What Is Your Pastor Doing?
When your pastor stands behind the pulpit on Sunday morning and begins declaring the word of God, what’s he up to? Yes, he’s proclaiming the truth of Scripture. Yes, he’s explaining what a passage means and (hopefully) how Christ is at the center of it. Yes, he’s “feeding the flock” with the spiritual food they need to combat sin and Satan for the rest of the week. But he’s doing something else, too. He’s doing apologetics. He is both commending and defending “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). You might not recognize that he’s doing this, but he is.
Proclaiming the State of Affairs
In Pulpit Apologetics, Rob Edwards says something striking that can be easy to overlook—and perhaps that’s why we don’t see our pastors as apologists. In discussing the relationship between apologetics and preaching, he says,
The state of affairs revealed in Scripture describes a creational and covenantal context for human experience that cannot be displaced by cultural differences. We are not foremost creatures formed by our culture but are made in God’s image and live in God’s world, knowing and known by God. Our apologetic, therefore, must appeal to an awareness of this deeper sense of self. (Pulpit Apologetics, 7)
Your pastor is the one who proclaims “the state of affairs revealed in Scripture.” He reminds you of your God-given identity and your God-saturated environment. And in doing so, he is an apologist. But how, exactly? What does he need to do to be a faithful apologist for people in the pew?
Preach the Gospel
The answer to that question is beautifully simple: preach the gospel. Edwards notes that the gospel is how God presses on the conscience of his creatures and moves them to repentance and faith (Pulpit Apologetics, 13). And it is the gospel alone that provides hope for people—that they have been made right with God, have an eternity of communion with him, and work out that glorious truth in the everyday moments of faithful earthly life. Make no mistake: hope is exactly what apologetics is all about. It’s not about arguments or philosophy or reasoning or intellectual respect. It’s about hope. “Always [be] prepared,” Peter said, “to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15; emphasis mine). Give people the gospel, and you give them hope. That’s the heart of apologetics. That’s what your pastor is doing.
Warring Stories
But maybe this doesn’t quite convince you. “My pastor? An apologist? He’s not defending the faith against the claims of Islam or the attacks of secular humanists. He’s just . . . preaching.” Yes, he should be just preaching. If “the fuller setting for a biblical apologetic is found in the contours of redemptive history narrated through Scripture” (Pulpit Apologetics, 31), then preaching Scripture is inherently apologetic. It says “yes” to God’s story and “no” to the deceptive narratives that challenge it. And biblical preaching does this because there is a divinely ordained relationship between God’s world and God’s word. God’s word, Scripture teaches, is what created and sustains the world (Gen. 1:1; Heb. 1:3; Col. 1:17). Therefore, it is impossible to understand ourselves or our experiences in the world without God’s word to interpret what’s happening. “Apart from his word,” Edwards writes, “the world has no direction. The world needs the word” (Pulpit Apologetics, 35). And so preachers preach, contrasting God’s directional story with the meandering tales of lifeless idols.
An Example from Jeremiah
What can this look like? Consider the skeptic who views the gospel as “too good to be true,” a feel-good fairytale that gives people a pick-me-up but has no real weight in a world full of cancer and chaos. What text might a preacher unpack in addressing this? How about Jeremiah 9:23–24.
Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.
Not exactly the words you expect to hear in a live debate between John Lennox and Richard Dawkins. But hold on a moment. This idea of “boasting” is intriguing. Jeremiah has just finished writing a scathing judgment on the people of Israel. Because of their idolatry and corruption, they’re going to be scattered. Their homes will be reduced to rubble, the stones settling into lairs for jackals (9:11). And then you get this message about what you should “boast in” . . . why?
Boasting is directional. Pride proclaimed always takes you somewhere. The Wall Street executive boasting in his vintage corvette directs plenty of time and attention to his treasure. He lives there. Worldly glitter draws him in and promises to satisfy. He goes where he boasts. The same was true for the people of Israel in Jeremiah’s day. What did they boast in? Not in a vintage corvette, but in wisdom, might, and riches. They boasted in knowing what’s really going on (wisdom), having physical or social power (might), and building up possessions to squander. We’re not all that different in the twenty-first century.
Boasting is directional. Pride proclaimed always takes you somewhere.
The Lord’s message through Jeremiah is simple and direct: “Don’t waste time boasting in what brings you further from God; boast in understanding and knowing him.” If our boasting is directional, then the more we take pride in understanding and knowing who God is and what he has done, the closer to God we will be. And closeness to the God who is telling every part of the world’s story—including the present one filled with cancer and chaos—is the only thing worth our travels.
But this passage from Jeremiah isn’t about the ancient Israelites—not centrally. It’s about Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one God was talking about in this passage. He understands and knows the Father like no one else. He even says that knowing him is knowing the Father. He tells the raging skeptics, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also” (John 8:19). To see Jesus is to see God (John 14:8–10). It’s clear from the Gospels and the New Testament that Jesus understands and knows God with unparalleled intimacy. Even in the era of the Israelite kings, Jeremiah was writing about Jesus and the gospel.
How, exactly? The gospel is the story of Jesus giving himself for us so that we can take refuge in him. In him we understand and know God—in his steadfast love, justice, and righteousness. In Christ, we boast not in wisdom, might, or riches, but in grace—that the God of all the earth would set such a gift in our hands . . .
Returning to the Skeptic
Now, come back to that skeptic who thinks the gospel is too good to be true. Is the gift of Jesus Christ—as the one who understands and knows God, and then calls us to do the same in him by his Spirit (Rom. 8:9–11)—too good to be true? Or is the gospel too bright to behold?
If the gospel is too bright to behold, then we’re just admitting our inability to take it in. It’s too much, too strong, too radiant. Why? Because our hearts are darkened by the idols we chase (Rom. 1:25), whether it’s a vintage corvette or a bigger social media following or improved health or a fulfilling relationship. These are things that, if we had them, we might boast in them. We might quietly declare to those who are watching, “I’m good. I’ve got everything I need—right here.” Those are the words of a darkened heart, a heart for which the gospel seems to burn too brilliantly. And so, like the Israelites, we boast in lesser things, contented by dimmer lights.
The Israelites aren’t just a people from the annals of the Old Testament. They are among us. We are the Israelites. We keep boasting in things that take us far from God and darken our eyes. We lose sight of the Father of lights (James 1:17). It hurts our eyes to take in so much self-denying luminosity. And so we don’t understand or know him. Our hearts wander into shadows.
It’s not that the gospel is too good to be true. It’s that it’s too bright for sinners to behold. In fact, thinking that the gospel is too good to be true is evidence that you know its real radiance. And perhaps you’re terrified of looking at it fully, because then you’d be putting all your hope in one thing—something you can’t even see. Could that really be worth it?
It’s not that the gospel is too good to be true. It’s that it’s too bright for sinners to behold.
That’s when your pastor affirms, “Christ is worth your hope. He will not disappoint. And he will never leave you.” If your pastor stands behind the pulpit to proclaim a message like that—one that calls us to repentance and faith in Christ—he is doing apologetics. He may not be refuting Richard Dawkins, but he’s doing something much more relevant: He is commending the luminous story of God and condemning all the other false and darkening narratives we tell ourselves.
Your pastor is an apologist. The next time he speaks, look for the gospel to be commended and defended. And pray that the Spirit of God would do in your pastor what he cannot do on his own: offer hope to a crowd of struggling believers.
Pulpit apologetics might just be the best sort. No debates. No arguing. Just you, a preacher, and the word of God, with hope at the ready.