LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
You Want to Be a Good Apologist?
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
7/2022
You Want to Be a Good Apologist?
Years ago I was given a piece of advice that has proved to be more valuable in my life than
anything else: Read through the Bible once a year.
There are so many reasons why this is a good idea (wisdom, knowledge, spiritual growth,
love for and awe of God), but in terms of apologetics, it's important to have a good grasp of the
whole of the Bible – how things fit together, how one part explains another, and where you can
find which piece of information in order to answer a person's questions.
Reading through the Bible regularly will give you the basics you need to work through
some of the more difficult issues to explain (suffering, slavery, war against the Canaanites,
judgment, etc.) in light of all the necessary information. And when a person objects to the God
of the Bible based on a verse that was taken out of context, you'll immediately recognize the
problem and be able to correct it.
If you need to get started in this habit by following a one-year plan, then by all means do
so. However, the best way to do this is to read as large a chunk at one time as you can manage.
One book in one or two sittings is ideal. I can remember the first time I read through the Bible. I
used a one-year plan and read such a little amount per day that I couldn't keep track of the
story. Characters would be referred to later on in one of the longer books and I wouldn't
remember who they were. I had no understanding of the overall history of Israel even after
finishing. It wasn't until a class assignment forced me to read the entire Old Testament in four
months (and therefore, in large portions per sitting) that the text opened up to me as a full,
meaningful, unified story.
Here's the suggestion:
Set aside a two-hour block (or a couple one-hour blocks) per week and read the Bible as
you would any other book (ie. not just a few sentences at a time). The first few years, read to
get the overall picture – don't let the details slow you down. (Feel free to set up other times
during the week to meditate on smaller portions, if you wish.) This will get easier and easier
over time, as more of the larger pieces fall into place for you and everything makes more sense.
Don't give up! After a few years, you'll be in a better position to start thinking carefully through
everything, and you'll find that many of your questions have already been answered; but you
have to learn your times tables before you can do calculus, so start putting the time in now.
How long will this take you each year? Well, the Bible on CD runs 76 hours. That's 38
weeks at two hours a week or 25 weeks at three hours. That's nothing! Completely doable.
Then, once you master this habit, add on an extra reading of the New Testament each year –
only 18 hours! I want these numbers to give you motivating hope. It never occurred to me
(before I was forced) to think such a thing was possible for me, but it is. You can do this, and I
promise you that if you stick with it, making this commitment will be a turning point for you.
Being a Good Apologist Is More Than Knowing The Right Answers
1 Peter 3:15 says to “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you to give a
reason for the hope that you have, yet do so with gentleness and respect” and 2 Corinthians
10:5 says “We demolish argument and every pretension that sets itself up against the
knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” These two
verses are the primary verses that make Christian Apologetics a precedent for the follower of
Christ. We are to give the unbelievers reasons to believe Christianity is true and we are to
demolish every argument that tries to show it isn’t. However, being a good apologist is more
than just knowing the right answers to peoples’ objections and questions, and knowing how to
make a case for Christianity. To be a good apologist, you must know more than “If this person
says X, then I’ll respond with Y”. Giving a defense to anyone who asks is not like giving the
answer to a mathematical equation.
Being a good apologist means being a good communicator, and that involves utilizing
certain skills. Not everyone has these skills, but thankfully, if you know what skills you need,
you can train yourself in these areas. Now, what are these skills you need?
The Accordion Tactic
You can learn the evidence for The Minimal Facts Case For Jesus’ Resurrection, or the evidence
behind the premises of The Kalam Cosmological Argument, and you may even be able to do a
good talk on this at your church. But can you relay these arguments in 5 minutes or less? In
evangelism encounters, sometimes that’s all the time we have to talk with this person. Or even
we do have more time to talk to them, not everyone wants to listen to your monologue for 45
minutes. If you want it to be a dialogue, you need to be able to compress your presentation of
the arguments for God’s existence and the resurrection to 5 minutes or less. This skill comes in
handy not just in one on one evangelism, but even in internet conversations. With some
people, if a comment becomes way too lengthy, they’ll lose interest and comment ‘TL;DR”
which means “Too long, didn’t read”.
