redeemedson

My last post has generated quite a bit of discussion, although to my disappointment it is over email and not on this blog. Those discussions raised another topic in my mind that we must answer as Christians. How do we defend the Christian faith? How do we effectively answer those who object to Christianity? Will our answers bring them to to point of trusting in Christ for salvation?

J. Gresham Machen was a professor at Princeton in the early 1900's, eventially leaving Princeton to start Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, PA as Princeton began to drift towards Liberalism. In order to properly defend the faith, he believed that Christians must present the credentials of one's beliefs, showing that Christianity meets the requirements of sound thinking. He asserted that there was enough evidence in Scripture to show that the Bible is true and historically accurate. While using simple "common sense" and utilizing the grammatical and historical methods of interpreting the Bible, one would be forced to admit the truthfulness of the Scriptures. While a non-believer would never come to a saving faith apart from the Holy Spirit's regenerating work, this approach to defending the faith would ultimately give validation to God's Word. Machen was obviously a proponent of what is know as Evidentialist Apologetics...using evidence to convince inquirers of the Bible's assertions.

While Machen's call for giving a sound intellectual basis for Christianity is a much-needed alarm clock for contemporary Christianity's sleeping followers, I wonder if his approach is effective, both humanly speaking and according to what the Lord has called us to do in evangelism and apologetics. As one who has had the priviledge of working in the most pluralistic culture imaginable (Starbucks-you have to love the Lattes and cringe at the company policies), I was given many opportunities to share the gospel with my co-workers. For about a year, I tried to give an intellectual account to two of my "partners" who loved to discuss religion, absolute truth, etc. with me during our shifts. Although I believe that the Lord was using me to speak the truth into their lives, it hit me one day that I would never be able to argue them into the Kingdom. For example, I had answered all of Kate's objections to the faith with sound intellectual and logical answers time after time, only to see her respond in unbelief at each call for her to repent and believe in Christ for salvation.

While I am a strong proponent of possessing a valid belief system, I do not believe this is the way that we will make an impact with the gospel as Christians. We must not rely on our intellectual arguments (even the good ones) to convert men and women to the faith. The Lord works through Presuppositional Apologetics, which is simply laying one's beliefs out of the table for discussion and utilizing Evidential Apologetics to undergird one's presuppositions. What shall be our material in PA? Well, the Bible of course. It is through the Scriptures that the Lord quickens the soul to believe in Christ and come to salvation. He blesses the hearing of the Word as it is preached or read. The problem with Evidentialist Apologetics is that no matter how much evidence we show to unbelievers or how good our arguments prove to be, their presuppositions are still those of unbelief. I assert that we must focus on the tenets of the gospel and address a person's unblieving soul, undergirding our work with strong intellectual evidence.

JRW

While looking at the current Christian scene, many questions arise concerning correct methodology in light of one's theology. I believe that we can turn to B.B. Warfield to learn a valuable lesson. Concerning the topic of contextualizing biblical theology Warfield wrote, "Instead of stating Christian belief in terms of modern thought, an effort is made, rather, to state modern thought in terms of Christian belief" (email for reference). He wrote this statement in his defense against liberalism's invention of a false Christianity. However, Warfield violated his own principle. Rather than holding to the traditional Princetonian position of remaining true to historic biblical theology, Warfield succumbed to an increasingly popular position on creation because he felt that the evidence was too compelling to hold to the traditional six day, twenty-four hour view of this doctrine. Now that we see the "evidence" in light of what it truly is, namely nothing more than theory, we must ask what we can learn from Warfield's error. Just like in Warfield's day, theologians are justifying their refashioning of Christianity to suit their own naturalistic philosophies for the end of modernizing it.

If Warfield fell to the influence of Darwinism, what are the versions of naturalistic philosophy with which we are faced? I would say that one of the greatest enemies of the church that we face is that of humanism cloaked in Christian terminology. Our culture has so influenced the church's theology that many pastors and their parishioners have succumbed to man-centered theology resulting from the current secular humanism of today. Americans are "me-centered" and thus will only accept a theology that imposes our consumeristic view of life on God and His word. How do passages such as 1 Peter 2:21, in which Jesus left us an example of suffering so that we would follow in His steps, or 1 Peter 4:12-19, which teaches us how to suffer as a Christian according to God's will, coincide with the heresy of Joel Olsteen or the semi-Pelagian Church Growth Movement espoused by Warren and others? May our theology drive our methods and may we not allow our culture's disdain for authority to produce a non-biblical theology, which will lead to further atrocities such as "seeker-friendly churches."

