{"id":3129,"date":"2017-09-28T15:02:10","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T15:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=3129"},"modified":"2019-08-10T16:07:55","modified_gmt":"2019-08-10T16:07:55","slug":"how-do-you-recognize-a-christian-1012017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=3129","title":{"rendered":"How do you recognize a Christian?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?\u201d\u00a0 (Luke 18:8)<\/em><\/p>\n

A local evangelical church recently encouraged its members to join an \u2018outreach event\u2019 to wash the cars of the teachers at an elementary school.\u00a0 I suppose this will save the teachers a bit of time and energy, so they can devote themselves more fully to indoctrinating their students in evolution, transgender politics, global warming, open borders, socialism, and sex without boundaries.\u00a0 Now, if the activity allowed for placing Gospel tracts on the windshields, I could see some value.\u00a0 But it\u2019s clear that the Rick Warren \/ Bill Hybels megachurch-wannabe handbook entails sneaking up on the lost, hoping that your winsome car-washing personality attracts them to your rock-and-roll Sunday show.<\/p>\n

Whatever impressions are made by evangelicals in this culture, they are careful to avoid the Biblical warnings about death and Hell, the Biblical calls to repent from one\u2019s specific sins and trust Christ, the Biblical declaration of the truth of fiat creation, the historical fact of the incarnation of the Son of God, the Cross as the only hope for the sinner, and the Resurrection as the only hope for eternal life.<\/p>\n

Hey, I\u2019m for washing atheists\u2019 cars, for grilling up cheeseburgers for the homeless, for distributing sneakers to orphans, but not to make folks a bit more comfortable on the road to their destruction. They\u2019ve got to hear the Gospel and it must be a personal challenge, eyeball-to-eyeball, or I\u2019ve been a wimp, a coward, a traitor to the Great Commission. And when I do speak to the lost, it is vital for me to speak with a Biblical attitude, with compassion and boldness, to show the unbeliever that his life in this world (and beyond) makes sense only within a Christian worldview, and whatever form of unbelief binds him up makes no sense at all.<\/p>\n

I like the way John Frame views the essence of apologetics in his book, Apologetics:\u00a0 A Justification of Christian Belief<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cIt may no longer be possible to distinguish presuppositional apologetics from traditional apologetics merely by externals \u2013 by the form of argument, the explicit claim of certainty or probability, and so forth.\u00a0 Perhaps presuppositionalism is more an attitude of the heart<\/em>, a spiritual condition, than an easily describable, empirical phenomenon . . . The presuppositionalism we are talking about is (1) a clearheaded understanding of where our loyalties lie and how those loyalties affect our epistemology, (2) a determination above all to present the full teaching of Scripture in our apologetic without compromise, in its full winsomeness and its full offensiveness, (3) especially a determination to present God as fully sovereign, as the source of all meaning, intelligibility, and rationality, as the ultimate authority for all human thought, and (4) an understanding of the unbeliever\u2019s knowledge of God and rebellion against God, particularly . . . as it affects his thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take these points in turn.\u00a0 (1) Our loyalties as ambassadors for Christ demand that we speak truth in this world without equivocation.\u00a0 Consider God\u2019s \u2018attitude\u2019 in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1.\u00a0 The prophets and the apostles declared truth, knowing that God designed His image-bearers to recognize it.\u00a0 Yes, objectors will bring up issues like the fossil record.\u00a0 Our response is to show that the fossil record makes sense only within the perspective of Biblical history . . . you\u2019ll find considerable material on this web site regarding all such objections.\u00a0 The Christian \u2018way of knowing,\u2019 our epistemology, is to start with God\u2019s word and show how it makes sense of any issue that pertains to life in this world.<\/p>\n

(2) The full teaching of Scripture is offensive to the lost rebel.\u00a0 To be saved I must embrace the truth that I\u2019m a wicked sinner worthy of Hell, that I cannot save myself, and that I\u2019ve been entirely and disgracefully wrong in rationalizing my rebellion against God.\u00a0 To help the lost you\u2019ve got to make the message clear.<\/p>\n

