GoThyWay
(thread begun by RandyP )kjv@Acts:24:25
- Paul
- _righteousness_
- _temperance_
- _judgment_ to come.
We would do well to take this same approach. Let this simple outline be one of the many arrows in your apologetic quiver.
Introduction
It is very difficult to convince someone who does not believe in Holy Scripture regarding righteousness/temperance/future judgment from the Holy Scriptures themselves without first setting the table for a discussion based upon some common ground. This approach requires some initial probing of the person's world view and belief system in these three areas. Once the more common or universal secular ground has been laid out, then the scriptural viewpoint can be shown offered in stark contrast. People today are not accustomed to having their world view examined in this kind of light, to see the traps ahead of there own logical inconsistencies.
Now I do not know whether Paul organized his strategy in the same fashion. He may have simply been offered the opportunity to speak in his own defense. Seldom are we asked by others to simply speak our minds. Therefore, we can attempt to manufacture the opportunity by fostering an inquisitive and safe environment for others to express their minds first. Some people you can reason scripture with scripture with, most people, however you simply cannot. Most people are more than willing to speak their own minds if you can get them started and interested. Use that to your advantages. Think of it as a philosophical interview and you are the cordial interviewer.
1. OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Everyday in the news media there are multiple stories and events where right and wrong and objective morality can be opened with. Everyone has their opinion. "How do you feel about that"? "What would been the right things for ___ to do"? "Can a just society say this but do that"? "If you were God, how would you feel about that"? These are all questions that might open their flood gates. Once open, it is then your responsibility to listen, allow them their space so as to eventually allow for yours. Listen for the contradictions and inconsistencies yes, but also listen for the common ground that you can later mutually build upon.
The primary question at hand is "who determines what is right and what is wrong? Man or God? Subjective or objective? Who is to say what is right in the broadest sense (the ultimate right)? Where does being almost or mostly right equate to being ultimately wrong?
There are literally thousands of opportunities out there at any time that can follow this righteousness/temperance/judgment form. Morality has indeed become subjective and relative. In one odd sense, this current generation is excessively proud of the "righteousness" it has been able to piece together. Excessive I say because the results achieved are mostly contradictory. It believes itself morally superior to generations previous. In another sense, this same generation is abundantly vocal about its discontent and disillusion with this current system, but it is never "my moral system" that is broken, it is always the ambiguous "their system". The inconsistency is theirs, dare I say everybody's, if only it can be exposed charitably into a better God fearing light.
2. OF TEMPERANCE
Once the primary source of righteousness has been pondered, the question then becomes "what keeps man from doing what is right"? or better yet "Why is man seeming incapable of doing what he knows to be right"?
It can be illustrated in so many separate instances. An adulterer knows that what he is doing is not right, why can't he restrain himself from doing it? A pedophile was likely violated himself as a child, he would have every reason not to violate another child, why can he not stop himself from doing that? A child of alcoholic parents is 2-3 times more likely to become and alcoholic. A compulsive liar entraps himself and is found out nearly every time. You see with each of these examples there is the suggestion of a ulterior temptation towards intemperance; the opposite of what we would better call temperance. It presents itself almost as a feral impulse or enmity. Each of us at one time or another (or perhaps right now) we have felt this. You see knowing right and wrong are just one stage in the moral problem, the second dilemma is being able to do right without turning coat the opposite way.
Temperance also be translated self restraint which could for our purposes also be thought in terms of moral law or ethics. Every year there are more and more laws written into the books. So many laws federally that no one actually knows just how many there are. Every law has been written with the good intention of stopping or limiting a moral bad, making for the ability to enforce law and thus morality where and whenever needed. The more laws that are instituted, the laws that are there to be broken; the breaking of these laws is about all that will ever happen. Why is that? What is it about man, even otherwise civil men and women, to rebel in some form or instance intemperate.
Without God centered righteousness there is nothing to exist but self righteousness. Without God induced temperance there is only self and civil temperance (or should we call it intemperance?). Without there being God's judgment there is only accountability to our own poisoned moral conscience (a conscience that will readily justify itself regardless of what it has done or is devising).
