Your Testimony is Bulletproof
GodWords Newsletter #74
Pass this on. Share the love.
Nuh-Uh!
When I was a little kid, that was the ultimate comeback. When another kid said something you didn’t agree with, you could just deny the whole thing with a well-placed “nuh-uh.” Later, we graduated to that’s dumb. Finally, at the pinnacle of skepticism, we landed on cool story, bro.
These days, skepticism is the soup du jour… it’s the rule, rather than the exception. No matter the subject, there’s always somebody out there ready to respond with a hearty nuh-uh. In fact, no matter what you’re thinking about right now, someone somewhere has already written an article about how wrong you are.
No, the earth isn’t round… it’s ackshually flat.
No, the Egyptians didn’t build the pyramids… aliens did it.
No, Elvis isn’t dead… he’s alive and well and hiding from the mafia.
No, birds aren’t real… they’re really robot drones the government uses to spy on us.
Doubters to the left of me, skeptics to the right. This radical suspicion is everywhere, and it seriously undermines our pursuit of the truth. No matter what we think MAY be true, there’s always someone lurking in the shadows, waiting to jump out and NOPE us back into uncertainty.
In John 14, Jesus called Himself “the truth.” That’s a bold claim… and millions of people throughout history have worked very hard to explain that He was wrong. Some of them are your friends. Some are your relatives. Because we’re followers of Jesus, we’d like to help our friends and relatives see what we see… to help them see the truth so they’ll follow Him with us.
How can followers of Jesus even make a dent in the wall of doubt and convince our loved ones that God exists, that Jesus rose from the dead, and that He deserves their devotion? For every claim we make, someone somewhere has already written their rebuttal…
God doesn’t exist
Jesus isn’t God
The Bible isn’t true
You’re a sucker
All hope is not lost, of course. I see three primary ways we can respond to skeptics.
THE FIRST WAY is to give up. To stop trying. I hope I don’t have to convince you that this isn’t a very good response.
THE SECOND WAY is to combat their skepticism with a growing mountain of evidence-based arguments… to overwhelm them with logic and facts and references to the Prime Mover and deductive arguments that appeal to the best explanation. I like this approach. The tiny philosopher who hides in my brain loves this approach. It’s like Trivial Pursuit, except it’s not trivial.
Yeah, I know. There’s a problem with this second way: if you’re like most people, you aren’t a philosopher, a scientist, or a scholar. You have better things to do than figure out whether Thomas Aquinas thought Adam had a belly button. For most of us, there’s a third way… and I would suggest that it’s probably the best way.
THE THIRD WAY is found in John 9.
Jesus healed a man who was born blind. Jesus did stuff like that all the time, right? Who’s going to complain about that? Well… you can probably see it coming: Jesus healed the guy on the sabbath. The religious leaders could have given Jesus a medal for compassion. They could have presented Him with a trophy for meritorious service. They could have given Him the key to the city and proclaimed that day to be now and forever Jesus Healed A Blind Guy Day… but no, they opened an investigation instead, because Jesus healed the guy on the wrong day of the week.
Skeptics. It’s always the same with those guys, am I right?
Anyway, their interrogation didn’t turn up a lot of useful facts. The formerly-blind guy didn’t present any air-tight arguments for the deity of Christ. He didn’t express how a coherent worldview might include miraculous events. He hadn’t even seen Jesus… yet his testimony, repeated ever since by men and women formerly blind, dismisses the doubt of the most hostile skeptic:
I was blind but now I see!
Who can argue with that? Who, in their right mind, would try to convince the guy that he was STILL blind? That would be ridiculous. Believe it or not, his testimony can be your testimony:
I was blind, but now I see.
I was lost, but now I’m found.
I was hopeless, but now I’m hopeful.
I was filled with despair, self-loathing, guilt, and fear… but now I have peace, and joy, and purpose.
You don’t have to know the difference between Anselm and Abelard to be a faithful, effective witness for Jesus Christ. You don’t really have to know anything more than what He’s done for you. It’s as simple as telling your story.
I love you all.
❤️
The Burden of Proof is on You if You Claim God is Real
Discussing God with atheists and skeptics can - at times - feel like combat. There’s no good reason to feel that way. This article is a back-and-forth between a skeptic who doesn’t understand the basics of logic and philosophy and a Christian who’s done some homework.
Can I Submit to My Elders Thoughtfully?
Following Jesus isn’t something we’re supposed to do on our own… neither are we supposed to blindly follow those who lead the local church. Let’s think about how a responsible believer responds.
Freeing Hell from Our Imaginations: What the Bible Originally Says
I’m always interested in reading what the Bible says on any topic… and especially on topics that I sometimes avoid. It’s good to consider what God has said about “the afterlife.” Let me know what you think!
The Only Perfectly Safe Place
Being a pastor, even on a very good day, is hard. Most pastors - in their own words - have no real friends… everyone they meet is someone they serve. Scott Sauls writes about what it’s like. I’ll add a thought here, myself: one way to make your pastor’s life easier is to become more spiritually mature.
If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments
Following Jesus is more than just believing what He said. It’s also recognizing that a right relationship with God includes accepting that He is God, and that we are not God… that we are His subjects, and that He expects us to live as loyal subjects in His kingdom.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
- Christopher Hitchens
You are more than a story written on a page
More than a feeling deep inside
You are more than a spirit spinning out in space
Not who I thought You were before
You are so much more
More: Scott Krippayne
One of the best songwriters of our time, Scott has a ton of great songs. He won an Emmy for the Paw Patrol theme song, won the American Idol songwriting competition, and more. He’s worked with everyone from Kool and the Gang to Smashmouth, from Bryan Duncan to Point of Grace. He’s a friend of a friend and grew up down the road from me, but we’ve never met. Highly recommended.
This Newsletter is free. If you’d like to support the ministry, you can:
Pray for me. People send me question, and I want to answer them accurately and responsibly. I need God’s wisdom.
Share whatever content you think is useful, whether from the Newsletter or from GodWords.
… and, if you wish, you can subscribe or buy me a coffee.
This is great. It brings me back to when I learned I was actually going blind. I mean, I already knew, since it was so bad it had become dangerous to drive at the best of times, but I had the eye doc tell me I had the worst case of keratoconus he'd ever seen. He told me the good news was they could get me hard contacts that would help me to really see for the first time in years, but the bad news was I would eventually go blind without cornea transplant surgery. Even then, it was a temporary fix.
I thanked him and was glad to have the contacts, but I knew I could never afford that surgery. I went to the VA in the hopes that they might help and was astounded to find that they would, in fact, cover the surgery. I was so elated and went to my car in tears, turned it on, and KSBJ was singing, "You open the eyes of the blind, Lord!"
I started laughing so hard. Here at this emotional moment, Jesus just showed up and said "I've got you," in about the corniest way possible. I loved it. Reminds me that God gave us a sense of humor.
Wow, we do think a lot alike.
Those two paragraphs about overwhelming people with apologetics could have been written by me. I used to do quite a bit of lay preaching. My typical style was to take a topic and "prove" my conclusion with a half dozen cross references, backing the listeners into a corner, where they had to believe and obey. I probably helped a few people into Bible truth, but I can't claim it's good fruit that remains.
I don't get many opportunities to preach anymore. But I've tried to offer truth with less pressure. I was mostly a lecture and logic preacher, but I've noticed most good preachers are storytellers. Telling your own testimony is often a good start. People won't usually fall on their knees and repent, but you plant seeds that cannot be gainsaid. My own testimony is nothing exciting or radical, but it's still a foot in the door. (But it's still hard to not bring up the Ontological proof of God.😁)