I am new in the study of the Bible & sometimes in answer, I have to admit that I don’t know either and that I have been looking into it. I first believed on faith and am learning to defend it. Nothing I learn is going to take away my faith, so I feel strong there. If someone wants to not believe, I don’t think anything will convince them to believe.

Michael,
I get what you’re saying, but it moves into some dangerous territory. You need to add nuances. I think that you need to distinguish between essential doctrines of the faith and non-essential doctrines of the faith. Also basics vs minutia. Not everyone is going to have investigated every single alternative explanation for the evidence for the resurrection. So it is legitimate that they may not know due to ignorance; but that does not mean that the apologist is demeaning the person or the question.

It is not possible to investigate every non-essential doctrine or the minutia of every essential doctrine. Every Christian needs to have a better understanding of why they believe the essentials vs non-essentials and be able to articulate their reasons. But telling someone that you will followup with them is not the result of malevolence nor does it always bring damage to Christianity.

It seems that you are promoting a view here that is not possible for even the average…

There are times that I also am disappointed with “Christians” today in that there seems to be no desire to really know God. However, I have to remind myself that this desire has to come from within or someone helping to spark this desire. Not many “Christians” today could answer a question such as “Can you give me the Ontological Argument for the existence for God”. What would you say? We have to teach them to be better Ambassadors for Christ. I don’t want to push someone aside who is weak in their understanding. I want to put my are around them and teach them.

This is a powerful post. In the main, I agree with the thesis. It goes to the heart of the tendency of many evangelical Christians to adopt the perspective that faith, not knowledge, is enough. It is not.

Yes, we are saved by faith, not by our knowledge – but just because we are not able to fathom everything does not excuse us from wrestling with the wisdom, words and reasoning of our God. It is the process of wrestling with God’s Word that transforms our minds.

As for excited new Christians being eager to share their faith, even when they have insufficient knowledge: note that Paul spent considerable time learning the tenets of the faith before he went out to evangelize. And in his early journeys, he traveled with a companion. That’s because we learn Christianity as much by being “traditioned into” the faith at the side of more mature Christians as by studying the tradition.

Faith, which is emotional, requires foundations, which are mental, to have staying power. Faith without foundations is like the seed that landed on the earth and did not root. It will not yield fruit; it is not fruitful. It will succumb to whatever wind blows, or die out in the first months of spiritual drought.

It’s one thing to say, “Friend, I have had an amazing experience! I don’t really know what all it means, yet, but I have been encountered by the Holy Spirit and brought to Christ!” And to then talk about that experience. That is a sharing of an experience, and cannot be either defended or attacked.

My experience is my experience, whether you understand it or not. A challenger can be blunted with simple, honest words: “I don’t know what it means yet, except that I feel free and safe for the first time in my life. But I am learning. And I just wanted to share this with you because we’re such good friends. But you’ll just have to stay tuned to learn more about what this means to me; I’ll let you know as I figure it out.” The more evangelically-oriented might add something like, “Or, you could come with me and see for yourself. Maybe we could figure it out together.”

It is something else to try to launch into a defence of the faith too early and without the support of more mature believers. Again: a strong community of faith is built on the practice of traditioning new believers into the faith – its content and rationale – and into the practices and customs of a particular church – along with their rationales.

It is enough, all along the discipleship road, to just be honest about where we are in our understanding, our confidence, and our doubts. God can – and will – use our honest weaknesses as well as our genuine strengths as bridges to those He seeks to bring into the fold.

That all said, evangelical enthusiasm trumps mainline Protestant apathy, in my opinion. Better to risk and fail to defend the faith, than to abandon the battle for souls. Too many mainline Christians have neither enthusiasm nor knowledge.

Perhaps the more factual a question is, the more appropriate the “I’ll get back to you” response will be. How many apostles were there? Why might someone believe Job is an old book vs. a more recent book? These are factual questions for which one can research and return with an answer.

Some questions involve real tension and have eluded easy answers for the history of the world. Job asked God why the wicked were prospering and the righteous were suffering, seemingly contrary to God’s promise. God did not answer with a direct answer. Instead, he interacted with Job and let Job see himself a little more clearly. There are tragedies and injustices in this world that bother people. There are theological reflections that cause tension. Careers have been spent researching deep questions of the faith. To imply that one can find a nice, clean answer by next week sometime and move on to the next question is to completely miss the question and the person asking it.

I think it is a relief to many people to realize they don’t have to know all the facts. But they should not be relieved that they don’t have to think deeply and wrestle and ask difficult questions and deal with tensions. Because they must, if they want to speak persuasively with thoughtful people outside the faith who are interesting in talking about it.

Wow. This one’s a zinger. I’m going to pray and study and think and reflect.

I’m afraid that I could not answer with “good question…” because I’ve generally never found them such.

What problem is there with evil? Does the Bible ever suggest that there won’t be sorrow and trouble in this world?

We can go back to Genesis and find that human rebellion coupled with God’s judgement on the Earth deals with it, but the demand that God justify why there is evil in the world is nonsensical.

The alleged stupidity of “I don’t know” is highly overestimated, because for many things on which one could have an answer, there are many possible, different answers and no “correct” answer. So what’s the point, really, of having to have one?

evil
free will
Calvinism v. Arminianism
unanswered prayer
disasters
mode of baptism
nature of communion
sinning & sinlessness
inconsistancies in the Bible
number of books in Bible
age of earth
nature of justification
order of salvation
separation from the world
what activities are sin
sabbath keeping
nature of trinity
cessation of gifts
healing
bureaucratic structure of church
roles for women
slavery
polygamy
end times
fate of the unreached
etc.

In addition, I don’t get, from the “have an answer” passage a requirement for either an apologetic or for doctrine, but rather, simply an explanation why my life is different and who Jesus is.
Other than the death and resurrection of Jesus, is there really any doctrine that is uniform across all major traditions? Note, please, that I’m not saying that apologetic and doctrine is worthless or unnecessary, only that there is no stupidity in not knowing something and admitting it and that one’s faith is neither defective nor deficient because of one’s lack of knowledge.

regards,
#John

I think you may be making too much of this. If you’re talking about who I think you are, he is continually encouraging people to prepare.

So this isn’t a get-out-of-preparation card; it’s acknowledgement that you can’t prepare for everything.

I think Michael has a specific kind of person in mind though. I know that I did when I read his post. I pictured the person who has opportunity to think through issues, to meditate on what is revealed day and night, but chooses to spend his or her time watching TV, reading novels of low depth, etc. (i.e., people who waste their time and thoughts when they could be pondering those things that have to do with what is supposedly the most important thing in their lives). So I wasn’t really picturing the new believer, the child, the mentally challenged, etc. To whom much is given, much is required. If God gives you a mind to think through something, and the time in which you can think through it, then how can it be anything less than a sin to use that time in any other way.

That, therefore, intersects with his discipleship claim, because if a church, based on a faulty discipleship model, is not thinking deeply and pondering these issues, then certainly, neither will most of those who attend it.