Introduction to (un)apologetics: Avoiding over-boiled vegetable

This is our weekly post here at deposition of our faith.

Thank you for joining us.

This is Week 12.

(Although you can start from anywhere, we encourage you to read up on previous posts as well as some articles lead into the next one).

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 11

First, there is no such thing as unapologetics! It’s just something that I am trying to use to illustrate something to us today.

I make use of the term, “unapologetics” because the point of using it is to say, we should be unapologetic about the gospel that we preach.

Uncompromising.

We are custodians of this gospel. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that we are the gatekeepers, because God keeps His things Himself, but we are the ones entrusted with the mandate to spread the gospel (Mark 16:15). This is still a herculean task.

First, we know that people cannot believe if they do not hear. And how will they hear if no one preaches? (Romans 10:14). So that is why we have been sent on the great commission.

However, what we have in the world today is people boiling down the gospel until it becomes a soggy vegetable. We are too much in a hurry to help people believe in the religious aspect that we try to make hard-swallow food into Cerelac. We start compromising the parts that are difficult to explain, even though that is not our job or calling.

So, what happens is that sometimes we are just eating vegetables that have been over-boiled. There is no nutrient in it, it’s just easier to digest and useless to the body. Why even bother eating it when you can eat a burger?

If salt has lost it’s flavour, what good is that salt? — Matthew 5:13

What is expected to be our greatest virtue as believers is also what gives us the entirety of our bad reputation in today’s world. What is that “virtue”? Well, in plain terms, we are supposed to be set in our ways!

The Bible was written over a span of about 1200 years. The last of it was written about 2000 years ago. Yet, we are supposed to preach it without diminishing any part of it. We are to preach the Word in its entirety. We are to look at the entire thing and say that there wasn’t a single verse of scripture that God put there by accident. This is despite all the controversial actions made by patriarchs, all the “tantrums” thrown by God in the Old Testament, all the brutish laws of the ancient Israelites.

Before we go on, I think it is important to note that every scripture is God-breathed and intended not only for our instruction (admonition) but also for our learning (2 Timothy 3:16). This means, unlike the Israelites, we don’t have to spend years in the wilderness to get to the promised land, because they did the classwork, all we are doing is reading the corrections!

One of the “unapologetics” I want us to understand is the Unapologetic doctrine of faith.

There are so many things in the Bible that are hard to accept by the natural man. I remember when I used to have a problem with the idea that a man could be a killer and a (trigger warning) serial sex offender/paedophile, and still somehow make it to paradise because he happened to repent and believe a few days to his death. And then, another man who has lived justly is condemned because he is not a believer in Christ.

However, what the Bible tells us is that we are not saved by works, but by grace through faith. Ephesians 2:8.

Swallow, and say that again.

Not by your goodness, but by your belief that you have been made good.

Now, say it again, for the last time:

Not by your good acts, but because you believe that a man “took” your sins when he was being murdered, hence making you a good person.

Welcome to unapologetics!

I called it “unapologetics” because I am not too keen on apologetics. Reasoned arguments are not particularly my strong suit as a believer. I cannot try to convince you that God exists, or that Jesus died, or that Noah was a real person or whatever using archaeology, theology, and all the other Logies. I can only explain things using scripture!

My reason for not being too keen on apologetics is that I genuinely believe that it is the Holy Spirit that convicts you to be convinced beyond doubt that these things are true. Not your knowledge of comparative religion, history, logic and philosophy. The Word of God pierces bone and marrow and discerns thoughts better than any psychiatrist could (Hebrews 4:12).

I noticed something about God that took me years to understand: He does not answer to anything but faith!

What justification can there ever be for believing that a man, who was also God, died, went to an invisible “hell” to collect an invisible set of keys from an invisible devil, and came back to life after three days? The only justification is faith!

The concept is an assault on my rational senses.

So, I don’t have interest in what archaeology says about where Noah’s ark might currently be, or whether the House of David truly existed. What I have just said is a nightmare for rational people!

But why don’t I care?

Well, what if archaeology comes out today with a new finding that says they’ve found Noah’s ark? Do I now hinge my “faith” on this? So what now happens when they tell me that what they thought was Noah’s Ark was just a weirdly shaped tree trunk from the Jurassic period?

For instance, something that a lot of believers do in this world is that they try to rally behind science when science is saying what they want to hear. Then, the moment science starts singing a new tune, they call it a tool that the devil uses to deceive. Either that or the new findings start to pose a dilemma to their faith. This is what makes a lot of baby Christians stumble; because what you are doing starts to look phoney. These young believers then decide that God is not real because the God they have been taught about is merely a God of the gaps, hiding in the realms of reality that science has not unravelled yet.

I don’t have any hinged interest in what science says (even though I enjoy it!), or in what they discover, or in what they “undiscover” and rediscover and under-rediscover. Why? Because people who are always on the edge of their seats waiting for such verdicts and “proofs” are not people of faith. They are people of reason. They jump from here to there to here depending on what the world says about God. They are rational. They change their mind when faced with any contradicting evidence (James 1:6–8).