3. OF JUDGMENT TO COME
Our inquiring and cordial discussion has arrived at a point where we certainly will be called out to proof out our claims. Again, for most secular audiences I would avoid the scriptural and remain in the hypothetical and practical. At this stage we are still talking about their expressed viewpoint, but slowly beginning to compare it to yours.
- The hypothetical is three fold (again following this same outline):
- Given the inconsistencies of this world subject for of morality or righteousness....
- Given the often feral impulses of man to go opposite of what he knows subjectively to be right...
- What hope should I have in mankind if there is nothing but this poisoned man's conscience to hold him to account for his faulty designs and actions?
For the moment the spot light is placed directly back on them. No doubt, there will be a whole lot of uncomfortable wiggling and diversion from giving you an answer. Simply hold them to it. You have listened carefully. You have inquired of them when their position was less than clear. The have acknowledged your rehearsal of your clarified understanding of their position. You have dropped in an informal question or statement here or there to steer the conversation towards this. Now is the time to allow them to answer the primary question that their point of view has necessitated. Now you bend the closing moments your direction.
"I have very serious concerns about any world view that cuts some (yet undefined) consideration of God out of the center. It is obvious to me with what we have been talking about that these inconsistencies and inabilities within man hold man down in a unenviable pit that he has dug (and keeps on digging) for himself".
- "One of the many reasons I believe in the bible as strongly as I do is because it fully supports the idea of":
- objective morality (righteousness)
- induced or regenerated temperance
- the omnipresent omniscient presense of one holding mankind to accountability.
- In all this time, man has failed to produce anything similar to an objective morality or temperance or accountability to himself or to society on his own. Nor will he ever be able to as far as I can see it.
Well now a conclusion like that will have to be supported. This is where we will have to be prepared with logical reasoning and scripture off the top of our heads to better present our case. It is our turn to do the talking. Hold back from presenting your own opinion; make an evangelic defense of God's.
Find some verses here that you can remember that best make God's case for you:
Righteousness
kjv@Romans:10:3 @ For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
kjv@1Corinthians:1:30 @ But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
kjv@2Corinthians:5:21 @ For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
kjv@Galatians:2:21 @ I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
kjv@Philippians:3:9 @ And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith
kjv@1Timothy:6:11 @ But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
kjv@2Timothy:3:16 @ All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness
kjv@Hebrews:1:8 @ But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
kjv@Hebrews:12:11 @ Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
kjv@1John:2:29 @ If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.
Temperance
kjv@2Timothy:3:2-5 @ For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
kjv@2Corinthians:5:15 @ And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
kjv@Ephesians:2:1-3 @ And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
kjv@Proverbs:16:32 @ He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.
kjv@Proverbs:25:28 @ He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.
kjv@Romans:6:12 @ Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
kjv@1Corinthians:6:12 @ All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
kjv@1Peter:4:3 @ For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries
kjv@2Peter:1:5-8 @ And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Judgment
kjv@Romans:1:28-32 @ And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
kjv@Romans:2:2 @ But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.
kjv@Romans:11:33 @ O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
kjv@2Corinthians:5:10 @ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
kjv@Hebrews:9:27 @ And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
kjv@1Peter:4:17 @ For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
kjv@1John:4:17 @ Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
kjv@John:5:22 @ For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
kjv@John:5:27 @ And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.
Conclussion: Go Thy Way
Like Paul, the chances are that you will be sent out of their presence into the distant reaches of the audience's convenience. The hope is that with all temperance and charity that you've exposed them to a glimmer of dawning light. As apologist Greg Koukl puts it: "you've put a pebble in their shoe". Yes, most people will resort to putting you off till another time, but you along with the "evangelistic apologetics" of many others have together plowed the top soil and planted the seed. Koukl call it "tending the garden". That is all that can be hoped for. Anything else is in Holy Spirit's hands alone.
As you "go thy way" pray. Pray for the person. Pray for your obedience and fruitfulness. Meditate what you could frame better in your apologetic approach. Pray for the others that are doing this kind of DailyApologetics!
Comment Board: GoThyWay Further Resources:
(SEE ALSO: righteousness)
(SEE ALSO: temperance)
(SEE ALSO: judgment)
AngryGodArguments
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