Year: 2007

Apologetics is not Evangelism

Tony Reinke Evangelism, Mark Dever

tss-baseball.jpgFrom my (very limited) vantage point, American churches seem to be cultivating a growing interest in apologetics (that is, defending the faith and answering objections). In a pluralistic culture that grows ever diverse, it’s important for the church to formulate answers to the challenges. This is commendable and biblical (1 Peter 3:15).

But along with this new emphasis on apologetics runs a concurrent temptation for churches to confuse evangelism and apologetics, to confuse defending and proclaiming.

Examples of this are not hard to find. In an interview with Christianity Today, Brian McLaren blurs traditional evangelism and apologetics to the point where they are really indistinguishable. I think this reflects a broader confusion.

This blurring of lines and even an apologetics-for-evangelism replacement is especially dangerous because it relocates the ultimate goal of the Gospel. In apologetics we seek the intellectual assent of others by overcoming their questions and engaging their obstacles. But the goal of evangelism is to proclaim the message of the Cross and see God (by His sovereign grace) produce personal brokenness, humility, and repentance.

By replacing evangelism with apologetics, we may unwittingly replace weeping hearts for nodding heads. Carried out ecclesiastically, everyday evangelism gets replaced by group meetings led by experts.

So I was especially encouraged by these comments in Mark Dever’s new book, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (Crossway: 2007):

“… practicing apologetics is a good thing, but it’s not evangelism. Answering questions and defending parts of the good news may often be a part of conversations Christians have with non-Christians, and while that may have been part of our own reading or thinking or talking as we came to Christ, such activity is not evangelism … By far the greatest danger in apologetics is being distracted from the main message. Evangelism is not defending the virgin birth or defending the historicity of the resurrection” (pp. 77-78).

And with this shift from evangelism to apologetics comes a subversive shift in agenda. Dever writes,

“Apologetics is defending the faith, answering the questions others have about Christianity. It is responding to the agenda that others set. Evangelism, however, is following Christ’s agenda, the news about him. Evangelism is the positive act of telling the good news about Jesus Christ and the way of salvation through him” (p. 78).

This is a great point to stop for personal reflection. Does what I call evangelism look more like apologetics? Is the ultimate goal of my evangelism aimed towards mere agreement? Or am I lovingly and gently calling sinners to see sin as personal sin, and see wrath as wrath directed towards them? Am I calling for repentance, encouraging “godly grief,” seeking repentance from “dead works,” and a clinging to the Cross (Acts 26:20; 2 Cor. 7:10; Heb. 6:1)? In short, is my evangelism marked as defending or proclaiming?

These are good things to consider.

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Hidden sin and Luther’s discovery of the Cross

Tony Reinke Justification, Justification by Faith, Martin Luther, Reformation, Reformation Day, Reformed spirituality, Reformed theology, Sin, What is sin, Wickedness of the heart

tsslogo.jpg“In his struggles with penance and confession, he [Martin Luther the monk-scholar] wrestled with Psalm 19:12, ‘Clear thou me from hidden faults’ (ASV). Luther’s problem was never whether his sins were large ones or small ones, but whether in fact he had confessed every single one. What about the sins he could not remember? What about the sins committed in his sleep? Luther anticipated Freud by recognizing a depth-dimension to the human person and by refusing to limit the effects of sin to the conscious mind alone. Such a radical reading of the human situation could only be answered with an even more radical reading of divine grace. …

Luther’s new insight was that the imputation of Christ’s alien righteousness was based, not on the gradual curing of sin, but rather on the complete victory of Christ on a cross. The once-for-allness of justification was emphasized: ‘If you believe, then you have it!’ Nor is there any direct correlation between the state of justification and one’s outward works, as Luther made clear in his sermon on the pharisee and the publican (1521): ‘And the Publican fulfills all the commandments of God on the spot. He was then and there made holy by grace alone. Who could have foreseen that, under this dirty fellow?’

Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith fell like a bombshell on the theological landscape of medieval Catholicism. It shattered the entire theology of merit and indeed the sacramental-penitential basis of the church itself.”

– Timothy George essay on Luther in Reading Romans Through the Centuries: From the Early Church to Karl Barth (Brazos Press: 2005) pp. 115-116.

Reformation Heritage Books

Tony Reinke BR > Reformation Heritage Books

Our friend Steve Renkema, manager of Reformation Heritage Books, was interviewed by Ingrid Schlueter on CrossTalk yesterday about books. The interview provides a nice look behind the scenes of a rising Reformed publisher.

Related: RHB produced the 2006 TSS Book-of-the-Year — Meet the Puritans.
Related: RHB is currently working on the Works of William Perkins.
Related: Find TSS reviews of RHB titles here.

It’s a Hard Blog Life

Tony Reinke spurgeon

I came across this from Michael Parsons today. This hardly reflects my experience (so please don’t read this as an expression of my opinion). I found it interesting because there are now more blogs that have been abandoned than are currently active. This may explain why:

“Like all people who rise to the top of their profession, it demonstrates a simple truth: good bloggers work like dogs. You can’t expect readers to show up unless you show up. And the internet never closes. … Every successful blogger I’ve come across is the same. Eat, sleep and drink the work. No time out, no holidays … It takes amazing focus and energy not only to drink from the fire hose of content that is the World Wide Web and make sense of it, but also to direct your own little water pistol back at it and actually get noticed. You need a big ego, a loud voice, and a thick skin.”

Blogging is still an excellent option if you want to push yourself very hard to learn and grow in the content of your choosing. It’s educative, really. Didn’t Augustine say he wrote in order to learn? Blogging lets the expert speak but also forces the amateur (like me) to grow.

In blogging-for-growth, you are not competing against others, you are blogging to learn for yourself. This really takes the pressure off. You’ll be amazed how many blog readers are interested in learning along with you.

As a note, I think in the future group blogs (multiple authors) will probably become more standard (and search engines are more trusting of multi-author blogs). So if you want to blog, find a group of friends.