That is the natural way to behave. However, we are told that a key characteristic of faith is calling things that be not as though they are. This means we don’t change our minds based on circumstantial evidence, but we change circumstances to match with the truth! It doesn’t make any rational sense! This means we change poverty to wealth, we change sickness into health. We don’t say, “I don’t have money, therefore I’m poor”. We say, “I don’t have money, but I am rich!”. We don’t say, “I feel sick, I must be sick”. We say, “I feel sick, but I can never be sick, so I am strong!” The faith thing is dangerous! Many people might hate it because it is not logical.

Joel 3:10 — ….Let the weak say, “I am strong”.

God never said that critical reasoning will bring you to Him. He said your faith and and honest heart will (Jeremiah 29:13). You have to believe in God to find God. Should I say it again? You have to believe in God to find Him! Why? Can you seek what you don’t believe exists? You wouldn’t search for money in your pockets if you didn’t believe it could be there.

But isn’t that foolish? Shouldn’t you convince me to believe in you first, instead of telling me to believe in you before I can find you?

Isn’t it foolish that Jesus will heal people who believed he could heal them, and when people didn’t believe he could do mighty works, he couldn’t do it? (Matthew 13:58). Shouldn’t he have been more keen on convincing unbelievers with his “magic”, so that they can now turn to believers?

Unapologetics!

Faith is not magic. Faith needs you to believe things will work before they actually work. Isn’t that weird? Wouldn’t it have been better if sceptics could be made believers after being cured of diseases by somebody they didn’t believe could cure them?

Unapologetics!

The kingdom of God is so simple that even children can unravel it. There’s a quote that says truth/life is very simple, but humans are very complex.

Faith is the only prerequisite to access God, and with good reason too.

So, here is one unapologetic thing you must understand: no amount of theology, physics, archaeology, chemistry, history, geography, will take away the leap of faith when it comes to God. Why? God is a spirit (John 4:24). Physics and the rest of the sciences are used to quantify and understand physical things. God is not a physical “thing”. He is not a breeze or dark matter or whatever. He cannot be measured to have weight and occupy space in the way you and I can.

One analogy I like to use is this: even if you were to go back in time, and see the creation happening, you will not see a bearded man dressed in loincloths who is waving his arms around like a shaman! You will literally see something (light, matter, I don’t know I’m not a physicist!) coming out of nothing. Because God calls things that be not as though they were, and things that now appear out of things which do not appear (Hebrews 11:3). And He is a spirit.

Think about this. There are sceptics who want to see a miracle first hand before they can believe it. Sceptics like Thomas in the Bible. Now, even if as a sceptic, you attended a crusade where the dead was literally being raised to life, what are the odds that the miracle would have happened right in front of you? You may still have to listen to anecdotal evidence from somebody who was standing directly in front of the happening itself. And once something is not experienced first hand, only belief can make you think it’s true.

Like I said a few weeks ago, “to the believer, no proof is necessary. To the sceptic, no proof is possible”. This statement simply means that you can believe whatever you want in this world, because that is exactly what you are doing even as an unbeliever! That is also not my quote by the way.

How much do you know? How far do you see?

I am not saying that you are called to blind faith. Far from it. I am saying that expecting proofs in results before practising what brings said results is not wise. Faith never promised to work for people who don’t have it. Faith never promised to heal people who don’t use it. Faith can only prove it’s efficiency to those who have it.

For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith — Mark 11:23

You can’t wait for an aspirin to kill your pain by just looking at the bottle. You have to take the aspirin! If not, the aspirin is not committed to helping you because you never even swallowed it. Also, the aspirin can only work if you apply it the way the manufacturers said you should. Stepping on it and mumbling words will not make it work. Crushing it into pieces and applying it as talcum powder on your face will not work either! You need to swallow it for it to prove it’s claim. You need to apply it the way they said it must be applied if you want to see the results that they promised you would see.

So, Faith practised the God-kind of way is the faith that gives results. And if, you can’t jump into it because you are waiting to see the results first, then read testimonies. There are people who used an aspirin and it worked for them. Use those people as your reference to try the painkiller (and a doctor’s prescription I guess).

The good thing is we have an aspirin in faith that does not stop working just because people are different, or because tolerance levels are different. We also have an aspirin in faith that has been prescribed by THE doctor (who also made it available in every branch. Romans 12:3), and almost just as importantly, we have an aspirin in faith that has been tried and tested by many many many believers.

We need spiritual faith, not physical facts. We need the truth of the Word, not the “truth” of this world. If we do it God’s way, it will answer just as He said it would. Then we can truly begin to understand the unapologetics because we’ve seen it work ourselves. I know I’ve seen it work for me!

You have to “taste, and see that the Lord is Good!”. Note this: Not taste to determine whether the Lord is good, but taste to see that He has been good all along!

I wish I could be more apt at drawing these things to light, but I have to settle with this progress for now!

God be with ye till then!