Why Is Apologetics Important?

Apologetic seeks to give  credible answers to curious questions, to  give a defense. Why is apologetics important? 

First  of all, we’re commanded to do apologetics. The Bible says “always be prepared to  give an answer to those who ask you for  the hope that is within you” (1 Peter  3:15) We’re commanded to do  apologetics. Not only that, it’s important  because the non-believing world has  got questions that really matter. What we want to do through apologetics  is show that we love the world enough to  not only hear their questions but help  answer their questions. 

Another reason apologetics is important is because  sometimes Christians slip into doubts  and they can struggle with doubts, just  as the atheists can struggle with doubts,  or the polytheists can struggle with doubts, or  the deist or the finite godist. We all  can struggle with doubts at different  times in our life and apologetics can  help us to process our doubts. Not only that, apologetics helps strengthen us as  Christians by helping us to become  theologically sound. It helps us to be  pre-emptive before evangelism as we begin to grapple with and think  through the kind of questions that will  come our way. It’s really enriching but  let me just turn the tables – the warnings  of apologetics.

Apologetics can become  detached from our hearts because we  stuff our minds. Apologists sometimes can  go for a quest of certainty and there is  no such thing as certainty at this side of  heaven. We have to leave some room  for some mystery no matter what you  believe. That’s the same thing for the  atheist, that’s the same thing for the  polytheist. There’s no one who knows all. We’re not omniscient so we have to  beware that if we just cultivate our  mind and fail to cultivate our heart, we  could become detached and it will make  us mean-spirit apologists and evangelists. So we want to make sure that we do  integrative apologetics where we keep our hearts stuffed with  Jesus and we fall passionately in love  with Christ and we live spirit-filled  lives and we remember that people matter  and we’re not just trying to be data  crunchers and information crunchers and  we’re not trying to put God in a systematic box. But we also have to be careful when  we’re doing apologetics that we remember  that certainty is not reasonable. Finally, when it comes to doing apologetics,  another warning that we have is  we need to be careful that we don’t  become isolationists, where all of a  sudden all we do is sit around and study  apologetics. We have to ask “for what?”. For the Great Commission. Apologetics aborted from evangelism is  kind of futile. Yes, it can help us with  our doubts but it’s selfish. There’s a  world out there that needs answers to  questions and I think we should be  willing to go out and offer up some of  those answers to the questions they have.