Defending Christianity With Other Beliefs

    When someone questions, denies, or attacks your beliefs you are to defend them if you are a Christian*.  In order to defend your beliefs, you must know what the other person is saying about your beliefs.  To know what the other person is saying about your beliefs, you must know what they believe.  To know what they believe, you must research the ideas of their beliefs.  If you do not do this, then they will not listen to you because you will not be able to defend your beliefs against theirs.  Once you do know what they believe and the main points of their beliefs, then you will be able to have a conversation with them without looking(and sounding) like a fool.  Many Christians today would avoid everything about other religions at all costs because they believe that even discussing them will lead to confusion and the dangers of "falling off the path".  They believe that learning about these religions is a sin because you are somehow denying God.  These are the same Christians who are generally sola scriptura and they have no idea that they are denying the Bible by refusing to learn about other religions*.  The scripture reference that you will find on the bottom of this post tells us to always be ready to defend our faith, but to do it with care and respect.  This doesn't mean to tell them that we claim our faith because of something in the Bible or something that we have experienced.  Why, because they don't believe in the Bible and are not going to start because we can quote a scripture and if we try to use our own experiences they will write us off as crazy.  Once you realize this, you may ask what else you can do.  You can research their beliefs and find out what makes their beliefs so appealing to them.  Show them the common points in your beliefs and how they tell the same story and how their beliefs actually point to yours because that will affect them a lot more than mindless quoting of scripture.  Now you may ask how you would stay respectful and kind in doing this.  My answer is that you present your common points and show them that you understand where they are coming from and then explain how the Bible shows where everything adds up in the gray areas of their texts.  This won't offend them and the worst that could happen is they think their beliefs suit them better and then you can still talk to them regularly and gain a new perspective on the world.  Another way to share your faith is to not be disgruntled or angry when it is questioned.  So many Christians fall into the trap of non-Christians and get angry, defensive, and confrontational when their beliefs are disrespected or questioned.  Instead of going into a frenzy and trying to throw scripture at the attacker, defend your faith by showing that it is real.  How do you do that?  You do not get angry and throw insults back, you respectfully disagree and either move on or do as I have instructed above.

Lets face it, you cannot defend God, convincingly. You can offer explanations and all that but the truth is no one is bound or obliged to believe how you think your God is good. To an atheist, a Muslim praising his God, a Buddhist praising Buddha and a Christian praising Jesus is all the same.  Most atheists display a remarkable ignorance of faith and its inner working. And so very often if you are going to quote your bible, my bet is it is not going to work because to the atheist it is a “crap load of fabricated stories”.

 Regardless of what you believe, he is entitled to his opinion. But my point is, do not step into something you can not achieve, and that is you can not defend God and the truth is you are never asked in the scriptures to defend God. There is a difference, you are called to show how God changed your life. Don’t be pissed off, do not be angered, frustrating as it may be, do not give into it. God is more than adequate to defend himself, for that he doesn’t need you. But your faith is something that only you can defend and that is something you should always remember.

Read more:  http://johnadavid.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/defend-your-faith-not-god/

 

    The Bible calls us to defend our faith and argument against that are not Biblical.  Some will say that the word of God doesn't need to be defended, but in defining what the word of God is you are defending it.  If someone asks you what exactly the word of God is and you tell them it is the Bible, then you have just defended the stance that the Bible is the word of God.  If you claim that someone talked into faith can be talked out of faith and use that as a defense against reasoning someone into believing in God, then you need to read 1 Corinthians 15, for in it Paul gives reason for believing in Christ**.

Those who oppose these clear biblical teachings and examples may say, "The Word of God does not need to be defended!"  But which of the world's writings are the Word of God?  As soon as someone answers that, he is doing apologetics.  Some claim that human reason cannot tell us anything about God-but that statement itself is a "reasonable" statement about God.  If it's not, then there is no reason to believe it.  A favorite saying is, "If someone can talk you into Christianity, then someone else can talk you out."  Why is this a problem?  Did not Paul himself give a criterion (the resurrection) by which Christianity should be accepted or rejected in 1 Corinthians 15?  It is only misplaced piety that answers in the negative.

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/defend-faith.html#ixzz2wnPOM2wf 

    There are countless other passages that would reinforce reason in the Bible and if you need more, feel free to ask me.

     *1 Peter 3:15 - "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect," New International Version

     **1 Corinthians 15

God in the Universe

     I have encountered many Christians who follow the Sola Scriptura idea.  This idea pretty much means that they refuse to consider any truth outside of scripture.  You will commonly hear comments like, "If it's not in the Bible, then I don't believe it!" from them.  You will also hear them say, "You can't shove God into a box." or something along those lines, yet they want to shove Him into a book?  I don't see the logic in that.  If God created the universe, then anything that is found to be true in the universe is His truth whether it is in scripture or not.  If we pursue truth, then are we not pursuing God because He created truth and Jesus said that He is truth*, therefore pursuing truth is honoring God's creation and pursuing Jesus.  Why would God give us the capacity to think, reason, and comprehend things if He did not want us to use those abilities?  I believe He gave us these abilities so that we could honor and worship Him by using them.  When we take the time to appreciate His creation and study it to better understand it we are honoring Him.  Artists of every kind want people to study and admire there work because that is why they made it, so what makes the potter any different**?

     To take this further, the Bible says that we are not to live by bread alone, but by God's words***.  If we think critically about this scripture we can make connections to other scripture.  If we are not to live by bread alone and Jesus is the bread of life<> and Jesus is the word made flesh><, then we can conclude that we are not to live by scripture alone.  You may see that as a stretch, but there is still more in this.  The scripture goes on to say that we are to live by God's words as well as bread(scripture).  In the beginning, God created the entire universe with just His words.  If God created the universe with His words, then would we not be studying His words by studying the universe?  God does not wish for us to be ignorant, otherwise He would not have created us in His own image.  To believe in Sola Scriptura is to deny all of the marvelous things that God has created.  One of the things that many people forget is that to the first Christian churches the Bible was only the Old Testament and they were living out the New Testament.  This means that the Bible can't contain all knowledge and all truth because it was still being formed while the church was already established.  All that is in the Bible is truth, but not all truth is in the Bible.  I think that it is important to remember that scripture without the church's tradition has no foundation and the church without scripture has no message.

     *John 14:6 - "Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one can come to the Father except through me."  New Living Translation

     **Romans 9:20-21 - "20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?  Will the molded say to it's molder, 'Why have you made me like this?' 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?"  New Living Translation

     ***Matthew 4:4 - "Jesus answered, 'It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.''"  New Living Translation

     <>John 6:35 - "Jesus replied, 'I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again.  Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.'"  New Living Translation

     ><John 1:14 - "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."