Apologetics is the defense of the Christian faith using nonbiblical means. It shows the reasonableness of the faith, not necessarily what a particular passage means. C. S. Lewis was famous in the field.
I have met people who have taken many apologetics classes. Some teach it at the seminary level. I am not an expert, but I enjoyed the few classes I had on it.
Most will disagree with me, but I have always felt that believers might get more out of apologetics than unbelievers. Maybe I am just speaking for myself, but I always get a little pick-me-up when an apologist explains why Christianity is reasonable.
Recently, I had one of those pick-me-ups. It came from William F. Buckley, who was Catholic. I do not know whether he was a believer, but he was discussing the reasonableness of believing in the deity of Christ. In his book, Nearer, My God, Buckley discusses the likelihood that the miracles of Christ actually happened. That is a common topic in apologetics.
But then Buckley turns to the Lord’s teachings (pp. 237-39). Buckley had a command of the English language that few have possessed. Here is how he described Christ’s words:
There was the surrealistic beauty of the words he used, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
Buckley says that the skeptic who writes such words off as “nothing more than a collection of ethical commonplaces” cannot account for their unique resonance. There is no reasonable explanation for the beauty of Christ’s thought and expression.
Some will say that He was like Shakespeare. But that is to hold that this first-century Shakespeare started speaking such words after a career as a carpenter in the backwoods of Israel. Christ’s words are greater than Shakespeare’s. Shakespeare’s writings did not widely change lives. Jesus’ words did.
The higher critic who says that the words of Christ did not come from one Man, but from a group of first-century teachers, makes an even more unreasonable claim. It suggests that three or four men who were greater literary geniuses than Shakespeare were walking around in Israel at that time.
Sit down and read the entire Sermon on the Mount. Read His parables in Mark 4. Read how He answers the difficult questions of His day when challenged by His opponents in Mark 10–12. A critic might say that such words do not prove He was God. But to the unbiased observer, they show that He was a teacher sent by God.
And the people who heard Him speak recognized this. One of His disciples, after hearing Him speak, exclaimed, “You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). That could not be said of anybody else.
Even those who rejected His claims were astonished at His words. They asked, “Where did this Man get this wisdom…?” (Matt 13:54). How could a Jewish carpenter, untrained in rhetoric, use words in a better way than any orator they had ever heard?
On another occasion, those who went to arrest Him had the same reaction. They could not accomplish their task because they heard Him speak and concluded, “No man ever spoke like this Man!” (John 7:46).
Perhaps most unbelievers will not be moved by this short dive into apologetics. They will come up with different theories to explain away His wisdom. Maybe they will say that Jesus was just a very smart speaker, a great storyteller. Maybe, as He worked as a carpenter and before He began teaching, He honed his skills as an orator in His head while talking to Himself. Maybe others smarter than He edited His words after His death.
But we have the record of those who heard Him speak. His words were otherworldly. The most reasonable explanation is what the Lord Himself said in John 14:10: “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me…” He also said, “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent me has everlasting life…” (John 5:24).
Someone who spoke as He spoke can be believed. His words show me the reasonableness of believing in Him for eternal life. That is thrilling.
