I had an interview recently about my book with a website that has special meaning in my Christian journey, Apologetics315. God, as he often does with his children, made this uniquely special for me as I’ll explain.
When I became a Christian at Arizona State University back in the fall of 1978, those who introduced me to the gospel were not much into apologetics. The focus was on “spiritual” things, so reading the Bible, prayer, evangelism, church, etc. The goal of discipleship was building your relationship with Jesus, and sharing that with others. That is of course good and necessary, but it is not enough, as I found out in my junior year when I came across Francis Schaeffer’s The God Who is There. It was an amazing discovery for me because I learned that God’s truth applied to all of reality, not just so called “spiritual” things. Contrary to a narrow view of spirituality, he helped me to understand that the spiritual was so expansive that it addressed all of reality. That includes art, politics, law, literature, architecture, education, movies, business, you name it.
From Schaeffer I learned about apologetics, or what it means to defend the veracity of the Christian faith, that it is true and applies to everything. That started me on an intellectual journey that eventually led to seminary and what I thought might be a career in academia to become a great scholar for Christ. That didn’t happen, and my intellectual journey of faith took a detour for a couple decades. I still continued to read and learn, but theology and apologetics wasn’t a priority. Raising a family and trying to figure out how to make a living was. One thing I did as I raised our three children, however, was focus on constantly teaching them why this Christian thing we believe in is true. So, theology and apologetics was always in the air, just not a focus. Addicted to reading, I continued to read widely. Then something happened in 2009 that changed things, and in the next year or so that led to some other changes that led to me writing this today.
Although I wasn’t studying apologetics, I never lost my passion for defending the truth of Christianity. My kids can attest to that. One evening over some beers with a co-worker I decided to get into the deeper things of life. I won’t get into the details, but I realized that night how pathetic I was at apologetics. I cringe looking back on that encounter. Right then I decided I was going to bone up on my apologetics chops. The Internet had become the Internet in those two decades, and I did some searching for apologetics resources online. The first thing I found was apologetics315.com. The proprietor, Brian Auten, was in the process of doing interviews with over a hundred apologists and philosophers and scholars, and I listened to every one of them. I was very pleasantly surprised that since the 80s apologetics had exploded, and that the resources to learn how to defend our faith were basically endless.
So, when I finished my book and built a list of sites and podcasts that I wanted to contact about it, Apologetics315 was on the top of that list. It took some time, but Brian and his co-host, Chad Gross, expressed some interest in checking out the book, then invited me on the podcast. I was thrilled, to say the least. Then God had a pleasant little surprise that blew me away. Diving into apologetics compelled other changes, including a commitment I made in 2010 or 11 to read the Bible and get on my knees and pray every morning. I decided to read it from cover to cover, something I hadn’t done in a long time. I was so blessed and amazed by that experience that I decided next time I was going to write my way through. So in April of 2014 I started a little blog with the creative title, My Walk Through the Bible, and started on Genesis 1.
Now for what this has to do with my appearance on the podcast. Brian e-mailed me on a Thursday a few weeks back and said he’d like to set something up, saying we could do it as soon as that next Saturday, so we scheduled it. That morning it so happens I was writing through I Peter chapter 3, wherein is found the famous apologetics verse 15, always be prepared to make a defense for our faith. Thus where Brian came up with the name of his website. It wasn’t until I hit “Publish” that I realized in just a number of hours I was going to be on the Apologetics315 podcast! I was flabbergasted and amazed at the goodness of God to me, one so unworthy of that goodness. Actually I had the thought, “Now, God, you’re just showing off!” Seven years of blog posts, taking what seemed forever to write a book and finally have it published, many e-mails and waiting, and the day I’m on is the day I write about I Peter 3:15. There is a God!
It is times like that where the realness of God is so very real to me. One might say it was miracle, but to me every moment of existence is a miracle. We could also say that it was an amazing coincidence, but this little blessing of God to me was no more of a coincidence than the universe is a coincidence. God doesn’t do coincidence, praise be to the Lord!
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