I hated the devotions we did when I was a kid and the only reason was that they were cheesy. When I was growing up, in the late 90s and early 2000s, cheesy Christianity is what was popular. We had slogans like: “What Would Jesus Do?”; “Hate the sin but not the sinner.”, and “It’s a relationship, not a religion.” They were all over the place. I will be the first to admit that I used them and for all intents and purposes, did so because they are true. The cheese of these slogans and devotionals was extremely stinky (think limburger) but nonetheless, I benefited from them. They helped me establish myself as a Christian and to get me to see Christianity as something that was more than a Sunday morning thing. In fact, I would say that the cheese was the next step up from milk for me as a Christian.[1]
But why did I hate the cheesy devotionals? Simply, they lacked depth. They had good intentions and things in them and great for a budding Christian but they were essentially moral therapeutic theism. I actually recommend them for someone in that stage of their faith! But I do not recommend them for someone who grew up going to church and already has a foundation. Because they lacked depth, any sort of depth that was to be had was the parents’ responsibility. This is a noble expectation on the parents but it assumes too much of the parents. It assumes they want to go deep themselves and that just isn’t always the case. As someone who attempts to bridge the scholarship and laity, assuming is very good at one thing (I’ll let you fill in the rest of the aphorism) and I do not wish to do that to you or myself.
What the parents and devotionals lacked then was to be made up by the local church. Pastors, Sunday School teachers, and liturgies were to be the givers of the depth. They were to be the well-trained and widdly-read ones who were to impart rich and deep knowledge to their classes and congregations. For the most part, pastors were highly educated in matters of God having at least an M.Div. or went to Bible College in some way or another. This was and still is a requirement for many churches in the “mainline” denominations.[2] Sunday School teachers, on the other hand, are typically laity with informal biblical education and are (usually) experienced in the Christian life. Liturgies are typically not crafted for individual churches but are large-scale things that are attached to a denomination.[3] Depth, therefore, is most common to formally trained pastors and liturgies. What I am not saying is that Sunday School teachers lacks depth. My high school Sunday School teacher, Dave, was a wealth of knowledge and put some serious work in discipling our class. He took teaching and the Bible very seriously with us. Dave does seem to be an outlier in this category from my experience. What I am saying is that there is a noticeable gap in terms of breadth and depth of knowledge that is able to be taught.
What I want to do below is help provide a framework for deep devotionals with an apologetic bend all while keeping the Bible front and center in our devotional life. Before we get to much ahead of ourselves, we need a good biblical foundation for apologetics.[4] For this wee need to look at the apologetics “life verse,” 1 Peter 3:15 which says, “…but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence…”
Contextually, this is a call to all Christians, not just pastors or parachurch missionaries. This means that we all need to be able to defend the things we believe in, the most important being our hope in the reality of resurrection of Jesus as our savior from this body of death (Romans 7:24). All of us can do this with things outside of Christianity. I could give you about 5 or so reasons why I think heavy metal ought to be studied and appreciated by collegiate music majors.[5] When it comes to our religious beliefs, however, the ability to rationally defend what and why we place our trust in Jesus’ resurrection occupies only a small percentage of practicing Christians. If we take the biblical commands seriously at all, especially New Testament ones, then this percentage should be 100%.[6]
Apologetics, as understood as a command to every Christian, is thus not simply an outward thing. It is an inward thing as well. For if we are to be able to defend, we need to not only believe but know how to defend it and this is where the professional apologists come in. They are the equippers for the body of Jesus. Naturally, this bleeds into the devotional life of the Christian. It is a way to grow closer to God by investing in the life of the mind[7] by getting to know the mind that created it.[8] This can take a few forms and therefore will largely be up to each person’s level and devotional style.
The first way of incorporating apologetics into your devotional life is to begin to ask yourself after you are done reading, “What questions or objections could a non-Christian make about what is being taught here?”[9] This is the simplest form of apologetic incorporation into your routine. Once you raise these questions and objections, you can then research them yourself or ask your pastor or someone you think may have an answer. If you are new to thinking like this and have a hard time coming up with something, it is okay. It takes some getting used to and will likely be uncomfortable and feel like you are disrespecting God for questioning what is written in the Bible. Just remember that Jesus never turned down a question and that if Christianity is true, it will stand up to the most challenging of questions. On top of that, it is honoring and respectful to think like our fellow image bearing humans who do not share our beliefs. When we do, we uphold one of the most foundational doctrines in Genesis 1, that we are made in God’s image.