(3) Now, God is fully \u2018sovereign\u2019 in terms of power, presence, etc.\u00a0 But not \u2018sovereign\u2019 in the Calvinist sense that Frame buys into.\u00a0 I like Frame, but he\u2019s lost his mind in the areas of sovereignty and election.\u00a0 In fact, within the same sentence, he cites human rationality and thought, which have no meaning in a Calvinist universe in which every thought, word, and deed is already dictated, while \u2018we\u2019 . . . we automatons . . . go through the scripted motions.\u00a0 But Frame\u2019s point apart from his misunderstanding of sovereignty is solid.\u00a0 Meaning, rationality, and coherent thought make sense only if we are persons, with choice, with a free will not bound by brain chemistry.\u00a0 If all \u2018he\u2019 is, is brain chemistry, the atheist has no ground to make rational arguments.<\/p>\n

(4) Every Christian, as an evangelist to the lost around her, must study to know something of the unbeliever\u2019s worldview, so as to make clear how it doesn\u2019t work, while simultaneously knowing that God put a conscience in everyone and a capacity to recognize truth, if she wants to.\u00a0 Despite the skeptic\u2019s external bluster, there\u2019s a conscience there that can be touched.<\/p>\n

In the preface to Frame\u2019s book, philosopher Vern Poythress asks, \u201cBut does a simple presentation of the Gospel always lead to a response in faith?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Why not?\u00a0 Often modern people are not even curious about the Gospel.\u00a0 They are convinced secularists.\u00a0 They are already committed to another way of life.\u00a0 But even if they are curious, their curiosity is mixed with resistance.\u00a0 The Gospel is not pleasing to people who are in rebellion against God and are determined to continue in rebellion (1 Cor. 1:18-31).\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where apologetics comes into play, to work against resistance and objections that are ultimately motivated by a sinner\u2019s love of autonomy. In the university setting, pride is rampant, fostering the impression that autonomous man\u2019s knowledge and reason are superior to the primitive ideas of Bible believers. I love to reach out to students on these campuses, who are being indoctrinated in anti-reality (anti-Christian) ideas. That\u2019s why I design tracts (see my Tracts essay) to show the bankruptcy of naturalism \/ secularism \/ evolutionism, and engage students 1-2-1 to explain how the Biblical worldview accounts for their rationality, their sense of morality, their hopes for the future, and especially their need for the Savior.<\/p>\n

Since the influencers in our culture are college-educated, the West is saturated with atheistic (lack of) values in business, in the media, and in academia.\u00a0 The difference between the 20 year-old college student and the same individual five years later is dramatic.\u00a0 The college years are the last for most individuals for weighing alternative worldviews.\u00a0 Reach them young or it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

Frame observes that the pre <\/em>in presupposition <\/em>reflects pre<\/em>eminence, not temporal priority.\u00a0 You can start a discussion with an unbeliever on any topic at any point . . . Carbon 14 dating, Grand Canyon rock layers, Australopithecus Afarensis fossils, whether abortion kills little human beings . . . but the evangelist must make clear that his Biblical worldview is coherent on the topic and the unbeliever\u2019s isn\u2019t.\u00a0 It\u2019s the worldview issue that\u2019s preeminent.\u00a0 Then work hard to make the issue personal, that since reality is tied perfectly to Christian truth, it\u2019s not an academic debate \u2013 rather an issue of eternal consequence, personally.\u00a0 In a world full of wishy-washy perspectives and tepid opinions and a vapid \u2018your truth \/ my truth\u2019, the Christian will stand out if he behaves as a Christian ought to . . . declaring, defending, and proclaiming truth, persistently turning defense to offense, casting down false imaginations and everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.<\/p>\n

Challenges can and should be gracious . . . How do you account for rational thought if all you are is brain chemistry?\u00a0 If murder and rape and molesting children are wrong<\/em>, then how do you account for objective morality?\u00a0 How do you account for the awesome information content in biosystems?\u00a0 In your worldview, what\u2019s the point of living, what\u2019s your hope and what is it based on?<\/p>\n

