If Christianity is true, ladies and gentlemen, as I believe it is, then we shouldn't be afraid of the normal tools of learning or of scientific inquiry,

because an objective non-biased application of the tools of learning should verify and corroborate the truth claims of Christianity rather than demolish them.

In other words, we shouldn't have anything to be afraid of from reason or from scientific inquiry.

Apologetics can be an intimidating subject. Perhaps for some of us, we even think it's a little bit irrelevant for just our practical Christian lives.

But in 1st Peter 315, we're told that each of us must be ready to give a defense for the hope that's within us.

Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and thank you for joining us this week on Renewing Your Mind.

In that verse in 1st Peter 315, Peter is not speaking to those who are studied or learned in the church.

That command is for each of us, and that's why Dr. Sproul was so passionate about helping Christians know not just what they believe, but why they believe it, and how to give a defense for that hope that's within them. Here's Dr. Sproul.

We're going to continue today now with our study of apologetics. The term apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia.

We find it in the New Testament where the Apostle Peter gives the admonition to the Christian to be ready always to give a defense for the reason of the hope that lies within us.

And I mentioned that the task of the early church, in many cases, was to answer the critics who were giving distorted reports about the actual behavior and beliefs of the Christian community within the Roman Empire.

But also I mentioned how the early church fathers who were intellectually inclined engaged in a duel with the philosophers from the Hellenistic Empire, and that those philosophical debates also contributed to the church's developing a full orbed apologetic.

Now what I mean by that is this. One way in which the church engages in apologetics is every time somebody raises an objection, whatever that objection is, we have to respond to it. Point by point by point.

I remember being on a college campus many years ago with John Guess, the British preacher and evangelist, and John was doing an evangelistic outreach mission on this university campus, and I had been with him.

And I was standing next to him when one of the more intellectually inclined students began to confront John with questions and objections to the truth claims of Christianity.

And patiently one by one, John answered this fellow's questions.

And after about 20 of those responses and the fellow went to number 21, I interrupted and I said, hold it just a second. He said, what?

I said, you know, he's just answered 20 of your objections to you to your satisfaction. But no sooner does he answer one, than you're right, ready for the next one. How long is this going to go on?

Somehow I have the feeling that you really are biased against the truth claims of Christianity, and what you just want to do is debate it all day, no matter how well your objections have been answered, and will stop them short right there.

Well, the point is that that is our task, because as many objections as come, we're going to have to reply to them as long as history continues and people are making objections.

But on the other hand, there is what I call the positive task of apologetics, where Christian philosophy constructs a whole philosophical defense for the truth claims of Christianity

that should be applicable to every culture, every theological or philosophical environment in which the church ever finds itself. So in that sense, that's when the apologist goes on the offense and constructs some kind of case for Christianity.

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