People rightly refuse to believe without evidence. Since God created humans as rational beings, he expects them to live rationally, to look before they leap. This does not mean there is no room for faith. But God wants us to take a step of faith in the light of evidence, rather than to leap in the dark.
—Norman Geisler—
Key point: Christianity is based on objective truth, not on subjective perceptions or personal experiences. The Christian experience is valid because Christianity is true regardless of any and all feelings and opinions, either for it or against it.
This article is adapted from a post that first appeared in a series titled “Equipping Members of the Next Generation of Christians to Defend Their Faith and to Embrace a Biblical Worldview.” The inaugural post in the series is an open letter to pastors, student pastors, and student leaders in evangelical churches everywhere. The letter highlights the desperate need in our churches for future generations of believers to learn apologetics and to come to understand and embrace a biblical worldview.
- Apologetics is important not only because Christians need to be able to defend their faith by citing evidence for its validity, but also because they themselves benefit from the confidence that familiarity with such evidence engenders. Being familiar with the evidence for Christianity helps a believer know Christianity is true.
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Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) A biblical worldview is critical because all too often, Christians compartmentalize their faith, walling it off from other aspects of life. This renders a believer’s relationship with Christ irrelevant to other life events and situations such as career, family life, friendships, academic pursuits, and entertainment choices. Think of one’s life as being like a pie. For the Christian, allegiance to Christ isn’t merely one slice separate from all the other slices and served only at church, but the whole pie. As Dutch theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper declared, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”
Be Careful What You Teach
Often churches promote compartmentalism and even aspects of relativism unknowingly, without realizing the adverse effects of what they’re doing. One of the best examples of this comes in the form of helping Christians learn how to share Christ with others in evangelism classes or in Bible studies where evangelism is discussed. An outline of the gospel, such as the Roman Road (or Romans Road), is presented and learned. Answers to common questions from non-Christians might be covered, but not necessarily in great depth or detail when the basic plan of salvation is being learned. Then a statement like this typically is made: “Remember, when it comes down to it, your own testimony of what Jesus has done for you is the most powerful evidence you can give. People cannot refute what Christ has done for you!”
One of the 20th century’s greatest preachers, Adrian Rogers, underscored the importance of a testimony when he said that Christians are called to be witnesses and not lawyers. What is the difference between the two? The job of a witness is to share his or her testimony about a situation or event, and the job of a lawyer is to present a case to persuade the jury. Hear Dr. Rogers in his own words: “We are witnesses of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. My dear friend, a Christian with a glowing testimony is worth a library full of arguments.” He goes on to add,
Now, I’m not against a well reasoned presentation of what we call an apology for our faith. We ought to be able to give that, but there are many who are new Christians who are not theologically trained yet who still can be a dynamic witness for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.1
I wholeheartedly agree that a well presented testimony is extremely important and often quite powerful. However, it has been my experience that, typically in these church evangelism training sessions, the value of learning well reasoned arguments to defend one’s faith is acknowledged only barely, if at all. Instead, the testimony is presented almost as a “trump card” because it can’t be refuted. Through your testimony, you tell what happened to you! Remember, you’re the authority on what you’ve experienced!
In many church evangelism training sessions, the testimony is presented almost as a “trump card” because it can’t be refuted. Through your testimony, you tell what happened to you! Remember, you’re the authority on what you’ve experienced!
Christian and financial management expert Dave Ramsey offers us a great example. While I respect him a great deal, I must challenge—or at least qualify—what he said on June 12, 2018, to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Dallas, Texas. Ramsey emphasized the importance of stories, and he is right to do so. But I fear he overemphasized their power. In a Baptist Press article reporting on Ramsey’s speech, Erin Roach writes,
Ramsey said the prevalence of smartphones and other media in the culture today has caused people to have extremely short attention spans, but something that still has power is a story.
“The Bible says our testimonies have power,” Ramsey said. “You can tell people your story…. People today will argue with a fencepost, but it is difficult for people to argue with you about your story. As my old pastor used to say, a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion.”
Here’s the problem. This emphasis on the power of one’s personal experience sounds dangerously like relativism: Everyone can make up his own truth—and your truth is your truth, and my truth is mine. I’m not saying Ramsey was advocating this philosophy, but we must be careful. It is the widespread acceptance of relativism that compels people to feel free to dismiss a Christian’s testimony out-of-hand. No, the testimony is not refuted. It’s rejected outright, dismissed as the experience of one person without any relevance to anyone else at all.
It is the widespread acceptance of relativism compels people to feel free to dismiss a Christian’s testimony out-of-hand. The testimony is not refuted. It’s rejected outright, dismissed as the experience of one person without any relevance to anyone else at all.
To be clear, I’m not saying those who stress the power of the personal testimony are relativists, but I am warning that they—and all believers—need to become more aware of the prevalence and power of relativism to compel an unbeliever to dismiss a testimony outright.
