The Purpose of Apologetics
The modern word “apologetics” is derived from a Greek word which has the meaning of defending, making a reply in order to give an answer and legally defend. Originally, the notion “apologia” implied a defense in a legal way which was given as a response to the accusation. In its modern usage, apologetics has a wider range of meaning. In its wide scope of meaning, apologetics is a Christian theology branch which aim is to provide the defense of authority of Christianity, divine origin and rational justification of Christian faith claims. The goal of apologetics is to persuade of the Christianity truthfulness and provide reasons for believing by the Gospel defense and its proclamation. Apologists try to find a reasonable balance between the faith use and reasons.
As the entire world of the Old Testament was considered to be a believing world the idea of apologetics of the Old Testament consists in showing the ways of how the living God could be clearly differentiated from other multiple dead gods. This does not mean that there was no any atheism during the Old Testament times. Atheism existed but its scale was very small and insignificant in comparison with a great number of religious people of that time. Bah defines two types of materials for apologetics in the Old Testament: (1) material with apologetic value but without original apologetic form, and (2) material which are apologetic in form. Ps 19: 1-6, Ps, 2, Ps, 47, Ex. 7-12, Is. 40-41, and Josh 2: 8-11 could serve as examples of these two types of material. The first two chapters of Genesis are very apologetic in their nature. Genesis presents God as the ‘ultimate creator and human beings are all created with equal dignity, in contrast to the other creation myths of the Ancient West Asia”.
The New Testament narrative also contains a number of apologetic texts. Jesus Christ was the first apologist who defended His claims in Luke 7 using prophecies and miracles. In Acts 2, Peter defended the Pentecost event and explained the Gospel of Christ. The book of Acts is full of examples of Apostle Paul’s adoption of an “apologetic-evangelistic approach whereby to the Jews and Godfeares he would arguer with them from the scripture showing the Christ in the Messiah and to the Gentiles he would argue by employing reason”. The book to Hebrews is also considered to be apologetic as it demonstrates Christ’s supremacy against a background of old Jewish practices, traditions, and faith.
Apologetics performs three main and basic functions. Its first function is being used in a proactive way to argue the Christianity truth as well as persuade unbelievers and believe. This way involves testimonies and arguments of history, culture, science, logic, philosophy and meant to create reasonable cases in order to convince an unbeliever. The second function suggests the use of apologetics in order to defend any criticism and attacks against the Bible and the Gospels. This kind of apologetics is called external apologetics and is aimed at providing a rational and reasonable foundation for their belief and the truth contending. The third function of apologetics consists in strengthening the believers’ faith. It is so-called internal apologetics. Multiple Gospel teaching attacks bring to tests of separate believers’ faith. They may experience doubts, personal crisis, and influence of the world. Apologetics plays a very important role in the faith anchoring in times of trouble for Christians. It also allows many Christians to be a bold witness in the world who is prepared to experience different kinds of objections that a believer may encounter from unbelievers.
Bibliography
Auten Brian. A Case for Apologetics.. http://www.brianauten.com/Apologetics/A-Case-for-Apologetics.pdf (accessed August 31, 2016)
Blah David. Apologetics in the Bible. https://www.academia.edu/4358285/Apologetics_in_the_bible (accessed August 31, 2016)
Tangelder Johan D. Apologetics. http://www.reformedreflections.ca/articles/apologetics.pdf (accessed August 31, 2016)
