LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
10 Ways the Bible Uses Apologetics
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
5/2022
10 Ways the Bible Uses Apologetics
1. The cross is the best argument for Christianity
If ever there has been a proof-text against apologetics, it is surely 1 Corinthians 2:1–5:
Once this passage is read in context, it becomes clear that it is far from an anti-apologetic
proof-text—it’s actually providing guidelines for how apologetics should be done. The gospel
has to be the goal
The Apostle Paul appears to place severe limits on the message Christians are to preach:
“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:2).
It may have seemed that Paul was prohibiting any message outside of those about Jesus’
death, but if we read on, we can see that that’s not the case. In this very letter to the
Corinthians, he discussed a wide array of topics, including sexual immorality, marriage,
singleness, worship, spiritual gifts, speaking in tongues, and the Lord’s Supper.
Paul wasn’t saying the cross is all that matters. He meant that everything matters only if
viewed through the lens of the cross.
Rather than negating apologetics, these verses in 1 Corinthians reveal the proper
foundation for apologetics and guide its focus. They show that the goal of apologetics cannot
simply be intellectual respectability or a defense of theism, as if belief in any deity will do. The
goal of apologetics must be the cross. Apologetic appeals that use historical evidence, logic,
desire, story, experience, and imagination are important, but they must not become of first
importance (see 1 Corinthians 15:3). They should serve to bring people to what is of first
importance—namely, the cross.
2. Creation proves God’s existence
According to Psalm 19:1–6, the heavens act as an apologist for God! Without saying a
word, the sky, and by extrapolation, all of creation, declares the majesty of the Creator.
Continuously, night after night and day after day, the heavens reveal that God exists and that
he is glorious. This phenomenon is what theologians refer to as general (or natural) revelation.
In verses 4b–6, the psalmist poetically describes a day in the life of the sun. When this
biblical poet observes the joyful emergence, grand course, and ubiquitous warmth of the sun,
he is filled with awe and wonder at a revelation of the one true God.
But not so fast.
The heavens and sun may “prove” God’s existence to the Israelite worshiper, but they
certainly don’t to everyone. Other religions in the ancient Near East looked at the same natural
revelation and yet claimed that the sun, rather than pointing to one true God, is itself a
manifestation of a god—and one god among many, at that.
The Mesopotamians also wrote a hymn that sounds very similar to Psalm 19, addressed
to Shamash, their sun god: “You cross regularly through the heavens, every day you traverse
the vast earth.”
Three different people groups looked at the same sun, but interpreted what they saw
differently.
Two groups saw it as a god, while the other saw it as a creation of the one true God.
This raises a set of perplexing questions. If, as the Bible claims, creation declares the glory
of God, why don’t all people confess and praise his name? Why do some people worship
something quite different? Is creation not an apologist after all?
Suppressing our knowledge of God
Paul answers these questions in Romans 1:18–25. He explains that while God makes his
eternal power and divine nature known in creation, humans suppress the knowledge of God
available to them. Creation reveals God, but people deny the truth that is right in front of them.
Paul’s affirmations about general revelation are consistent with Psalm 19. What may be
known about God is plain to humankind through creation. God’s divine nature and eternal
power are clearly and repeatedly revealed through what God has made and continues to
sustain.
Therefore, the problem lies not with the revelation of God in nature, but rather with
people, who suppress and twist the revelation and end up worshiping, as was the case in Egypt
and Mesopotamia, creation rather than the Creator.
3. The prophets engaged their culture
In the Old Testament world, the predominant question wasn’t about the existence of a
god or gods, but which god was true. For this reason, Old Testament prophets often employed
polemics against false gods. Much of the Old Testament was written in defense of the true God
and against ancient Near Eastern gods.
They challenged their culture
Old Testament prophets spoke against their culture, challenging it, often in the form of
polemics. In his book Against the Gods, John Currid explains that in using polemics, Old
Testament writers took familiar aspects of their culture—its “thought forms and stories,” its
“expressions and motifs”—and “[filled] them with radically new meaning” in order to contrast
their beliefs and way of life with the pagan culture around them—in particular, their worship of
the one true God as opposed to the worship of many false gods so prevalent in the ancient
Near East.
In this way, the polemics employed by the Old Testament writers were, above all,
characterized by a commitment to monotheism and a fierce critique of polytheism. The
Israelites spoke with their culture out of a shared conceptual world while simultaneously
speaking against their culture in order to uphold the existence of the one true God.
They argued for the good of believers and nonbelievers alike
Third, the Old Testament is for the various cultures and peoples of its day. Genesis 1–11
takes a universal perspective: God created the world for the good of all people. Similarly, in
Genesis 12, God calls Abraham, the father of Israel, to be a blessing to all people.
Old Testament prophets defend the God of Israel against false Egyptian, Canaanite, and
Babylonian gods, not because God is against these peoples, but because he is ultimately for the
nations. When God chooses Israel to be at the center of his redemptive plan, he does so to
bless all people through them.