It annoys me that Christians don\u2019t care to study apologetics, worse that they don\u2019t care to take time to do personal evangelism.\u00a0 The Great Commission is what Christians do.<\/em>\u00a0 How can you most quickly identify a Christian?\u00a0 She\u2019s the one confronting those around her, eyeball to eyeball, with their need for the Savior.<\/p>\n

Frame:\u00a0 \u201cApologetics and preaching are not two different things.\u00a0 Both are attempts to reach unbelievers for Christ.\u00a0 Preaching is apologetic because it aims at persuasion.\u00a0 Apologetics is preaching because it presents the Gospel, aiming at conversion and sanctification.\u00a0 Yet the two activities do have different perspectives or emphases.\u00a0 Apologetics emphasizes the aspect of rational persuasion, while preaching emphasizes the seeking of godly change in people\u2019s lives.\u00a0 But if rational persuasion is a persuasion of the heart, then it is the same thing as godly change.\u00a0 God is the persuader-converter, but He works through our testimony.\u00a0 Other terms are also roughly synonymous:\u00a0 witnessing, teaching, evangelizing, arguing, <\/em>and the like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Presuppositionalists love to use evidence and, in principle, love evidence more than evidentialists do.\u00a0 In classical \/ traditional \/ evidential apologetics, the habit is to evaluate evidence (history, geology, astronomy, biology) on allegedly neutral terms with the skeptic, in effect ceding to him grounds for rationality, logic, and the ethical virtues of the scientific method, which he cannot actually support within his materialistic worldview.\u00a0 But when your attitude is that everything starts with God\u2019s revelation, the Bible, then specific evidences go beyond arguments of probability . . . the evidentialist, for example, works to convince the skeptic that the Resurrection is probably true based on secular historical methods.\u00a0 Frame explains it this way:<\/p>\n

\u201cPresuppositionalists should have a uniquely high view of the use of evidences in Christian apologetics.\u00a0 A robust doctrine of creation and providence demand it.\u00a0 Despite the inversion of man\u2019s heart and futility to which creation has been subjected (Rom. 8), neither can ultimately perjure itself in its ongoing witness to God.\u00a0 Everything <\/em>testifies to the truth of Christianity:\u00a0 the beauty and brokenness of creation, the blessedness and wretchedness of humanity, the flow and flux of history \u2013 all point to the truth of Scripture\u2019s portrait of God, mankind, and the world around us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Christian witness stands out by declaring truth and illuminating evidence in provocative ways.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to do on campus with unbelieving students \u2013 to shock them into thinking.\u00a0 Since I can\u2019t get many to stop and talk, I work to get hundreds to take a tract, and so the tracts had better have some punch \u2013 intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.<\/p>\n

On a local campus recently, I had 121s with skeptics, a Roman Catholic, a Mormon, and a Muslim.\u00a0 These young fellows had lots of questions.\u00a0 I love questions!\u00a0 It shows the fellow is engaged.\u00a0 I work to give Biblically-founded answers in a way that makes sense, so I can see the \u2018aha\u2019 of understanding in his expression.\u00a0 When he walks away I want him to carry with him (in addition to several tracts) the impression that the issue is vital \u2013 life vs. death \u2013 that his worldview doesn\u2019t cut it, and that I\u2019m available for more help and that I do indeed care to help.\u00a0 And every tract points to this web site so he can explore more.\u00a0 After a good day of tracting, whether on a campus or in the neighborhoods or on the street, this web site typically shows a noticeable spike in traffic.<\/p>\n

The atheistic presupposition is that the universe is fundamentally impersonal.\u00a0 Yet Muslims feel this, too, because in their theology Allah is not very personal \u2013 \u2018God is love\u2019 is a Biblical, not a Quranic concept.\u00a0 A proper challenge to the atheist, who may despise Christians as superstitious, is to ask him how his personal person <\/em>arose from impersonal matter.\u00a0 After all, he lives as if he is a thinking, hoping, loving, moral person.\u00a0 Since he is enveloped in the personal, surrounded by other personal persons, isn\u2019t it irrational to suppose that the impersonal is ultimate?\u00a0 His faith is irrational!\u00a0 The alternative?\u00a0 The Christian\u2019s faith is rational, derived from God who is rational, who desires a personal relationship with His created rational personal image-bearers.<\/p>\n

