Defending the Faith Like the Apostle Paul

Apologetics is the art and discipline of defending the truth claims of the Christian faith. Defending the faith presents challenges for Christians, because it requires conducting an orchestra of instruments in the concerted effort to play the symphony of God’s truth to an audience that may have its ears stopped up by sin and unbelief. The first prerequisite for apologetics, then, is that the Spirit of God would both empower our feeble words and regenerate the hearts of those who listen as we play the beautiful musical score of God’s truth—namely, that we are all sinners and desperately need to trust in the person and work of Christ as the only remedy for our sin-fallen state. 

The goal of defending the Christian faith is good but we sometimes struggle with how to defend it. One of the more helpful scriptural passages to give us guidance is Paul’s defense of the gospel at Mars Hill in Acts 17. I have read many books on apologetics over the years but few of them explore Paul’s defense, both in terms of his approach as well as his content. In my book, An Introduction to Reformed Apologetics: Warring with Idols, I explore Paul’s apologetic defense as a pattern for us to follow.

I cover the biblical foundations for apologetics with an examination of Acts 17 to show how Paul defends the gospel and what theological doctrines he brings to bear. When Paul, for example, positively quotes Stoic poets in an effort to connect with the philosophers at Mars Hill, I show how this approach differs from Paul’s engagement with the Jews who were familiar with the Old Testament. 

Paul’s quotations from pagan poets have always fascinated me. So, while I address other ideas that Paul touches upon, such as the resurrection of Christ, the cross as the answer to evil in the world, and the importance of love as the motive and goal of our apologetic endeavors, I think my favorite chapter in this book is on apologetics and literature. If the apostle Paul could say, “As even some of your own poets have said,” it provokes the question in my mind: Can we say the same thing? In other words, we certainly rest our apologetics upon the authority of God’s Spirit-empowered Word. But when we talk with our neighbors, classmates, co-workers, or people in our wider communities, can we quote the authors they are reading and know and point out Christian truth that appears in their works? 

I showcase the insights of J. R. R. Tolkien and Umberto Eco to show how God’s truth appears in various types of literature. No matter the author—believer or unbeliever—the only material they have to work with is the truth of God’s world, a world infused with his wisdom. All stories in some way deal with God’s truth, whether good versus evil, right versus wrong. Additionally, many authors write about sin and the desire to escape death and find a hope of some sort of redemption. While authors can misread and misunderstand God’s truth in the creation, and they can even twist and distort it, this does not mean that they can completely extinguish the light of God’s truth in their work. Literature is a magnifying glass on the human heart that helps us to understand who we are and what our most desperate needs are. 

The Bible certainly speaks of sin, but we seldom see sin from inside the human heart. Herman Mellville’s Moby Dick helps us to see a hatred for God from inside Captain Ahab’s gnarled heart. How often do we wonder how people can commit heinous crimes like murder? Fyodor’s Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment provides us with a clear picture of how someone rationalizes murder through the main protagonist of his novel, Raskolnikov. 

Literature can also teach us empathy. One of the things that the information age has done to us is harmed our ability to read. As we scroll and click, the internet erodes our attention span. As much reading material appears on the internet, few people read its content. Scanning is the new reading. Never before have we had access to so much information but actually have know so little, because we scan page after page and do not actually read the words carefully. This not only erodes our reading habits but also our capacity for empathy. How so? When we read a biography, for example, we can enter into the life of another person and walk a mile in their shoes. Read the diary of Anne Frank, and you enter the world where a young Jewish girl has her hopes and dreams shattered by war, hatred, and ultimately death. We can learn to empathize with those who have suffered. C. S. Lewis once wrote that books help us to step outside of ourselves. Rather than living in solitude, we learn that there are other people in the world.

What has literature, then, to do with apologetics? A lot. While one can fire verbal projectiles from a distance at the critics of Christianity, how effective is such an apologetic approach? We may satisfy our conscience that we have defended the faith, but have we actually connected with our audience? The apostle Paul did not merely lob truth grenades at the philosophers at Mars Hill but instead he both knew the literature of his audience and made a genuine connection to them by quoting the works with which they were familiar. Can we do the same? Have we taken the time to get to know our audience and the world around us so that we can use the irrepressible truth of God that appears in all sorts of literature as we defend the Christian faith? 

When we appeal to the literature written by unbelievers, we are not wagering on the fact that they might stumble upon the truth. Rather, we rest upon the fact that God has created all people in his image, which means that they have God’s truth written upon their hearts and they live in a world suffused with his wisdom and knowledge. Like Paul, when we appeal to the literature of unbelievers, we must always filter their claims through Scripture to ensure we neither imbibe nor serve error instead of truth. Nevertheless, we should seek to follow the apostle Paul and say to the unbelieving world, “As even some of your own poets have said,” as we defend the Christian faith.