all right everybody lecture 36 our very last lecture for the course my last lecture for the summer as we record these final thoughts part two that seems weird to have a final thoughts with two parts but anyway final thoughts part two in the last lecture what we did is we looked at some common mistakes that we often make and now what i want to do in this lecture i simply want to talk about the kinds of qualities skills and dispositions that are going to be necessary for you if you are going to be an effective ambassador for christ and represent him as you do apologetics and so there's lots of things to say about this uh one of the things i note here in the slide is that we often in apologetics our work fails not because we like information or we like good data or you know things of that nature good arguments rather our efforts often fail because of the way we conduct ourselves in the way we act and the way we we come off and things of that nature and so i want to just address those things in this last lecture and just make sure that we're all on the same page as to how to go about to do this and what kind of dispositions you've got to have all right let's start with this i think first and foremost the apologist or the broader metaphor that i used earlier in the course of being an ambassador the ambassador slash apologist is someone who must be diligent diligent to study diligent to learn diligent to think diligent to investigate diligent in every way i note here that the days of an ignorant ministry are over i'm not suggesting that you have to have a phd i'm not suggesting that you've got to constantly do nothing but read but i am suggesting to you that we live in a different world than even our mentors lived in too many to many degrees and because of that you and i have to be diligent to learn and to know what we need to learn there are indeed serious questions about our faith and serious objections but i would also say that there are some very serious answers to those as well and we would only know how to do that if indeed we're diligent people have asked in this course even what's what's the idea how how far should we go what what should we get to in our knowledge abilities and grasp comprehension and an answer i gave i'll just circle back on it here is essentially this i think every one of us has the obligation to be the very best that we can possibly be to go as far as we legitimately can go within our capacities and to work as hard as we can to do that and then trust god with everything else you and i have to be diligent to that end and so the christian has great hope regarding intellectual vice christian the christian faith has great hope regarding the intellectual vitality of the faith the bible commands us to do all of those things we can look at a lot of different passages of scripture along those lines but i would just simply say look we look at first peter 3 15 when we look at the the book of jude we are commanded forth rightly to be diligent and to work hard and to make sure that we're well prepared in these moments now in addition to that first peter 3 15 tells us to always be ready that is to say be diligent but it also reminds us that as we defend the faith we are to do so with graciousness and respect or diligence and respect meekness and fear sometimes the translation says so when we interact with people there's absolutely no excuse whatsoever for acting in certain ways that are contrary to christ for behaving rudely or obnoxiously or harshly or other things like that i would say this to you it's not an effective christian witness until it is both christian and the content and also christian in the behavior you cannot act like jerks no one will listen to you if you do that and thus we exercise a little common sense and be gracious with people when we speak to people and that will indeed go a long way next and i mentioned this in the last lecture but i want to circle back on it here you have to be patient right so diligent respectful patient with people remember that conversion is at least intellectually speaking a process by which someone comes now they go from not believing in christ and trusting in christ to now placing their faith in their trust in christ and to live for him and that may not be quick that may not be easy i know we want it to be but that's not the way it works for most people most people wrestle with these issues for a very long time whether that's just weeks or years even and you have to remember that you're asking people to make the single most important decision of their life it's important not just because their eternal destiny depends on it it is important because it recalibrates their entire world view remember the web of the world view and i said some beliefs are more central than others listen when they come to place their faith in jesus christ they are replacing the most central belief in their entire worldview and now everything has to be readjusted and recalibrated as a result of that and so that's a big deal give people the time and the space to actually process it and think it through well remember jesus said that the person who puts his hand in the plow but looks back is not worthy to walk with him the person who starts to build a house and doesn't consider the cost in advance is not worthy to come with him what jesus is saying there is look if you're going to follow me you really need to think it through and understand what you're committing your life to right and so as you do evangelism and as you do apologetics remember that that's the case people are making the biggest decision of their life here and so a simple five minute conversation probably not going to be enough be patient with that person willing to talk with them willing to pray with them willing to guide them these are all important steps in seeing people come to faith in jesus christ now this next one is highly important but i have to admit for christian apologists it is perhaps one of the hardest we need to be intellectually humble when we talk with people making sure we don't pretend to know more than we do and faking it along the way you're going to talk with people and as you do that you have to maintain intellectual humility don't act like you know more than you know don't pretend that you're more than you are because what happens is as you talk with people when they begin to realize that you don't know as much as you're letting on well then now they're going to be suspicious about even the things that you do know what you're talking about so for example this is why in this class even on certain topics i've had to just say to you guys i'm not an expert on these issues i'm just going to say very little and kind of talk across the top of this discipline and lean on the reading for those things and i don't know i'd say i'm pretty well trained kind of guy so look intellectual humility is important because when you start extending yourself beyond what you actually know and can speak to definitively people begin to realize that the most essential things that you do know what you're talking about in they're going to question those things too so heaven forbid it should be about salvation or about the truth of christianity or some of those other things so make sure that you're being intellectually humble when you talk to people we might not be inclined to think of this one in an apologetic context but i would insist to you that your personal integrity is essential when you talk to people people are watching your life more than they're listening to your arguments if they think that you're not real if they think that you're not you're not genuine then ultimately they're not going to believe anything else you have to say right so pay attention to your your integrity pay attention to the way you live whether you want to be or not you are being watched you are being examined and they're evaluating the truth of christianity not just on what you say but also in the way that you live your life and so the christian life and how we live it with integrity becomes a major spoke in the wheel of christian apologetics and so we need to