WHY APOLOGISTS DO WHAT WE DO

By on Jan 13, 2013 in Current Issues, Features

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By Glenn E. Chatfield and republished with permission
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I have written articles in the past about the importance of apologetics ministries, and that apologetics has been called the “handmaiden of the Gospel.”

I have also pointed out that every Christian has the duty to practice apologetics so as to defend the Word of God, as well as the Church.

Last week I read two good articles about the subject of why apologetics is necessary, and why those of us with apologetics ministries do what we do.  L

et me point you to these articles:

My sister and I have often lamented the fact that we have had friends separate from us over what they perceive to be as an unloving and judgmental attitude that we have about false teaching/false teachers. Our opinion?

These precious (but undiscerning) women who have children who are growing up (as we do), will in all likelihood have children who go off to college, get handed a Rob Bell book by one of their “Christian” friends, and these young men/women who have been given NO doctrinal training about what false teaching is (but have instead been given a strong dose of “Judge not!”) will come home at Thanksgiving break as Universalists. And their horrified mothers (our former friends) will wonder how on earth this could have happened. …

Friends, do you not realize that it is a war out there? It’s a spiritual battle, and we need to be suited up. Spiritual warfare is not puffing up your chest, and claiming the ability to name and rebuke demons (the “demon of fear,” the “demon of unbelief,” etc.)

No, true spiritual warfare is fighting with biblical truth against these false and worldly ideologies that are just waiting to take your children’s minds captive when they go out into the world.

Continue reading at Sola Sisters.

Thank you for contacting Apprising Ministries. … You begin: “I’ve been in the ministry now 47 yrs. I say that knowing that doesn’t count for much depending on whom your talking to.”

Ok, I’m not really sure what you mean, but I would imagine you’ve had some sort of training and experience. That’s usually worth something as I see it, …

Then you say: “I’ve always wondered why some sec’s of religions fill their mission is to find what’s wrong, as if they were God’s deputy?” …

[I]t’s part of my calling as pastor-teacher (cf. 2 Timothy 4:2; Titus 1:9) to address “what’s wrong,” to call people to repentance, and also to teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.

It doesn’t have anything to do with being “God’s deputy.” However, just as the Lord chose to work through human instruments in the preaching of the Gospel of repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name, so He also uses us in the defense of the Gospel as well (cf. Philippians 1:7; Jude 3). …

[W]hat we do is not a popular position. Not only are we under attack from enemy forces, which we would expect, but we also take more than our share of friendly fire as well. It goes with the turf in this timid generation.

Read the whole article at Apprising Ministries.

We apologists run the gamut, from laymen like me to Ph.D. scholars, but we all have one goal in mind: to protect the faith from attacks, both from outside the church (via cults, secular teachers, etc) and from the inside (via false teachers and teachings).

Our job is to expose such false teachers/teaching by comparing them to the pure Word of God, and to point people to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Our goal is to protect the sheep from the wolves.

We don’t do what we do to place ourselves up on any pedestals, or to be self-aggrandizing – rather, we humbly fight the wolves and point them out to the sheep so that the sheep won’t be chewed up by wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The original appears here.

Further reading