Not either/or, but both/and
As I already have indicated, I will readily agree that Adrian Rogers, Dave Ramsey, and others who emphasize the importance of a personal testimony have a point. Paul gave his testimony before a crowd in Jerusalem in Acts 22:6-21. Against the backdrop of the powerful testimony of the man born blind who received sight from Jesus, Jesus rightly condemned the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and demonstrated what spiritual sight and spiritual blindness really are (see John 9:1-41). Dr. Rogers further is correct that we are called to be Christ’s witnesses. In fact, Christ Himself so called us.
At the same time, we also are called to defend—to make the case for—our faith. In 1 Peter 3:15, the apostle Peter wrote,
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.
The word translated “to give a defense” in 1 Peter 3:15 appears in seven other verses in the New Testament. Offering a strong defense of biblical Christianity isn’t just legitimate but can be extremely effective.
To present a case, we must be familiar with the evidence, and the evidence for the truth of Christianity is overwhelming. While it doesn’t lead us to believe beyond any doubt, but it does lead us to believe beyond a reasonable doubt. Biblical Christianity invites people not just to use their hearts, but also their heads!
While the evidence for the Christian faith doesn’t lead us to believe beyond any doubt, it does lead us to believe beyond a reasonable doubt. Biblical Christianity invites people not just to use their hearts, but also their heads!
The Bottom Line
We are emphasizing the importance of teaching apologetics and a biblical worldview. Read again what we said earlier about these two. Here we emphasize with bold type why these items are especially important.
- Apologetics is important not only because Christians need to be able to defend their faith by citing evidence for its validity, but also because they themselves benefit from the confidence that familiarity with such evidence engenders. Being familiar with the evidence for Christianity helps a believer know Christianity is true.
- A biblical worldview is critical because all too often, Christians compartmentalize their faith, walling it off from other aspects of life. This renders a believer’s relationship with Christ irrelevant to other life events and situations such as career, family life, friendships, academic pursuits, and entertainment choices. Think of one’s life as being like a pie. For the Christian, allegiance to Christ isn’t merely one slice separate from all the other slices and served only at church, but the whole pie. As Dutch theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper declared, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”
Equipped with an understanding of the evidence for Christianity and espousing a biblical worldview, students and young adults will be far less likely to leave the faith to grab hold of whatever tickles their ears. As Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-5,
4 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
In Part 2 of this 3-Part series, we will examine the obsession many evangelicals have with being “winsome.”
Questions and Observations to Spark Reflection and Discussion
- Why is it a mistake for a Christian to believe that all he or she has to do is share his or her testimony with others because “I am the expert about what happened to me, and no one can tell me I’m wrong about what Jesus did for me”?
- Consider these accounts of the conversions of Lord Littleton, Gilbert West, Simon Greenleaf, Lew Wallace, Sir /William Mitchell Ramsey, Cyril E. M. Joad, C. S. Lewis, Albert Henry Ross, Charles Colson, André Kole, Josh McDowell, Hugh Ross, Gary Habermas, Lee Strobel, J. Warner Wallace, and Mike Licona. If your time is limited, read just two or three of these accounts for now, and read the rest later. Who among these men would have been convinced to become a Christian merely because of the personal testimony of another Christian? In the end, what convinced them?
- This is not to say that a personal testimony isn’t powerful. Read this account from Charles Colson’s life and describe its impact and potential impact. It’s interesting that in Lee Strobel’s case (and surely in the cases of many others), it was the information confirming the accuracy of Christianity gained through personal investigation and the positive changes observed in those who had become Christians. Strobel said of his wife Leslie, who’d angered him initially when she became a Christian, “I began to see positive changes in her character, her values, and the way she related to me and to the children. The transformation was winsome [in the best sense of the word] and attractive. So when day when she invited me to go to church with her, I decided to comply.”
- After his crucifixion and resurrection, just before He ascended into heaven and left His closest disciples in bodily form, Jesus told them, “[Y]ou shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” A witness testifies about what he or she has seen and heard. The meaning of the Greek word translated “witnesses” — μάρτυς [translation martys; pronunciation mar-toos] — includes testifying about what one has seen, heard, experienced, and knows to be true because of his or her personal involvement and knowledge of a person, event, or situation. This is not limited to one’s own personal experience; it also includes validating information with testimony about what one has learned through objective observation and study (see Acts 1:1-3). Thus, Peter’s admonition to his readers in 1 Peter 3:15-16 is very much a part of what it means to be a witness for Christ. Peter wrote, 15 “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; 16 having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.” Describe some of the differences between subjective and objective testimony. In other words, describe some of the differences between testimony about what happened to me (subjective) and testimony about what I observed happened (objective). In what kinds of situations and with what kinds of people might one of these be more effective than the other?
Go here for all the articles in this series.
Copyright © 2018 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Note:
1Minor edits have been made in these statements for smoothness and clarity.