Pantheists like Hindus, Buddhists, and New Agers are not much different from atheists.\u00a0 Claiming that the whole universe is divine misuses the term.\u00a0 If everything is god, then no personal god exists and the impersonal dominates.\u00a0 In secular humanism the human mind is ultimate, but in their view mind is just brain chemistry, which is impersonal.\u00a0 The Gospel, in spectacular contrast, is personal.\u00a0 What you do personally with respect to your personal Creator and Judge, the Lord Jesus Christ, determines eternal life or death.\u00a0 The evangelist must get personal to make this point.<\/p>\n

Frame makes a point wonderfully relevant to 121 evangelism. \u00a0The difference between the knowledge of the lost and saved is ethical, not intellectual.\u00a0 The lost fellow suppresses truth by disobeying God (Romans 1).\u00a0 This can lead to atheism or any false religion.\u00a0 Unbelief is unbelief.\u00a0 \u201cHe rejects the truth because <\/em>he disobeys God\u2019s ethical standards, not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have used this principle many times in 121s.\u00a0 When I perceive that I\u2019ve gotten some traction in witnessing, I\u2019ll ask, \u201cSo what\u2019s stopping you from repenting and trusting Christ right now?\u201d\u00a0 I can see that he understands the issues of sin, judgment, etc., but he still dithers.\u00a0 Usually, he can\u2019t answer the question, so I supply the answer for him . . . he loves his sins.\u00a0 It\u2019s not his mind that has the problem, but his heart and his will. \u00a0He\u2019s addicted to autonomy, calling his own shots, and \/ or the sins of the flesh, or his fear of family or friends . . . or whatever.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t want <\/em>to change.\u00a0 He wants his life to be his life<\/em> and keep God out of the picture.\u00a0 He wants to be god, even though he knows that doesn\u2019t make sense.\u00a0 It\u2019s irrational.\u00a0 All unbelief is irrational.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Satan is extraordinarily intelligent and knowledgeable, but completely irrational in his rebellion.\u00a0 The tenured academic or the professional media pundit may express their unbelief in a manner that seems intellectually impressive to other rebels, but their position, their worldview, is ludicrous.\u00a0 Willfully ludicrous because of love for sin, Satan and sinners in their irrational rebellion, share the same fate.<\/p>\n

Individuals vary in their stumbling blocks.\u00a0 I got conned by evolution as a youngster and so turned to atheism.\u00a0 After several years my intense desire to find meaning and hope in life opened me up to the Gospel.\u00a0 The Christian family who reached out to me helped me get past my \u2018intellectual\u2019 problem with evolution.\u00a0 But I still had to decide what truth was, whether the Jesus Christ of the Bible was Truth incarnate, and whether I would act on that truth.\u00a0 Yes, act.\u00a0 Belief is an act of will that reveals its genuineness by a transformation of life.\u00a0 I acted.\u00a0 I believed.\u00a0 I was forgiven and transformed, a deservedly Hell-bound sinner saved by grace and adopted into God\u2019s family.\u00a0 Whew!\u00a0 Looking back, I was teetering on the precipice for a long time.\u00a0 The family that reached me were not skilled in apologetics, but they cared <\/em>and they tried.\u00a0 <\/em>Thank God.<\/p>\n

Evidence abounds to overcome stumbling blocks.\u00a0 Given the marvels of creation (Psalm 19) and the rational mind God gives to everyone, no one has an excuse (Romans 1).\u00a0 The written record of the Gospels declares truth that will resonate with the heart (John 20:30-31).\u00a0 The Resurrection provided \u2018infallible proofs\u2019 (Acts 1:3) for many at that time, and the historical record of the propagation of the Gospel under intense persecution makes no sense unless Jesus did, indeed, rise.\u00a0 Any particular point may be contested and may require explanation.\u00a0 But the entire Christian worldview with its evidences, as a package, is certain proof to anyone willing to hear, proof enough to act.<\/p>\n