make sure that we maintain integrity when we talk to people now next i would say love people look you show kindness to them you listen to them i talked about this a lot in the last lecture you should you listen to them to show them that you care about them be pastoral with them you show empathy and compassion with people in john chapter 13 verse number 35 we we're told that jesus cared for his disciples and he even says that uh that that people will know that we are his disciples by the way we love one another uh i would say to us folks this is a this is an area that we often don't do particularly well we tend i say we i'm speaking very broadly here but there is a tendency in our circles to treat christianity is simply a propositional thing and the battle is about getting all of our propositions right which is to say the battle is only theological and we just need to fight for good theology and if we just get our theology right the man we've done it and you know what uh jesus had a lot to say about the way we live and what we do with our lives he taught us for example that the most important two commandments in all of the law was that we love god and that we love people and that on those two commandments hang all the law and the prophets which means you can get your theology straight but if you don't love people you're going to be ineffective and not just ineffective down here you're going to be displeasing to god and so show love to people be compassionate with people be empathetic with people hear them out it doesn't mean to show empathy and compassion doesn't mean that you always agree with them doesn't mean that you condone their lifestyle just means that you love them that's all and so we have to do that this is these last the integrity and love these are essential to gospel witness and we need to make sure that we're we're applying this in the right way in every part of our our apologetic and evangelism all right abiding faith let me let me mention what i mean here look what we've done in this course is we've looked at a lot of arguments we've looked at evidence we've looked at rational arguments we've done a lot we've considered very thoroughly in this class the intellectual side of our faith which is important i'm content that christianity is intellectually robust that it holds up that it stands the test of time against the some of the strongest accusations in the world and so i'm convinced that that happens but at the same time we also have to understand that at the end of the day our effectiveness as ambassadors for christ are going to be whether or not we abide in christ jesus says in john chapter 15 i am the vine you are the branches he who abides in me sorry about that he who abides in me bears much fruit and without me you can do nothing so here's what that means you can know all the arguments you can have all the data but if you're not walking in the spirit you're going to be ineffective look so i'm pretty well trained today right and i have to say to you yes there are some conversations i get to have and be a part of with people that i wouldn't have had the opportunity to be a part of 20 some years ago but when i was 18 years old and all i had was christ you know what that was an awful lot i didn't have an education i didn't have degrees i didn't have positions i didn't know arguments i didn't have the evidence or the data all i had was a bible and the spirit of god and a heart that was passionate for christ and i prayed and i prayed and i prayed that god would use me effectively for his kingdom and i had opportunities to share the gospel with all sorts of people and see lots of people come to faith in christ and i had the opportunity to defend the faith in various ways i'm just simply saying to you man christ is enough and the spirit is the one that does the work and so as an apologist we tend to get all grown up intellectually we tend to think that we've matured and we're intellectuals and we tend to think that we got this on intellectual grounds and i just want to appeal to you man abide in christ continue to walk with him and make sure that you're communing with him such that his spirit of the spirit of god can work through you now these last two i think are highly important as well look discernment we tend to think that we have to fully engage every single conversation we talked about this in one of our class sessions that you know what do you do when somebody's just sitting there railing and railing and railing i'll tell you what i do i don't engage in some cases we're not talking to people who want to hear or who will hear right so some people aren't interested in whether or not this is true or false some people are only interested in the fight and i would say to you in those cases as you use your discernment if that's what you sense with those people i would be reluctant to engage on those i'd be more much more inclined to just change the subject try to talk about some other things try to get things to calm down try to win friendship with these people be faithful to them to love those people man if somebody's just interested in fighting then i'm not sure that's what we're supposed to be in what i would say though is if and when we discern that the person is not being honest or just trying to be hostile we don't engage and we sit back and we wait for god to bring about circumstances in their life that get their attention and open the door and then when that happens then we come back and we engage in the right moment so use your discernment not not all opportunities are created equal we need to remember that when we do that all right last point real quick start with common ground we tend to start at the point with which we most disagree with people and as such the conversations don't don't really go that well what i want to suggest is that we start with the things we agree on and then go from there i call this the zipper model imagine that i have a jacket on with a zipper on it right and the zipper comes together at the very bottom right around where my belt is the zipper goes in and then you pull the zipper up right and the zipper brings itself all the way up and so from the bottom to the middle everything is together the two sides are together and then where the zipper stops the two sides come apart and they get farther and farther and farther and farther apart as it goes up and typically up around my neck you'll see that the zipper's as far apart as it can possibly be or it's at its farthest apart point now here's what i'm saying to us it tends to be the case that in apologetic conversations or in conversations between believers and non-believers we tend to start our conversation at the point at which we most disagree the two zipper sides are here and we start our conversations right here the place where we disagree the most and as such it's not surprising that these conversations don't tend to go well neither side is going to convince the other side to come their direction or not what i want to suggest is start the conversation a little farther down start the conversation where the two sides are together and walk that pathway as long as possible and then when you engage on things you disagree in let it be at the very first point of disagreement where we start to come aside and see if we can close that gap a little bit now that takes a lot longer a lot more time to have a lot more conversations but i tend to think that that's a little bit more profitable so start with common ground and then go into the things that we actually disagree on well there's a lot of things we could talk about apologetics we've talked about a lot of things in this course i hope that this has been helpful for you hope that the readings have been helpful for you i hope that the paper gives you an opportunity to dig in deep on an argument for yourself and make an argument for yourself really enjoyed being with you this semester for this this course and i hope that i get to study with you again sometime until then be faithful to christ in everything make him your all and he'll use you greatly god bless you guys we'll see you next time