G'day, my name is Matt Fred. This is Ascension Presents. Today, I want to talk about three ways to become an effective apologist.
So, an apologist is just somebody who gives a defense of something.
A Catholic apologist would be somebody who gives a defense of the Catholic faith.
Now, one of the key verses in the New Testament in which we find this word
"apologetics," or at least the Greek word is found there, is in 1 Peter 3:15.
He says "But in your hearts," this is Peter,
"Reverence Christ as Lord. Always be ready to give a defense." That word defense, in Greek, is apologia from which we get the word apologetics,
and as Christian evangelists, we're going to have to do the work of apologetics whether we want to or not.
I suspect because once you've told somebody about the truth claims of the Christian faith,
You've told them that God loves them and that Christ died for them. They're likely to say "Well, how do you know?"
That's true. If you're to answer them coherently, you're going to be doing apologetics. So here are three steps become an effective
apologist and all of those three things are found within this one verse1 Peter 3:15. Peter says, "But in your hearts
reverence Christ as Lord.
Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you,
yet do it with gentleness and reverence."
Okay, so right here Peter says we should do three things, and I think the first thing
that any Christian apologist should be aiming for is
not so much the conversion of others, as much as it is the conversion of himself.
"Reverence Christ as Lord within your hearts."
So if we want to be effective apologists and evangelists, we have to be trying to grow in holiness. That means
repenting of our sin, taking time daily to pray,
perhaps finding a spiritual director that can help us and grow in holiness,
reading the lives of the saints, reading good literature that can help us be holy,
avoiding those things that would make us sin.
All right,
tjat's the first thing I think we have to do because if you're not doing that then what are the chances
one's gonna take you seriously when you tell them that they need to convert and they look at your life
or, they look at my life, and they say, "Well you don't look like you've done a lot of it,
so it can't be that important?" The second thing we have to do always be prepared to make an defense to anyone
who calls you to account for the hope that is in you. As I say that word defense,
apologia, apologetics, we have to give a defense to those who ask us the reason for our hope.
So I like to think of Catholic apologetics as a three-story mansion. On the first level,
you have theistic apologetics. On the second level, Christian apologetics. The third level is
Catholic apologetics.
So our goal as the evangelists might be to lead this person to the heights of the mansion.
But I think very often, we make the mistake of trying to explain
Catholic apologetics to somebody who may not even be in the first floor.
So if somebody denies the existence of God, shouting out of the, you know, the window from the third floor about
Transubstantiation and the Immaculate Conception is probably not the way to go. Instead,
we want to come down to where they're at and talk to them about the existence of God.
So, do you know how to give a defense for the existence of God?
Do you know how to refute atheistic claims? If somebody begins to believe in God's existence,
it becomes a whole lot more probable that this God has revealed himself to humanity,
and so then we can lead them to that next level,
Christian apologetics, which has to do with the person of christ, and then finally what Christ had to say about this
church, which is the Catholic Church. At the end, I'm gonna suggest three things that can help you grow in your
intellectual
knowledge of the faith, so you can better respond to people on that level.
The third thing that Peter says we have to do is, as we give a defense,
he says do it with gentleness and reverence. I think this is probably true, right? I don't know anybody who
holds to a belief that they know [themselves] to be in direct
defiance of the truth.
Most people believe something because they think they've got good reasons for thinking it's true,
so if we're in dialogue with somebody who disagrees with us, we may not be able to respect their conclusion.
But we can at least respect or try to respect or try to understand why it is they hold that particular view, right?
We've all been made for the truth. We're all pilgrims on this journey.
And so as we defend the Catholic faith, as we try to make
arguments for different aspects of the Catholic faith, we should do it with gentleness and reverence.
Maybe we've all been in those sorts of conversations with people who weren't gentle, and they weren't reverent. Maybe they were arrogant,
maybe they were harsh,
maybe they cornered us and, yeah, they beat us in cleverness,
but we just sort of dug our hills in because we felt attacked. We don't want to do that.
So as an effective apologist, we have to strive to be
holy, know our faith to the best of our ability, and then share that faith with gentleness and reverence.
Before we close, let me suggest three resources that can help you grow in the intellectual aspect of the faith.
The first would be to subscribe to my podcast. It's called "Pints with
Aquinas." Every episode revolves around a question that Aquinas addresses in the Summa Theologiae or the Summa Contra Gentiles or some
other of his works, and that'll help you a great deal. The second thing I would suggest is my friend Trent Horn's book,
"Why We're Catholic: Our Reasons for Faith, Hope, and Love." Check that out. It's fantastic. Big fan of Trent.
And then the third thing you should consider doing is going to Catholic Answers. Their website is
catholic.com. If you've got a question about a different aspect of the faith, in the search bar, type that in, and you'll find a
multitude of articles and videos and audio that you can consume that can make you a more intelligent Catholic and
enable you to better respond to those who have questions for the hope that's in you. I'm Matt Fradd.
Thank you so much for listening.
Please feel free to subscribe below, and ask me a question if you like by using the hash tag, #AskMattFradd.
Thanks so much. Chat with you next week.