Five Key Areas of Apologetics for Student Ministry
This article is part of a monthlong series about the role of apologetics in youth ministry. You can read YPT’s other articles about apologetics here.
Apologetics can be daunting for youth workers today. Theology and apologetics are vital to making disciples of the next generation. We must not simply explain what we believe, but why we believe it. Despite the endless amount of information available it is hard to know where to start.
Considering this dilemma, I want to offer five critical areas of apologetics that broadly cover some of the foundational questions teenagers are asking today. Each topic answers three questions: “What?” (brief description of the topic), “Why?” (why the topic is essential to teenagers today), and “How?” (guidelines to get into conversations with students).
Existence of God
What and Why: Arguments for the existence of God can be classified as ontological, cosmological, teleological, or moral. More recently, arguments from mathematics, beauty, and consciousness have been offered for God’s existence. Arguments for God’s existence might seem outdated for most teenagers today but they are still very important in helping teenagers establish a biblical worldview.
The doctrine of God, his being, character, and attributes affect everything else a teenager believes. Therefore, it is vital that youth workers can defend God’s existence from nature and Scripture and teach their students to do likewise.
How: Utilizing the cosmological argument is a great starting point in defending God’s existence from natural law and general revelation. The cosmological argument hinges upon the understanding that if the universe had a beginning, it had to have a cause. The steps of the argument are as follows:
Resources: Does God Exist? By W. David Beck; Christian Apologetics (2nd edition) by Doug Groothius. (please note the Amazon Affiliate links in this article provide YPT with a small financial benefit, which we use to develop the content you find on this site.)
Trustworthiness of the Bible
What and Why: God’s Word has been under attack since the Garden of Eden when Satan first questioned whether God’s commands to Adam and Eve were valid. This is no different today, as the authority and reliability of the Bible is questioned. One of the first steps in the “ex-evangelical” movement is the questioning and, later, the rejection of the inerrancy and authority of the Bible. If our faith as Christians is built upon knowing God through the revelation of his word, we must help our students be confident in the inerrancy and reliability of God’s word.
How: To help our students see the trustworthiness of the Scriptures, we must first teach them how we got the Bible in the first place. Teaching the origins of the Bible through the doctrine of inspiration and how the Bible was transcribed, translated, and preserved can help dispel myths concerning scribal errors and canonization. Walking through the immense amount of manuscript evidence, the eyewitness testimonies of the New Testament, and the corroboration of the events in the Bible with historical and archaeological evidence can help students see that the Bible is not just a “fairy tale” but an accurate and reliable historical document.
Resources: Can We Trust the Gospels? By Peter J. Williams; Inspiration and Authority of the Bible by B.B. Warfield. (please note the Amazon Affiliate links in this article provide YPT with a small financial benefit, which we use to develop the content you find on this site.)
Resurrection of Jesus
What and Why: In connection with the Bible's truthfulness, Jesus's resurrection makes or breaks the Christian faith. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 that if Jesus has not been raised from the dead, then we are still in our sins and most to be pitied. Students who have been raised in church are taught that Jesus rose from the dead, but can they explain and defend why this is true other than “that’s what the Bible says”?
I do not intend to belittle the testimony or authority of Scripture in any way, but the people that we engage with do not believe the Bible is true, nor do they see it as God’s word. Therefore, it’s wise to use the Bible alongside historical evidence to demonstrate the rationality of Jesus’ resurrection (and miracles in general).
How: Gary Habermas has done extensive research on the resurrection of Jesus and is the premier scholar on this subject. He has discovered six historical facts that every historian (Christian or Atheist) would accept as true, which he labels “the minimal facts approach” to prove that the only logical conclusion that can explain these facts is that Jesus rose bodily from the grave.
Six Historical Minimal Facts that lead to the conclusion that Jesus rose bodily from the grave:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate.
2. The Disciple’s Experiences (eyewitness testimony).
3. The earliest proclamation of the gospel (through the early creeds).
4. The Disciple’s transformations.
5. The Conversion of James, the brother of Jesus.
6. The Conversion of Paul.
Resources: In Defense of Miracles by Douglas Geivett and Gary Habermas; On the Resurrection: Evidences (Vol. 1) by Gary Habermas. (please note the Amazon Affiliate links in this article provide YPT with a small financial benefit, which we use to develop the content you find on this site.)
Problem of Evil
What and Why: When suffering occurs, it causes us to ask why a loving God would allow so much evil and suffering to persist on the earth. These probing and personal questions can lead teenagers to doubt the goodness and faithfulness of God, or even his very existence. The problem of evil is also a challenge because evil presents so many kinds of problems (logical, evidential, religious/existential, divine hiddenness, problem of hell, etc.). Therefore, there is not “one simple answer;” multiple answers are needed to address these challenges to the Christian faith.
How: Despite the challenges the problem of evil poses for Christians, extensive work has been done by theologians and philosophers to provide helpful solutions. By teaching the defenses (show there is no contradiction between God and evil co-existing) and theodicies (provides sufficient reasons why God allows evil) such as the free-will defense, greater-good theodicy, the skeptical theist response, best of all possible worlds theodicy, and the greater-glory theodicy, you can assure your students that there are sufficient reasons why God allows evil in the world. Like Job, we will never fully understand why certain things happen, but we can trust in our God, who is sovereign over evil and works all things for our good and his glory to conform us to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:28-29).
Resources: God and Evil by Chad Meister and Jamie Dew; Why There is Evil in the World (and so much of it) by Greg Welty; Defeating Evil by M. Scott Christensen. (please note the Amazon Affiliate links in this article provide YPT with a small financial benefit, which we use to develop the content you find on this site.)
Moral Apologetics
What and Why: Our teenagers' biggest questions today lie in moral apologetics. Many teenagers reject the Christian faith not because they do not believe it is true, but because they do not believe it is good or profitable for their flourishing. They cannot accept a God who would not allow women to have rights over their bodies to perform abortions, prevent people who are “born” with homosexual desires to love whomever they want to love, and keep those who believe they are a different gender than their biological sex to become their “true self.”
How: We want to help our teenagers tell a better story than what the world believes about goodness and human flourishing. We should not merely proclaim that God exists and the Bible is true, but also help them see that the redemptive story of Scripture and God’s commands are good and are the best way we can live. Our culture’s beliefs and moral values have changed, not because the arguments for abortion and LGBTQ acceptance are better, but because these ideologies have been presented through a convincing narrative. Evangelism today involves helping our students communicate the beauty, goodness, and blessing of the story of redemption in a way that creates a plausibility structure to help skeptics become open to believing in the Christian faith. As Blaise Pascal says, “Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is [1] to show that religion is not contrary to reason . . . [2] make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, [3] show that it is true” (Pensées, 28).
Resources: Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcy; Holy Sexuality and the Gospel by Christopher Yuan; Moral Apologetics by Mark Coppenger; Moral Choices by Scott Rae; Strange New World by Carl Trueman. (please note the Amazon Affiliate links in this article provide YPT with a small financial benefit, which we use to develop the content you find on this site.)
Being equipped in these five areas of apologetics will help our students defend the faith and demonstrate the beauty of the grand story of redemption - which is a far better story than what the world has to offer.