When you read apologetics authors, watch out.\u00a0 Frame, for example, betrays his bent toward theistic evolution, or perhaps progressive creation over alleged eons, several times in his book.\u00a0 For example, \u201cBut even assuming that evolution were true (and it is no more than an unproved theory), it is not clear that being logical always or even usually preserves life; after all, cockroaches have inhabited the world much longer than man.\u201d\u00a0 And so Frame buys into billions of years and denies Genesis 1 and God\u2019s reaffirmation of literal days of creation in Exodus 20:11.\u00a0 So disappointing!\u00a0 Hey, John Frame, that\u2019s unbelief!\u00a0 You\u2019ve bought into part of the atheist\u2019s worldview!\u00a0 As a Biblical presuppositionalist, how can you possibly yield to the Satanic authority of evolutionary myth-makers?\u00a0 You don\u2019t get billions of years from the Bible, buddy!<\/p>\n

A couple of pages later:\u00a0 \u201cWell, as I noted earlier, many are critical of evolution today, and the Word of God denies in decisive terms the evolution of at least man (Gen. 2:7) . . . Indeed, many evolutionists recognizing the great complexity and remarkable achievement of evolution itself (assuming it to be true), have posited a divine origin for it.\u201d\u00a0 In a footnote, Frame affirms Big Bang cosmology.\u00a0 Elsewhere he cites a number of authors from the Intelligent Design camp, a community that compromises on creation and the Flood of Noah\u2019s time.\u00a0 So weak, John, so compromising.\u00a0 When God declared that He created separate kinds <\/em>by fiat, in literal days, he denies the lies of evolution across the board.\u00a0 And hundreds of times in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus and the apostles affirm the history of creation and God\u2019s judgment in a literal global Flood.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve written volumes on this subject within this web site, and so I\u2019ll leave Frame to his confusion in this matter.<\/p>\n

In reaching out to a lost world, should the Christian be on offense?\u00a0 What is the Biblical pattern?\u00a0 From chapter 3 to chapter 37, Job and his \u2018good friends\u2019 engage in theological debate, asking and answering a myriad of questions, disagreeing, speculating, opining, commiserating, accusing.\u00a0 God shows up in chapter 38 and shuts their mouths:\u00a0 \u201cWho is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?\u00a0 Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.\u00a0 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?\u00a0 Declare, if thou hast understanding . . .\u201d\u00a0 God\u2019s apologetic is declaration of extremely evident truths and it produces the appropriate humbling effect.<\/p>\n

In John chapter 4, the Samaritan woman asks about worship, whether it\u2019s properly done in Jerusalem or at Mount Gerizim.\u00a0 Jesus answers her questions, dismantling her theology, but keeps the focus on the big issue \u2013 where salvation comes from, how to get that \u2018living water,\u2019 and He tells her straight out that He is the Messiah.<\/p>\n

In Matthew 22, Jesus is challenged with clever questions meant to trap Him.\u00a0 In answering them, it is clear that Jesus is not interested in give-and-take-let\u2019s-play-on-neutral-ground dialogue.\u00a0 He declares truth in a manner that stops their mouths.\u00a0 Then He turns the tables on them with questions they cannot answer within their unbelieving system.<\/p>\n

And so it goes.\u00a0 The Christian is recognized by his boldness.\u00a0 Yes, by his love, but not the faux-love of the wishy-washy, get-along-with-everyone, don\u2019t-take-a-stand, desperate-to-be-tolerant evangelical of this present age.\u00a0 Love warns.\u00a0 Love shakes up the sleeper about to be consumed by a house fire.\u00a0 Love risks the relationship by speaking truth.\u00a0 The faithful ambassador loves his King and proves it by being faithful in delivering the King\u2019s message to the foreign land, this foreign land, this world in rebellion in need of the Truth whether or not they want to hear it.<\/p>\n