Strange But True: An Unexpected Reality in Evangelism and Apologetics

We all love a weird fact. For instance, camels have three eyelids. Crazy, huh? Our world is so diverse that every day we can be surprised by some unexpected reality. There are things like that in the theological world as well. There are so many diverse, yet unified, truths in scripture that there are realities we initially don’t expect.

Two of these surprising realities happen in evangelism and in apologetics. My ultimate goal in this blogpost it to speak about a feature I see at play in apologetics. But before we get there, I want to set the theological tone with a “strange but true” reality that is similar in evangelism.

Evangelism is an impossible task. Spiritually speaking, it is no different than walking into a cemetery and calling people to come out of their graves. Ezekiel felt the impossibility of the task when, in a prophetic vision, he was taken to a valley full of dry bones and asked, “Son of man, can these bones live again?” (Ezek. 37) The answer was too obvious, so he simply said, “Oh Lord, you know.” But, just as God informed Ezekiel of the life-giving power of God, so Jesus told his disciples in Luke 18:27, “The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.”

God is able to grant spiritual life, and He does it when he grants true repentance and genuine faith. Just as dry bones cannot stand up and dance, neither can your unsaved neighbor stop loving sin and treasure Christ until God grants faith and repentance. Yet, there is a strange but true reality that runs through scripture. We are continually told to call them to repentance. Now, remember they can’t do this until God grants repentance. Yet, in a strange but true reality, God commands us to fill our evangelism with calls for them to do what only God can make happen. And that is not all. Paul was told to be the one to open spiritually blind eyes (Acts 26:18), Jesus asked a self-righteous lawyer what a passage of scripture meant, which can only be discerned spiritually (Luke 10:26), and Timothy was told to correct those who oppose him (2 Tim.2:25). Those specific actions that Jesus and Paul and Timothy were commanding of the lost could not be done by the lost apart from the grace of God. Was this spiritual cruelty? No, it is a surprising reality within evangelism that capitalizes upon God’s common grace. God can use the functioning mind of an unbeliever to become, at some unknown moment, the door through which the saving mercy of God enters in and spreads repentance and faith abroad. To be clear, the functioning mind didn’t do the initial work. They weren’t smart enough to get saved. Instead, God simply used their mind at that moment He granted repentance and faith. The passage in Timothy might be most helpful. Timothy was told to correct those who oppose, if perhaps God may grant repentance which leads to the knowledge of the truth. To be corrected is to gain some aspect of knowledge. But the verse clearly shows that knowledge comes after repentance. Therefore, Timothy was to call them to do what they could not do, which was to have corrected knowledge. But maybe, if God was gracious, God would grant repentance which would suddenly allow them to understand and heed the correction.

Therefore, in this strange but true reality, you should be telling an unbeliever to repent, as well as to read his Bible, go to church, read Christian literature and a host of other activities, none of which will spiritually profit an unbeliever. So why do this? Because you never know when and with what God might grant repentance.

I see a similar strange-but-true reality in the area of apologetics. I hold to presuppositional apologetics which aims at addressing, revealing, and exposing the faulty starting points of the unbeliever. When a person has a faulty starting point, everything else will go wrong. If all you have is the color blue, painting a rainbow simply cannot happen. Likewise, if a person is only a slave to their sinful autonomy, there is simply no way to end up in the freedom of Christ. This autonomy may take the form of scientific atheism, Islam, or some melting pot of spirituality. Whatever the case, all evidence, all testimonies, all experiences will be interpreted through their autonomous self, which has the final say. They are unable to see truth or obey God’s law (Acts 26:18; Rom. 8:7).

Now, the reality is that Christ truly is Lord and His Word is true. That means there will be contradictions between the unbeliever’s autonomous assertions and their real world experience. These contradictions are like a person denying the existence of the English language as they use English words to do it. They are like the little girl who has to sit in her daddy’s lap in order to slap him in the face. They simply cannot live in God’s world and consistently live in opposition to the realities God has established. They need God’s grace even to deny God’s grace.

If this is the case, then it would seem that using evidential arguments would be a waste of time. All the evidence that you present will be interpreted through the filter of whatever autonomous choice they have made, be it scientific atheism or something else. Wouldn’t it be best if you simply challenged their presuppositions and exposed the contradictions that run throughout? You do need to do this, you must do this. However, the strange but true reality is the use of evidences has its place.

We see in scripture that God does this very thing. God gave signs and wonders as evidences to the unbelieving world through prophets and apostles. John records 7 signs “so that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that believing in His name you would have eternal life.” Luke records that many “proofs” were done for the apostles and probably before the 500 people that Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians 15:6. In Acts 17:31 God has furnished “proof” to all men by raising Christ from the dead. Now it must be stated that these are in a unique category called “miracle.” These are undeniable, supernatural events that superseded the laws of nature. These were totally authoritative because they came by God’s power through men. Yet, the enslaved heart of sinful man will not surrender his autonomous thinking even in light of miracles.

What does this mean? It means at least 3 things:

1) You cannot provide what would be the most powerful and authoritative pieces of evidence, miracles, and even if you could, it would not be effective. You have no hope except the grace of God. This will be evidenced by your dependence on prayer. Is your apologetics dominated by prayer?

2) All pieces of evidence have a legitimate place in your apologetics. Since the whole world is made by God, everything will useful to you for evidence. Don’t be afraid to speak of dinosaur bones or empty tombs. However, do not be surprised when you are mocked for your religiously-tainted and superstitious use of evidence.

3) Do not argue like the fool. Proverbs 26:4 says, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will also be like him.” Because the unbeliever, apart from the grace of God, will not listen even if miracles are done for him, your primary assault has to be upon his presuppositions. You cannot stay in the realm of evidences. If you do, you are disobeying the above verse by hoping his autonomous reasoning will prevail to the glory of God. It won’t. It can’t. That is the fool’s folly and you cannot operate by it. The next verse in Proverbs 26 says, “Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he not be wise in his own eyes.” You have to step into his presuppositions and show him that there are irreconcilable contradictions. Expose the foolishness of his worldview. This means you need to learn how to show the unbeliever that everything he is using in his argument can only exist in a biblical worldview. He has to sit in the lap of God in order to slap him in the face.

Therefore, teach the unbeliever and put wonderful evidences before him. But understand it will do nothing except increase his guilt at the judgment…unless God does something. In a strange but true reality, God just might use those things in that moment He opens the unbeliever’s heart in grace. So most of all, keep your witness filled with calls to repentance and keep your apologetic filled with assaults on presuppositions. These are the big guns that are assisted by a host of other smaller artillery in winning the battle of the heart.