Our Disposition in Defending Our Faith
By Michael Klikas
12 November 2006
Adult Education Hour
Acts 22
Did you know that there is a difference between a verbal defense and an argument? All too many times people think that they are entering into an apologetical debate when what they are really doing is getting into an argument. Yelling is not a verbal defense and neither is being disrespectful. Someone can be disrespectful without yelling. The goal is to show the person you are engaged in the defense of the gospel with the truth from the word of God and not from you personal opinions or just how holy you and I think we are. The other problem is then when someone gets angry, either on one side or the other control is lost. You want to be able to control yourself and if at all possible, control the conversation by giving the truth. We know that the Bible says the law will stop every mouth, but if we verbally assault someone, their first reaction is to get defensive themselves.
Notice how Paul handles the situation even when theses people are beating on him and he’s about to be arrested. He asks permission to address the crowd and because citizenship was so very important back then, he identifies where he was from. But what’s even more interesting is the fact that Paul addressed this captain in the Greek language. What this did is it showed that Paul wasn’t just some guy off the street but that he was very educated. Now the Lord can use an uneducated person just as easily as person with a Masters degree or a doctorate in theology. So just because we do not have a formal education doesn’t mean t hat we shouldn’t know all we can about the Lord and be able to carry on a theological conversation with anyone. Besides that, you can have a Masters degree in computer sciences but how will that help you in giving a verbal defense of the gospel if you fail to study the word of God. What that Masters degree may do though, is it may open doors for you that someone else who doesn’t have that can not. So while education is important, and you should get all the education you can, your primary goal is now more about the Lord then anything else. So that is what Paul did, he used his education for the glory of God and the verbal defense of the gospel.
The captain is taken by surprise by this and asks if Paul is an Egyptian. Why did he ask this question? Well here is an account of why this question was asked that will help us understand this question.
This is from John Gill’s exposition of this verse:
Act 21:38 - Art thou not that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar,.... Josephus speaks (i) of one that came out of Egypt to Jerusalem, and gave out that he was a prophet, and deceived the people, whom he persuaded to follow him to the Mount of Olives, where they should see the walls of the city fall at his command, and so through the ruins of it they might enter into the city; but Felix the Roman governor fell upon them, killed four hundred, and took two hundred prisoners, and the Egyptian fled: the account which he elsewhere (k) gives of him, and Eusebius (l) from him, is this; a certain Egyptian false prophet did much more mischief to the Jews; for he being a magician, and having got himself to be believed as a prophet, came into the country (of Judea), and gathered together about thirty thousand persons, whom he had deceived: these he brought out of the wilderness to the Mount of Olives, from thence designing to take Jerusalem by force, and seize the Roman garrison, and take the government of the people but Felix prevented his design, meeting him with the Roman soldiers, assisted by all the people; so that when they engaged, the Egyptian fled with a few, and most of those that were with him were destroyed or taken: now it was some little time before this, that this affair happened; and by these accounts of Josephus, though the Egyptian was discomfited, yet he was not taken; he had made his escape, so that he might be yet in being; and therefore the captain could not tell but Paul might be he, who had privately got into the city, and was upon some bad designs:
and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers? Josephus says, that he brought them out of the wilderness, or led them through it to the Mount of Olives, from thence to rush into Jerusalem, when the walls should fall down at his command; but he says, the number of men that he led out were about thirty thousand; it may be at first there were no more than four thousand, but afterwards were joined by others, and increased to thirty thousand; or among these thirty thousand, he had four thousand "murderers, or sicarii": so called from the little swords which they carried under their clothes, and with them killed men in the daytime, in the middle of the city, especially at the feasts, when they mingled themselves with the people (m).
Now why did I tell you this? Well, there are a few reasons that have to do with our study on apologetics. First of all, there are people out there like this Egyptian who lead people astray and cause other people not to trust you because you are one of those “religious people” that they have already dealt with. It may take you a while to undo what someone else had did through false teaching. When I say you, I hope you understand that you are being used of the Lord and that it is His Holy Spirit that does the work of regeneration and changing the person. But the Lord uses men and women to accomplish his will.
Secondly, it may take you a while to earn peoples trust because of all the false teachers out there. People have a tendency to think that you are after something or want something and that you’re not really concerned about their soul and eternal well being. You have to be patient and trust that the Lord will accomplish His will in His time.