JRW

We all find ourselves asking this question from time to time. Anyone finding himself called by God into the gospel ministry really has to wrestle with it occasionally. I attended my first Presbytery this weekend. I attended the committee meetings of the Credentials Committee that examines candidates for the gospel ministry. The first step in the process that the PCA makes a candidate take is that the person "comes under the care of the Presbytery." Some may think that the PCA has stiff requirements for ordination, which used to be my view, but after seeing it first-hand, I see the truth. This process is a very loving and caring way of shepherding candidates to the point of being effective in ministry. After all one "comes under the care of the Presbytery." None of this slap on the back, wish you well, good luck finding a place to minister business of other denominations emphasizing the priesthood of the believer to the point of no accountability and no care. I was greatly encouraged to know that a unified effort to raise up the next generation of men to care for Christ's church exists and I was allowed to see it with my own eyes. To answer my question, the PCA cares...for its ministers and for the flocks entrusted to their under-shepherding.

The Lord has taken my family through a sanctifying whirlwind over the past two years that makes me tear up when I recall those 730 days and their contained events. Through these tough times, Christ has become ever dearer to my soul and my attachment to the things and idols I held so dear have drifted further from my thoughts and pursuits. During the past two years, Danielle and I have experienced some minor changes in our lives.

I finished my studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY in 2004 and our family immediately moved to South Asia as missionaries to Muslims to pursue the calling for which I had been preparing for nine years. However, after only four months on the field, we were forced to resign from our position because our board's doctors believed my wife had experienced several strokes and possibly had a brain tumor. We returned to America without the slightest clue about what our future would hold.

Following a frantic search for a new place of ministry and contemplating other vocations to support my family, the Lord opened a door for us to move to Kentucky to work as the minister of discipleship at a large church in a seemingly quite little town. Only three months into this position, we unfortunately realized that our time there was limited as years of unaddressed sin within this congregation was coming to a head.

Simultaneously with the worsening of our situation at this church, a Presbyterian church (PCA) approached me about becoming their Director of Mercy Ministry (To learn more about Mercy Ministry and what it actually is, see the following website: http://www.davidsapple.blogspot.com/ ). Although my wife and I had been actually doing what is known as Mercy Ministry for several years, I did not have a clue that such a formally recognized ministry existed. After a few months of talking with this church's leadership and praying over the decision, we accepted the call, changing denominations, churches, and ministry pursuits in the blink of an eye. In a matter of two years, we transitioned from aspiring Southern Baptist missionaries to urban ministry within the PCA.

This decision has brought a wide variety of criticism, indifference, and encouragment from my friends depending on various issues. Why would I lead my family to make such a drastic move? We have utterly picked up our roots down to the smallest ones imaginable in leaving our church, friends, family, and even our beloved denomination. The answer can only be found in our desire to be obedient to our Lord. Honestly, I am by no means a fatalist when I say this as I hold to God's absolute sovereignty, I could do nothing other than follow in obedience to this position through His leading. Obviously we have to follow our convictions concerning Scripture, but what happens when the Lord overrides our convictions? What happens when God's sovereign hand outweighs what we think we should never do, specifically in my case, leave one's denomination? I am certainly not a paedobaptist (although I must admit that my polity has always aligned more closely with the Presbyterians than the Congregationalists) and I am by no means a disgruntled baptist, which is seemingly the source from which the PCA in the South gains most of its members. I do not understand why the Lord has brought about this in our lives, but we know that He has (anyone knowing our previous situation and having had conversations with me through all of it knows that this opportunity was not my creation or a decision made flipantly). I pray that you will find refuge in our good and faithful Creator when he calls you to trod through difficult decisions and circumstances for His name's sake (1 Peter 4:12-19). May we never think ourselves wiser than our Lord. Samuel Rutherford penned the following poem that brings comfort during such times,

Inscrutable the ways of God,
Beyond the mind of man!
For who can read His hidden thought
Or search His secret plan?
I had one joy, one garland fair,
The flower I loved the best,
But in a single hour Christ came
And plucked it to His breast.

I dare not say the Lord has quenched
My candle's flickering glow,
Or cast His waters on the coals
That burnt already low;
And still I wrestle to believe
A veiled and covered God,
But faint my heart, my faith bowed down
Beneath the pressing load.

O that my Lord might smile again,
His love upon me pour;
Come home to this afflicted heart,
Bring summer back once more!
Then would I preach with unloosed tongue
His beauty and His power,
My withered branc would bud anew
And bear another flower.

Yet God in wisdowm chose for me
This furnace and this flame,
And doubting not His choice the best,
I greet it in His name.
So will I praise Him for this stroke,
Till Christ at length appears
To turn my long captivity
An dry His people's tears.