As a student, I was privileged to sit under an advisor for whom Christian ethics and its application were a vibrant passion.  With his careful drawl and smiling eyes, my professor slowly and gladly brought me to an understanding of ethics that would never allow me to leave it, as I might have left a stuffy, uninteresting class.  Ethics, for the Christian, is no more optional than the scriptures that tell us who we are.  In one of Dr. Verhey’s more recent works, he writes, “There is no Christian life that is not shaped somehow by Scripture.  There is no Christian moral discernment that is not tied somehow to Scripture.  There is no Christian ethic—no Christian medical ethic or sexual ethic or economic ethic or political ethic—that is not formed and informed somehow by Scripture.”(1)  That is to say, Christian communities are communities who practice ethics on some real level because they live by a particular identity, because it is who they are.

Now working within the field of Christian apologetics, one of the comments that I hear most often as a reason for rejecting Christianity is that of its followers:  “Christians are so hypocritical!”  “The problem I have with Christ is that his followers do him more harm than good.”  “I am continually disappointed by Christians; why should I consider their religion?”  ”The problem I have with Christianity is Christians.”  I can try appealing to these voices to see the gap in their logic; I can try reasoning that the abuse of a religion must never stand in the way of getting at the truth of a religion.  But many will not be swayed.  I leave these conversations saddened not merely because the obstacles seem immovable, but because I fully understand the grievance.  The letter of recommendation written upon the countenance of professing Christians is far too often a message that deters.

Like ethics, Christian apologetics is a daily activity writ large upon the life of Christians and Christian communities whether they realize it or not.  The world hears clearly their message with or without words.  For they go about life confessing, commending, defending, and living the gospel, showing the world an ethic and a religion whether they speak of these things or not.  Both disciplines are thus inherently Christian activities, disciplines that must take seriously the responsibility the identity imparts.  The Christian is a person of the Book, commanded to remember the movement of God in history, the nearness of the Spirit today, and the promise of Christ’s return in every word he speaks, in every thing she does.

In the midst of this great reality, the Christian need not live as one who holds every answer, but as one who lives with the confidence that is ours through Christ before God, as we grow further into our conversions and the abundant life Christ describes.  In this, both the world and the Church is benefited when believers learn to see their own conversions as a process, salvation as more than a ticket to heaven, and faith as something deeper than sheer preference or unquestionable certainty—for this will likewise help us see that reaching our neighbors is a lifelong activity.  In the meantime, John Stackhouse argues that it is imperative for the apologist and the ethicist to take with her the right questions.(2) Instead of evangelicalism’s favorite foci—Is he saved?  Does she have a personal relationship with Christ?  Or, what must I do to convert them?—a far better question was entertained by the one the believer follows:  Who shall I say is my neighbor? At this question Jesus recounted a story that left everyone asking appropriately, If the world is filled with my neighbors, how then shall I live?

If every member of the body of Christ on earth lived an apologetic life that reflected the inherently Christ-like response to that question—with love, with grace, with truth and humility—perhaps we would find the distance between Athens and Jerusalem converging, bridged by the glory of the one who rose from the grave.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Allen Verhey, Remembering Jesus: Christian Community, Scripture, and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 2002), 54.
(2) John Stackhouse, Jr., Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 84-85.

Late summer and early fall are times families spend their Saturdays canning fruits and vegetables for the coming year. Through a process of cleaning, sterilizing, and cooking the goods canned are insured to be safe and enjoyable when later needed.

In a similar way God has preserved his word so the Scriptures we read are safe and enjoyable, whenever we read them. One difference between preserved vegetables and the preserved Word of God is that the vegetable undergoes a certain Read the rest of this entry →

We’ve all stumbled our way through a dark room. We bump into the chair, the table, or step on a child’s toy while we desperately search for a light switch.  Once the light is on we are able to clearly see everything in the room.

The Bible can sometimes seem like a dark room.  We may read it, but we don’t understand what we read.  The light of understanding is still turned off in our mind, but once it is turned on then understanding comes. The process whereby God turns the light on in our Read the rest of this entry →

You’re sitting in the concert hall, having arrived a few minutes early.  You can hear the orchestra tuning up.  You may occasionally see the curtain move as someone or something moves behind it.  The lights are on, but you are in the dark about what’s happening on stage, except perhaps for a few educated guesses.

But then the time arrives, and the curtain goes up.  All that was once hidden is now open to view. Read the rest of this entry →

When establishing the authority of Scripture, we often look to verses like 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God….” But what does it mean to be inspired by God? It is important to have a solid understanding of this concept to understand Scripture and to represent God and His Word to a lost world.

We use the words “inspiration” and “inspired” to discuss great performances by athletes, actors, or musicians. Is this what is meant by inspiration of Scripture, that the writers of Scripture were moved with great intellect and emotion to write the words of God? The NIV translation of 2 Tim. 3:16 uses the phrase Read the rest of this entry →

Once upon a time there was a man working on his own house who used one ruler in the house and another in his workshop. He discovered after cutting out all the pieces that the rulers were 1/16^th of an inch different and nothing fit together correctly.

If you don’t verify your ruler against the official one—wherever it is kept—or at least compare the ones you’re using to make sure they match, you could be headed Read the rest of this entry →