This isn’t easy. I’ve struggled with brevity my entire apologetics career, but this is a
practice that I keep practicing and practicing on. I do believe I’m getting better. With regards to
my 6 favorite arguments, I can expand them like an accordion to do a 45-minute talk, or I can
compress them to explain an argument to a friend in the time it takes to listen to a song. The
former is when my apologetic accordion is expanded. The latter is when my apologetic
accordion is contracted. Learn this skill of playing the apologetic accordion and you’ll be able to
defend the faith no matter how much or how little time you’re allotted. Oh, and, having a
monkey wearing a fez isn’t required. Don’t worry about that.
Learn To Listen
At the National Conference On Christian Apologetics, Dr. Ray Civero gave a talk called “Turning
Skeptics Into Seekers”. In this talk, one of his points is that we need to listen to what the other
person is saying, and we need to listen not merely to respond to the argument, but to
understand the argument. Listen to understand, don’t listen to respond. If you’re not paying
attention to what the non-Christian is saying regarding his objections to Christianity, you will
most likely (1) Attack a straw man in your response, (2) give the unbeliever the impression that
you don’t care what he has to say, (3) Give the unbeliever that you just like to listen to yourself
talk, and (4) turn him off to anything you have to say. (5) You will be like two ships passing in
the night. In other words, you’ll be talking past each other.
Be like Ray Civero’s character Ike The Investigator. Ike doesn’t listen to anticipate. Ike
listens to understand. Ike doesn’t listen to his opponent’s position trying to find some way to
tear it apart. Ike listens to understand where the other person is coming from, to understand
what the other person is actually saying.
Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Luke 6:31). I can’t tell
you how often I’ve been frustrated with a non-Christian when I’ve explained something over
and over, as clearly and concisely as I possibly could, mustering all of my effort to get them to
understand what it was that I was actually saying, just to have them attack a straw man for the
umpteenth time in their response to me. For example, there have been conversations where I
bent over backwards trying to get the non-Christian to realize that The Minimal Facts Case For
Jesus’ Resurrection isn’t question-begging, it doesn’t “cite The Bible to prove The Bible”, but
instead treats The New Testament documents like a historian would treat any document
claiming to be telling history (e.g A letter written by George Washington, a biography of
Abraham Lincoln, Josephus’ writings). Christian and Non-Christian historians alike arrive at the
minimal facts by applying the standard historical methodology to the text (e.g the principle of
multiple attestation, the principle of embarrassment). It isn’t a circular argument.
Yet, no matter how I strain to get the other person to see the point, they still just don’t
get it. If he wants to disagree with my arguments, that’s fine. If he wants to say he doesn’t think
the resurrection is the best inference to the minimal facts, that’s fine. I don’t loathe debate, I
loathe having to repeat myself and draw a hundred maps with the result of the other person
still not understanding the argument. Why don’t they understand the argument? I can only
guess that they’re simply skimming my comments. They’re too eager to respond to my
comment so they don’t stop and actually try to understand what it is that I’m actually saying.
I think we’ve all been guilty of this at least a few times, Christian and non-Christian alike.
However, we need to guard against it. James 1:19 says “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and
slow to become angry.” If we’re to obey the golden rule and James 1:19, and if we’re to have a
fruitful dialogue, then we need to be good listeners.
Have The Patience Of A Saint
There are jobs where having a short fuse is a handicap inherent to the job itself: being a cop,
being a lawyer, working in retail, and being a Christian Apologist. Because in all of these, you’re
going to come against people who will really try your patience. You need to have a pretty long
fuse or else you’ll fail the task you’re trying to do.
If you’re going to be a Christian Apologist, you need to have thick skin, because there will
be people who ridicule you, demean you, insult you, and slander you. It can be tempting to
respond in kind, but The Bible tells us “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks
you to give a reason for the hope that you have, yet do so with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter
3:15, emphasis mine). I know of some apologists (won’t name names) who obey the first half of
this verse, but not the second. They give a defense for the hope they have alright, but they
make total donkeys out of themselves while doing it. If you don’t give a defense
with gentleness and respect, you have failed to fully obey 1 Peter 3:15.
2 Timothy 2:24-26 says “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but be gentle towards all,
able to teach, patient, in gentleness correcting those who oppose him: perhaps God may give
them repentance leading to a full knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out
of the devil’s snare, having been taken captive by him to his will.”
Conclusion
These are a few of the most important skills you need to master to be a good Christian
Apologist. Simply having the answers is not enough. That would be like saying you can be a
police officer if you have a uniform, a badge, and a gun. While those definitely are necessary
conditions to being a cop, they are not sufficient conditions. Likewise, being well read in the
apologetic literature is a necessary condition to being an apologist, but not a sufficient
condition. You need people skills!
