I recently had an interesting, insightful dialogue with a bright young man, a 31-year-old doctoral student with an undergraduate degree in philosophy. After exchanging pleasantries, I sensed the Lord’s prompting me to turn our conversation in a truly meaningful direction. My segue was his somewhat aimless life-direction. Pretty confident he was not spiritually “acclimated” — and hoping to open up some type of dialogue related to spiritual matters — I asked him if he’d considered getting direction from God. In so many words he said he didn’t really believe in God. What followed was a common line of reasoning used by the typical younger person on the street today.
I want to share with you the essence of our dialogue so you can prepare an effective, loving response (witness) when God opens a door for you to share Christ with such a person.
I can only skim the surface in this devotional; you can fill in the gaps by doing your own follow-up study. So as to keep the continuity I feel it’s best not to break this devotional up into several parts. It will therefore be longer than usual!
First off, this young man said he didn’t really believe in God (as I was presenting Him, the God of the Bible). He then said he purposed simply to live a good life, doing and being good. That way, if there is a God He would probably be merciful when He evaluated his works; God would surely excuse his ignorance as to what He expected of him. “If I’m wrong,” he reasoned, “I guess I’ll find out then. It won’t be my fault because I really didn’t know — and I did the best I knew how.”
My response was that ignorance of God’s moral law (revealed in the Bible) will not excuse us from the consequences of breaking it. We’re all transgressors, be it in ignorance, in secret, or overtly! The Good News is if we recognize our need for God’s forgiveness and then receive His pardon through faith in Christ alone, we are then justified — and ready to meet our Maker (Romans 1:17; II Corinthians 5:21).
Next, we dialogued a bit about Jesus. I quoted Him as saying “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). I explained what Jesus meant, and then the young man responded with a particularly good point: “Anyone could make that claim!” I said, “Very true — but nobody has the credentials to back up that claim — nobody except Jesus of Nazareth!” I then presented an abbreviated apologetic for Jesus’ resurrection, noting Josh McDowell’s famous quip: “Men will die for something they believe to be true — even though it may actually be false. They will not, however, die for something they know is a lie!”
I hastened to note the martyrdom of ten of Christ’s original twelve Apostles — as well as the many thousands who followed in their footsteps, placing their trust in the testimony of Christ’s early followers.
This young man’s response is critical to hear because it is quite popular today: “We don’t even know if Jesus was a real historical figure! No Roman historians, for instance, wrote about him. The only record we have is the Bible — and it has been translated and re-translated so many times it has lost all semblance of accuracy and dependability!”
I began by addressing his statement that Jesus was not a real, historical person, noting that historians use the birth of Jesus Christ as the reference point for our calendar — significant I’d say! I proceeded by noting that besides the historically impeccable testimony of Luke’s gospel (touted even by secular scholars as perhaps the greatest, dependable historian of the ancient world), several non-Biblical sources do in fact confirm His existence: the Jewish historian Josephus (A.D. 37-100); Jewish Rabbinical Tradition (A.D. 70 and 200); Pliny the Younger (Imperial Roman Legate); Tacitus (Roman historian); Suetonius (Roman historian); Thallus and Julias Africanus; Mara bar Serpion; Justin Martyr; etc.
As to the historical reliability of the Bible, I made the simple observation that thousands of ancient manuscript copies of both Old and New Testament Scriptures exist today and when compared to our modern translations, they say the same thing! We can also completely reconstruct the New Testament (except for a few verses) from letters of correspondence, theology, etc. written by the early Church Fathers of the first several centuries of the early Church. In these letters, they quote New Testament passages!
So, dear reader, be ever ready (and able!) to share your faith, to give reasons why you believe (I Peter 3:16-17; Jude 3). Above all, be a man, be a woman of the Word! In addition, do some outside reading! A great, short “primer” for you might be Josh McDowell’s “More Than A Carpenter.”
It’s a classic, still in print — one I read as a young college student. Very compelling, insightful, helpful. Dr. R.C. Sproul’s “Objections Answered” can also prove useful.
Remember: God saves; we simply sow His seeds; remember what Terry Scott Taylor sang years ago (Daniel Amos band): “Hit them with love — words have their place — hit them with love but live what you say!”