The “apologetics” study I led yesterday morning turned out to be helpful enough that I get to continue the conversation the next time they meet. Here’s pretty-much what we covered:

I started out by sharing one of my favorite CS Lewis stories, the one where the great teacher lost a debate about faith to a philosophy professor from Oxford University.

The experience shook Lewis to the core, but it also caused him to rethink his approach to telling the story of the Gospel of Love. He finally understood that attempting to coerce people into belief via argument effectively limits God to the parameters of our own intellect.

So we talked about the difference between one-dimensional facts and the deeper waters of truth, and how strict biblical literalism not only narrows our understanding of God but undermines truth.

AUTHENTICITY: Among many quotes I shared was this gem from CS Lewis: “Christianity‬ is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has a twist about it that real things have.”

The Lewis quote was a great entry point for talking about the power of an authentic witness. “The strongest tool we have, in terms of apologetics, is our personal testimony,” I said, “with all its inconsistencies and loose ends. We should be telling our own story, not reading from someone else’s script……”

I went on to talk about one of my friends, Bob, who simply took his Bible with him to work and placed it on his desk. That simple act led to some interest from the other guys, some questions about faith, a prayer request or two, and then a series of more formative conversations that emerged from Bob’s own story.

AND MORE: My visit with the Bible-study group went on for almost two hours; we shared stories and scripture passages and ideas about how we can best communicate the “Wow!” of the Good News.

And it always came back to growing and understanding our personal story. Why learn arm-twisting techniques when we could present a more compelling message via deepening our own relationship with Jesus?

God speaks most convincingly through the story we are living, and how much we grow in the likeness of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”

MARS HILL: There was more, much more, but I want to wrap today’s post with a jump forward to our ongoing Wednesday evening Acts study with Rebekah:

The Apostle Paul was in Athens, and he was asked to appear before the “sages” at a meeting of the Areopagus…. (Acts 17). He was invited in order to, “Give a reason for the hope that is in you….” (see yesterday’s Apologetics 101 post).

Paul said a lot, but listen to this particular observation:

“From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’”

So many people are searching for God; and perhaps they grope for God; and then maybe they find something real because of the strength of the story we live? In truth, God is not far from any one of us.

Now that’s sharing the Good News! – DEREK