Not many of us really see denial loudly on display in public places. For those of us that do we’re tolerant to it because of fear. Fear of being perceived as politically incorrect. But what none of us are, is comfortable with it. I saw a tweet from Timothy Keller in my twitter feed a couple days ago, and I decided I was going to see what people had to say when I questioned them about the reason for their objections and support for Mr. Keller’s tweet. Now for those of you who don’t know who Timothy Keller is, he is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York and a scholar from Westminster Theological Seminary. He is also the author for the Library of Congress catalogued Apologetics book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it, especially for those who greatly enjoy any form of Apologetics.

What really caught me off guard about all of this, was that almost half of the replies to Mr. Keller’s tweet were from that of claimed Atheists who opposed God, and fellow believers who didn’t understand his tweet. As I began to question others, and explaining the meaning behind Mr. Keller’s tweet, some became upset at my questioning. As if I was infringing upon their rights in some way. The ironic thing is, I had just as much right to partake in conversation with them, as they did in replying to the tweet. In fact one user told me to “go create another fake account and stop harassing” them. Now don’t get me wrong, some did like my replies, and the line of truth on display but it came at a cost. You see we as Christians have to experiment so to speak, poking around at people questioning each other, helping each other discover and learn more about our reasons for faith.[1]

Have you ever perceived a question to be rude? If you did, what was the reason? Because they imposed on your private matters? Because it made you uncomfortable? I don’t want to burst too many bubbles, but isn’t that what Jesus told us to do, “…take up your cross and follow me.”?[2] Isn’t that what Jesus did when he challenged the Pharisee’s? He didn’t do it to be mean, he did it to help others be better. On the topic of comfort, I don’t remember reading or learning that Jesus got comfortable by getting into his Chevy Silverado with a cross attached to the trailer hitch, dragging it down the De La Rosa to Golgotha and waiting there to be crucified. No, he had to drag it after being beat so severely that someone else was commanded to help.

The thing is, we are told to “…test the spirits to see whether they are from God”[3] as well, “as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”[4] We aren’t putting anyone in harm, what we are doing is getting people to look below the surface of their reasoning and face what they believe.

When I was in high school my favorite band was from Massachusetts, they went by the name Have Heart. They had a line in one of my favorite songs of theirs titled “Armed with a Mind” that stated, “an unexamined life is a seed unplanted”. If we never ask ourselves or others for the reasons why they believe what they do, then we are ultimately letting them cripple themselves, and we never grow out of being a Baby Christian.

Now the information from Mr. Timothy Keller’s Twitter “experience” I am about to display will not be cited, due to the fact that I wish nothing but the best for those who opposed me in my questioning. But to share some of the replies I received:

“If a god existed, it would be obvious to everyone. There wouldn’t be hundreds of different religions all claiming they know who god is with such bad evidence. They’re all invisible after all right?”[5]

“It does not conform to reality and cannot be shown to be credible or valid. You realize that for example Moses did not even exist and neither the Passover. We’re not sure Jesus existed at best he was a nutcase end times preacher.”[6]

“You know what? I do chase money. I chase it all day because I work for a financial institution. So you are absolutely right. I do chase money and cars and whatever else people need because it’s my job. (Laughing until they cry emoji) Have a blessed life. (Deuces (Peace) Emoji)”[7]

What I could do is give you a list of responses to these questions and make it all as simple as possible to comprehend. Instead what I will do is give you something to think about. You are obviously at Apologetic Minds to do just that. So, question yourself? What hard reason do you have to believe in Jesus? What explainable event in your past have you seen Him work for the betterment of your life? Even when times were bad, what good did came of it? Even when someone wronged you, how were you able to grow from it? When these questions are answered honestly you have just armed yourself with undebatable truth. That can more than easily be found in scripture. Don’t believe me? Check this out:

We get so upset at the death. Why? Because that person is no longer here on earth with us? And we will never see them again? While the first one maybe factual, due to meta-physical reasons the second one is within our power to prevent. We can most certainly help them obtain an understanding of who Jesus Christ is so that they can receive salvation. To answer the question of why we get upset at death is this: my grand-mother, whom I called Nanny, passed away from Pancreatic Cancer the day after my eighteenth birthday. Now, cancer is a completely regressive thing, we watch our loved ones physically wither away, until they can’t fight anymore.

But, the whole idea of death was never supposed to be. It’s not a “natural” part of life as some claim it to be. The body was meant to rebuild, to take care of itself, much in the way that we take care of each other. As we see all through out Genesis, starting with “Adam’s life lasted 930 years”.[8] Then we see how Abraham’s life length greatly contrasted that of Adam’s “…175 years”.[9] The idea being portrayed here isn’t that calendars changed, or times got longer or shorter, what is being shown here is that as the times change, God graces us with more and more mercy, with each passing generation.

Think about it like this, death is the end of this life and the onward movement with Jesus into heaven. And the onward movement with Jesus is what he told us about “Don’t let your heart be troubled…In my Fathers house are many rooms; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you…I will come again and take you to myself so that where I am you may also be. You know the way to where I am going.”[10]

How I would recommend someone understand this in today’s culture:

Don’t worry about a thing my friend, in my Fathers country, which you understand to be heaven. You will have your own place there, I wouldn’t lie to you about this. Now, when I get there I am going to get everything set up and ready for you and when I come back, I will show you to your new home and I will show you where I live. Trust me, you know how to get there. Just follow me.

In fact, if you can understand what I am writing, and perceive how things make a little more sense, then you will fully grasp that it is my Holy Spirit allowed me to find correlations between today, scripture and the full weight of the truth of Jesus. It’s called cultural contextualization and in fact, Jesus was the one who invented it, with parables. Paul was fantastic at it when he discussed with Jews and Romans.

The thing is, it’s a form of Apologia, or in English, Apologetics. It’s called Experiential/Narrative Apologetics. In a reader’s digest fashion: the purpose of it is to be able to help others discover how their life fits into the Bible, and how the Bible with the correct “dynamic equivalence” of today, can be a very effective tool to help others discover Jesus.

So I encourage each and everyone of you, find a piece of scripture that you like and thing of all the ways that you can perceive it, because I promise, Jesus will show you how to turn it into a tool to “rubuke” modern day denial. If you find that you need help, find me on twitter and shoot me a message or tweet, or leave a comment on Apologetic Minds.

 

[1] Please, it’s a metaphor, don’t poke people. It’s not very nice.

[2] Matthew 16:24

[3] 1 John 4:1

[4] Proverbs 27:17

[5] This reply has been allowed to follow as closely to the original wording as possible because its coherence makes some sense.

[6] Out of the love I have for my Lord and Savior the grammar and competency of the reply has been cleaned up to make coherent sense. I can’t allow the amount of errors in the reply to be in an article like this.

[7] This person is a quoted believer of Jesus Christ. This is not to put them on blast, this is to show what can happen to “Baby Christians” with one foot in the world and one foot of the world. Same person that wished for me to “go create another fake account.”

[8] Genesis 5:5

[9] Genesis 25:7

[10] John 14:1-4