out, is scary and means giving up control. Yet consider this: is it more reasonable to go through life making decisions based on our own limited understanding and limited experience, or to leave ourselves in the hands of the God Who knows everything, can do anything He wants to do, and passionately loves us?

So believer, don’t let this world redefine your confidence as an illogical fuzzy feeling. Focus on God and truth about Him, and believe in accordance with that truth. Know that the word of the Lord is true, and everything He does is worthy of your trust (See Psalms 33:4). 

What is faith? is continued in Part Three! 

Wow, Look at That Idea!: Jesus as the Word of God

Consider this: are words physical or conceptual things?

On the one hand, words are empirical; they can be heard aloud or seen when written. The letters or characters on a page can be measured and touched, and with the right instruments, sound waves can be measured according to size and frequency. They are made with one’s mouth and hands, certainly physical things.

On the other hand, we know that words aren’t just squiggles or vibrations. The Declaration of Independence isn’t important as a piece of paper with ink, but because the ideas it contains were central to the founding of our country. Telegraphs in Morse code existed because the buzz of dots and dashes contained a message from someone far away, not because people were still waiting for dubstep to be invented. Words mean things. If they didn’t contain an idea, they wouldn’t be words.

In other meaningful squiggles, it’s a trick question: words are both physical and conceptual. Words communicate thoughts and ideas between people by being concrete, empirical units. They convey the invisible by being visible.

The apostle John called Jesus the Word of God in his gospel and first epistle: 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 14)
 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3) 

 I've heard explanations of the Greek term “logos” as meaning some sort of mystical force of reason in the universe, and while the ideas of the ancient Greek philosophers are fascinating, I'm not persuaded that the context supports this claim. (That's not saying it can't have a double meaning, of course.) Both passages describe Jesus as the eternal God who took on physical human form to reveal God more fully. Jesus Christ Himself is the communication of the Father to humanity. He conveys the invisible by being visible. He is The Word of God.  

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation… For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 1:15, 2:9)  

What's the Word? Divine Revelation, Pt. 1

Theologians who discuss Divine Revelation typically start by distinguishing between General and Special Revelation. This distinction is solid theology, and it can be helpful. However, since these terms aren’t in the Bible, I’d like to spark your imagination to see Divine Revelation in a new way. In this pattern of organization, God has revealed Himself through four types of words:

1. His Spoken Word: Creation. Creation is the result of God’s words: He literally spoke the universe into existence. His act of speaking (a fancier term is “locutionary act”) resulted in what He made revealing both His existence and His character. Although creation is marred by sin, it still shows its Designer’s fingerprints. Creation makes it clear that the Creator is worthy of worship. 

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.  He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. (Psalm 33:6-9, ESV) 

 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. (Psalm19:1-4a) 

 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20) 

 2. His Written Word: Conscience. God has high moral standards, and He hasn’t left humanity in the dark about what those standards are. Although not everyone will agree about what to do in a tricky ethical dilemma, there is a common understanding across cultures that a moral law exists, and there tend to be similar ideas of what the virtues or rules are. This is because God has written His moral law on human hearts; even though consciences can become corrupted, they still testify to God’s existence and moral perfection.

 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them (Romans 2:14-15) 

In the traditional explanation, both creation and conscience would comprise General Revelation. They are insufficient for salvation but nevertheless reveal important truths about God. Part two will discuss two other types of Words by which God reveals Himself. Teleport yourself to Part Two to keep reading!

Who Made God?

I admit, this question I received from a student in my 4^th grade Sunday School class made me smile. Still, it’s a fair question, if not entirely correct.

Atheists love to go after this. The idea of a supernatural being Who has always existed—isn’t that unscientific?

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) wrote Five Ways that the existence of God can be demonstrated. The first three are cosmological (that is, having to do with the nature and origin of the universe), the fourth is more abstract, and the fifth is teleological (having to do with purpose). Read them for yourself! 

1. Motion. Aquinas argues that everything that is in motion needs to be moved by something else. His analogy of fire is a little confusing, but considering that Aquinas died over four centuries before Newton published his Laws of Motion (Principia, 1687), which state that an object at rest will remain at rest until acted upon by an outside force, this is actually pretty brilliant. This means that there must be a First Mover that needs nothing else to move it. This argument borrows heavily from Aristotle.

2. Causation. Next, he argues that everything has a cause, and nothing can cause itself. It doesn’t make sense to have a regressively infinite series of causes, because a series of causes must have a beginning. Therefore, there must be a First Efficient Cause, one which is uncaused. This Cause is God.

3. Contingency. Everything we see is contingent on something else for its existence. So why does something exist instead of nothing? If there used to be nothing, there would still be nothing—unless there is something in the universe that necessarily exists (that is, it is impossible for this thing or person to not exist). The being Who necessarily exists and on Whom everything else is contingent is God.

Taking these three arguments, it seems reasonable to believe that there is a supernatural being who is the First Mover, is the First Efficient Cause, and has always existed. What does atheism offer? Without God, matter and energy would have had to always exist or spontaneously to come uncaused into existence. Matter would have exploded, with nothing causing the explosion.  Plus, there is no explanation for why anything exists at all, because there should be nothing.

