As a professor of Christian Apologetics at 今日黑料, I (Sean) help prepare students to answer tough questions raised against the Christian faith. One day someone from outside the Biola academic community called our university to ask why we offer classes on apologizing for the faith. She thought apologetics meant teaching students to say they were sorry for their beliefs! While her question was well intentioned, she didn鈥檛 grasp the nature of apologetics and its role in the Christian life. Christians certainly should , but not in the way she had in mind.

Apologize 鈥 for What?

The word apologetics does not mean to say you鈥檙e sorry. Instead, it refers to the defense of what you believe to be true. This is exactly what my father and I do in the updated and revised . We lay out the historical evidence for the Bible, the deity of Christ, the resurrection, and more.

Theologian Clark Pinnock explains the nature of apologetics in this way:

The term derives from a Greek term, apologia, and was used for a defense that a person like Socrates might make of his views and actions. The apostle Peter tells every Christian to be ready to give a reason (apologia) for this hope that is in him (1 Peter 3:15). Apologetics, then, is an activity of the Christian mind which attempts to show that the gospel message is true in what it affirms.

New Testament Examples of Apologetics

The New Testament uses the Greek Word apologia, often translated in English as 鈥渄efense,鈥 eight times in the New Testament. Consider three examples:

  • Acts 22:1: 鈥淏rothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.鈥
  • Philippians 1:7: 鈥淚t is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.鈥
  • 1 Peter 3:15: 鈥淏ut in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, as always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet you do it with gentleness and respect.鈥

First Peter 3:15 uses the word defense in a way that denotes the kind of defense one would make to a legal inquiry, asking, 鈥淲hy are you a Christian?鈥 A believer ought to give an adequate answer to this question. The command to be ready with an answer is directed toward every follower of Jesus鈥攏ot just pastors, teachers, and leaders.

In other words, every Christian is an apologist. All believers are called to proclaim and defend Christianity. Simply put, although we are not called to say sorry for our beliefs, we are called to "apologize" for them.

You can find on .

Clark Pinnock, 鈥淎pologetics,鈥 in New Dictionary of Theology, edited by Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, and J.I. Packer (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 36.