Another way to incorporate apologetics into your devotional life is to pick up a general apologetics book and use it as a “commentary” of sorts. A book like Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh and Sean McDowell, Christian Apologetics by Douglas Groothius, or Paul Little’s Know Why You Believe.[10] Can help immencely as you work through passages that commonly give people a hard time. Remember, books like these (commentaries) often go much deeper and wider than we may expect. For example, you may be reading through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and notice that thee are historical markers like a city of landmark mentioned. A book like McDowells’ can really ground these accounts in reality, giving us the reassurance of the reliability of the things the Gospels relay to us.
This method is more involved and takes much more time to do, but it is worth it. When you have a reference source, you have the ability to check any questions that come up or even verify an answer to a question(s) you may come up with while reading (a continuation of the first way mentioned above).
The final method of incorporating apologetics is a more encompassing method and is what you will find most professional apologists do. This is a three-part method. Part one, do your standard devotional time just like always have. This is the intense heart work where we allow ourselves to steep in the Bible and allow the Spirit to do the work in conforming you to the image of Jesus. Part two is to pick up a book that may not even be related to what you are reading currently in the Bible and read it. Buy a book like Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig[11] or Person of Interest by J. Warner Wallace.[12] Use this as serious intellectual work as a way to have our minds renewed (Romans 12:2) and sharpened so we may “destroy arguments” (1 Corinthians 10:5, ESV) that come against Christianity. Part three is to think back to your Bible reading (like you would in the first method) and ask yourself how it applies. This is how Luke talks about the Bereans in Acts 17, and it is worth adopting. When we check the information against the Bible, we keep the Bible in its proper place: the starting point for apologetics. Without it, what would we be attempting to factually and reasonably defend?
This three-part method allows for the most depth and breadth. It also allows for what Mortimer J. Adler calls “syntopical reading.”[13] Reading this way is comparative in which many books are read and placed in relation to one another regarding a common subject.[14] When this type of reading takes place, the mind God gave you is able to think apart from the authors you are reading. You then are able to make connections that are unique to yours. Sometimes these connections result in revealing a subject that is not explicitly addressed in the book(s).[15] However, do not be deceived in thinking that this connection is discovered by you lest you get too cocky and loose the humility that characterizes the Christian life. Allow these connections you make to fuel further reading in a syntopical way, thereby fueling even more depth and breadth.
Personally, this last method is how I do my own work as an apologist. Working in full-time ministry can be difficult if there is not some form of separation between the head and the heart. Usually, for apologists, the heart gets left in the dust of a speaking intellectual pursuit. A good Chrsitian apologist does his or her best to not let one or the other get too far ahead of the other. Because every Christian is called to be an apologist, every Christian should not let his or her heart get left behind for the sake of intelligence. It also runs in the opposite direction… we should not allow our hearts to get too far from our heads because our hearts can lead us just as far astray as our minds (Jeremiah 17:9-10). A balance of heart and head devotion is necessary.
[1] I would argue that this is true of everyone, yet we shouldn’t stay there. This staying in the cheese stage of Christianity was what was the norm growing up.
[2] Mainline being used here to refer to most of the well known denominations like Presbyterian, United Methodist, and Episcopal.
[3] Though there are churches, like mine, who do write their own because we are a non-denominational church.
[4] This is something that I am passionate about. There is a biblical precedent set by Jesus and Paul within the New Testament and a case can be made that the entire Bible is an apologetic work against paganism.
[5] If you would like to have that conversation, comment below!
[6] Acts 17 and 1 Corinthians 10:5 are other notable passages that demonstrate apologetics within the Christian life.
[7] For a book length treatment, I suggest Love Your God with All Your Mind by J.P. Moreland. This volume can get pretty in depth an is geared toward a high school senior or college student.
[8] Melissa Cain Travis took upon this task in her book, Science and The Mind of the Maker. This is a high school senior or college level read.
[9] This is my general way to introduce apologetic thinking for my students. It keeps it light and very much like a typical bible study if they have never even thought much about what others say about Christianity.
[10] Groothius and McDowell are college level and Little is at a high school level. Both Groothius and McDowell are sill accessible.
[11] This is a college level book that requires a bit more background knowledge.
[12] Wallace strives to make apologetics easily accessible and this book is at a high school level.
[13] Adler, Mortimer J., and Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. Revised edition. New York: Touchstone, 1972. 19-20
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid. 20
Brewed Up Apologetics 