See? It’s really naturalism that’s unscientific in explaining the origin of the universe. The theory is implausible given the basics of physics. (Someone who says that the laws of science didn’t always apply has to take that assertion by faith.)

So, who made God? The answer is that nobody made God. He is, by definition, the Unmoved Mover, the First Cause, and The One Who Necessarily Exists. And there’s nothing unscientific about that.

“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36) 

How Not to Be a Super Villain

BAM! ZING! POW!

It seems like some Christians who try to defend their faith want to feel like superheroes. They think they’ve found that one perfect argument that will make them invincible, an argument that they can swing around and—WHAM!—leave those ignorant heathen too stunned to respond.

If you don’t believe me, find almost any popular video of Christian music on Youtube and read the comments. Some will make you facepalm.

The problem with this superhero mentality is that it does more harm than good. That’s right: Christians who take that approach are actually more like—gasp!—super villains!

You see, it’s not enough to be right. There’s no point in telling someone something you want them to believe unless you… really want them to believe it. And that takes a little more tact than some people are willing to use.

Aristotle wrote in The Art of Rhetoric (Book I, Part 2, Paragraph 3),

  

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided. This kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he begins to speak. It is not true, as some writers assume in their treatises on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the contrary, his character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses. [emphasis mine]

So if our character, or how we’re coming across to others, is so central to changing someone’s mind, can we agree to stop slinging around “zinger” arguments? Might we even be willing to listen to why someone else believes what he does, or treat him with the kindness of God that leads to repentance (Romans 2:4)? 

Let’s put away our capes and stop trying to save the world with conceited clichés and one-liners. Look instead to how God saves a soul, and point that person to His kindness by being kind ourselves. 

Is Faith Opposed to Reason? What is Faith? Pt. 1

You’ve probably heard people refer to “blind faith”, a “leap in the dark”, “hoping against the odds,” or “believing against the evidence.” While it might be nice to romanticize the faith and pit it against factual, calculated reasoning, this idea of faith is inconsistent with scripture and doesn’t work in the real world.

If we accept the silly idea that faith is the opposite of reason, we’ve bought into our opponents’ lies. Modern atheist Richard Dawkins said in a 1994 lecture, “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.” (You can read the entire lecture here.) 

But is faith really just an excuse for intellectual laziness?

Atheist Antony Flew debated theists R. M. Hare and Basil Mitchell on the question of the rationality of religious belief in 1948. Read it! He argued that theists make their propositions meaningless when they say things that have no possibility of contrary evidence. For instance, if a Christian receives an answer to prayer, he might see it as evidence for God, but if he does not, he explains it away by saying, “It just wasn’t God’s will.” This is illogical. Either religious claims are propositions for which the possibility of contrary evidence must exist, or they are meaningless clichés that have no truth value. He would agree with Dawkins that faith fails to take evidence into account.

Flew’s fellow Oxford professor R. M. Hare responded by pointing out that everyone has foundational assumptions that he or she holds to explain the world (he called these “bliks”). Bliks are not subject to evidence the way normal propositions are because they are not really explanations. While it is true that atheists take quite a bit by faith, this is an unsatisfying answer.

The second Oxford theist, Basil Mitchell, responded by saying that as long as we have sufficient evidence for something, it is reasonable to take the rest by faith. Although we can’t always know exactly how much evidence is enough, faith is reasonable as long as it takes the evidence into account. Mitchell’s view makes sense in light of scripture. 1 Corinthians 15 says,

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

In other words, the Bible says for itself that there is a situation under which Christianity is no longer reasonable: if Christ has not been raised from the dead. However, God has left us with overwhelming evidence for the truth of the resurrection, and from this fact we can infer the rest of Christianity. Therefore, no matter how much evil we see in the world, faith in Jesus is still the most reasonable path to take.

Hebrews 11 is all about faith. We see in verse one that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” and in verse six that “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.” The rest of the chapter makes it clear that the people listed here were not looking for a pie-in-the-sky easy life. They stuck to their convictions in the middle of extreme suffering because they took God at His word.

Summit Ministries notes in a 2010 article, “The Bible defines faith in a totally different way from the common understanding. Faith is not wishful thinking, blind hope, or surrender of reason. Biblical faith is a decision to believe something about God or Jesus based on evidence, the kind of evidence that would stand up in any court of law.” 

So believer, hold onto your faith. Weigh the evidence and see for yourself that Christianity is reasonable. And when you have made your choice, stand by your convictions no matter what. 

Want more on faith? Read Part Two!

You Found It!

Welcome to Apologetics Toolbox! This site is here to help you better understand your Christian faith and communicate what you believe.

After four years of competing in NCFCA's limited-preparation Apologetics event, I've learned a lot about what works (and maybe even more about what doesn't) in terms of researching the basics of doctrine and communicating it in a way that engages and educates those listening. What you'll find here will apply to both competitive speaking and real-world conversations.

This site is not a shortcut. Please don't use my articles as an excuse to slack on doing your own research and coming up with your own ideas. Think of it as a toolbox, not a warehouse of finished furniture. And whatever you do, don't you dare copy and paste the articles onto your cards for competition.

Sure, I'll admit that I don't know everything, and there are lots of others who have helped me learn and get to where I am. Still, I enjoy teaching what I do know, and I hope that God uses this site to help you learn and speak His truth.

Happy Reading!