Notice that when Paul addressed the captain he spoke to him in Greek. Now in verse forty, Paul addresses the people in his native Hebrew tongue. What this shows us is that in order to give a good verbal defense you have to be able to meet people where they are and not where you are. What do I mean by that? I could talk to someone and give a verbal defense for the gospel and use big theological terms that I my not even know what they mean, but they make sound smart and in doing so I have gone way over the heads of the people that I am addressing. You have to be able to meet people on their level. Even the most educated person may be ignorant of the things of God. While you may be able to use big words, if they are theological words that even educated people don’t know in their vast vocabulary, it will do no good.
Meet people where they are and let the Holy Spirit do his work. Some people you meet are at a higher level of understanding then others but regardless of where they are you have to go to them. This is what Paul did and we must do the same thing. Once you meet them on their level then the work begins. What work am I talking about? The work that I am talking about is our verbal defense. We are now going to look at verse one of chapter twenty two and see how Paul begins the work of verbally defending the gospel to all who hear, both saved and lost alike.
Acts 22:1 Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defense which I make now unto you.
If we were to read just this verse we really wouldn’t understand what is going on here and there wouldn’t be anything that really sticks out to us that says Paul made an incredible apologetic defense in spite of what happened to him and what the people of Jerusalem wanted to do to him. But if you remember, Paul was beaten by these men and they probably would have killed him if they had the chance. There was sincere hatred for Paul yet he addresses them not only as men, but also as brethren. What a testimony for Paul, and what an indictment against Christians who get the feathers all ruffled because someone fails to say hello to them before or after the Sunday morning service. How quick we are to judge others and take away that title of brother or sister in Christ because our feelings are hurt. Yet Paul after being literally beat upon looks past his own pride with the goal of reaching these people for the Lord Jesus Christ. We won’t even try to reach our neighbors especially if they are seedy or different.
Paul takes the Christian life to the level it should be at and tries to reach others despite what they would like to do and would do to him if they had the chance. Despite how these men treated Paul, he still treated them with love and dignity. I might have a hard time calling someone a brother who just took a swing at me and hit me with everything they had. It would also be hard to not fight back. Yet the best thing that Paul could do would be to honor God by giving the gospel to those that hated him. Let me ask you, would give the gospel in a sincere meek way to those that hated you? Would you have compassion on them for their lost sinful state or would you want to see justice done both here on earth and in eternity? Would we have pity for them or hatred? All too many times we think of apologetics as defending the truths of the Bible in a civilized manner such as a debate between two people who believe differently.
Apologetics is much more then that. Being an apologist means you are willing to give the truth to others who are lost in their sins regardless of what they think of you or even what they would want to do to you. We are not just defending the truth to those who are far from the truth but sometimes we are defending the truth to those that twist the truth for their own purposes. No matter what we may want to do, we cannot be mean and ugly. That doesn’t mean that we are not stern. While we do not want to stand on someone’s neck to get them to do what we want them to do, we also do want to be walked over. Turn your Bibles over to 2 Timothy 2:24 – 26.
2 Timothy 2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
2 Timothy 2:25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
2 Timothy 2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
We have the do’s and the do not’s here in this verse. The do not’s is really only a do not strive. That word strive means to fight. Now anyone who knows me knows about my history of martial arts training and how much I enjoyed that. In my hay day I could and would take on anyone. I wasn’t afraid of how big they were or how fast they were. I just wanted to go at it. Now I might have been able to beat them and get them to submit to me. I could get them to say that I was the greatest martial artist ever when I had them in a submission hold and applied enough pressure to make the pain unbearable. But in their heart they wouldn’t believe it or they would say it just make me let go. The same thing is true when dealing with people. I can intimidate them if I try hard enough and I can get them to do what I want them to do. But then I am acting like their Holy Spirit, and, might I add, doing a horrible job at it. I could not answer them or cut them off when trying to explain something to me. I could be rude and argumentative with them. What good would that do? I would be violating the scriptures and they would be no better of because they will not have grown in whatever area they need to grow in.
You see apologetics is getting down in the nasty dirty trenches of peoples lives in order to help them see the truth according to the Lord and not according to what they or we, for that matter, want the truth to be. That then is the do not’s of this section of scripture. The do’s obviously will be quite the opposite. What are all the do’s in this text?
The Do’s of 2 Timothy 2:24 – 25
That word Gentle means affable which means that we need to listen to what the person is saying. Too many times we want to cut people of because what we have to say is so important that they just need to hear it. What they have to say can’t be as important as what we have to say. Now as we look at these things, think back to Paul and ask yourself did Paul exhibit all these qualities? Did he exhibit them even while beaten?
Apt to teach mean that you are skillful in teaching. Can someone be skillful in teaching the word of God if they don’t know the word of God? What good do opinions do when someone needs to be changed by the word of God? I have never known anyone to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through opinions. I have seen people be changed by the word of God. So as we said before, apologetics is not about opinions but about defending the truths from the word of God.
I am a patient man, are you done yet? Come on lets go. I have to admit that this is one area that I struggle in. When I want something done it should be done now. When I want someone to change they should obey the word of God and change immediately. Of course that is completely hypocritical of me because I don’t do that. When we lack patients what we are saying is that God is not working fast enough on someone’s heart and he needs to hurry up. Sometimes change takes a while and not only that, but God’s timing is perfect. Now here is something that really convicted me as I studied this. How come we are more patient with adults that struggle with sin then we are with either their own children or someone else’s children? I would think if anything it should be just the opposite. Most adults know better but children to a certain degree have to be trained up.
Finally, the last do is meekness. We have already looked at this from 1 Peter Chapter three, but we’ll look at it again. Meekness means being gentle with someone. So that rules out beating someone over the head until they do what we want them to do. That means that the words we use cannot be harsh regardless of the sin that is being opposed and the apologetic argument being levied. Again, this doesn’t mean t that the words we use are not grave and stern. When Paul charged Timothy I would say he was stern and grave. Meekness means that you know at anytime you could be in the same position as someone who is lost or struggling with sin if it were not for the grace of God, therefore you think no better of yourself because you are either saved or you’re not struggling with the sin this other person is.
So what is the purpose of all these do’s and this one don’t? In other words, where is the application? The application is found in verse twenty five of 2 Timothy Chapter two. We are to instruct those that oppose themselves and we are to do it in the four ways we just mentioned. How do you instruct those that oppose themselves either at home or when you are out giving a verbal defense for the gospel? Are the people outside your home treated better then the people inside your home? I am asking myself this question too because it is easy to be kind to strangers just as it is easy to lash out at those that we think we have the right to treat anyway we want because they are our family members. It’s easy to treat someone with kindness when they treat us with kindness, but it’s another thing to treat someone with kindness that is being ugly and unkind to you. I want you to know that I was purposeful in making this detour because we are about to see this section of scripture put into use by Paul when he addresses these men who tried to kill him. Go back with me now to Acts chapter twenty two.
Acts 22:1 Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defense which I make now unto you.
Paul then goes on to give his testimony of how the Lord called him to salvation and how he has fully followed the Lord Jesus Christ from that point on. For times sake we are not going to cover all of his testimony because we would be here for another four or five weeks and there are more passages that we need to look at. But what we are going to look at is what happens after his gives his verbal defense through his testimony. Skip down to verse twenty two.
Acts 22:22 And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.
There is something here that we need to see concerning apologetics. Not everyone is going to agree with what you say even when you tell them the truth from the word of God. In the second part of verse twenty five of 2 Timothy Chapter two the Bible says this:
2 Timothy 2:25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
People cannot understand the truth unless the Lord opens their eyes and draws them. Notice that this verse says if God peradventure or perhaps will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. A man cannot repent of his sins unless the Lord draws him. As we look at Paul’s testimony we say how could these men not repent? If God doesn’t call them they can’t repent. What’s the application that we take with us as we give a verbal defense to those who oppose themselves? We are not required to try and convince someone of the truth. We are required to give the truth and let the Holy Spirit do His work. If our success as an apologist rests is based on the number of people that get saved or turn away from their sin then we are in some serious trouble. If that’s true then Paul was a complete failure there in Acts Chapter twenty two. If that is how we view success then we are nothing more then a hired gun who is dependant upon his own ability to bring them in to the fold of God and we show it by the number of notches on our gun belt.
But, if we base our success on our obedience to the Lord then no matter what happens and no matter who agrees with us or not, we are successful because our success is based on obedience to the Lord. Who was more of a success Jonah or Noah? A whole city repented when Jonah preached but only Noah and his family were saved alive after the flood? So who was more successful in the Lord? Noah was because he obeyed the Lord.
So as we get ready to close this portion of our apologetic study I want you to think about how you give your verbal defense and know that your success is based on being obedient and not on who responds to what you say. Then of course in order to be the apologist that the Lord wants us to be we must know the word of God or we will never be able to defend the truths contained it. You wouldn’t want a lawyer to represent you in court who knew nothing of your case. So the Lord doesn’t want us to enter into an apologetic arguments ill prepared.
Our next section on apologetics will be in 2 Timothy Chapter four.