The Ultimate Apologetic

from Ray Ortlund, Jr.

In the July 1954 issue of Reformation Review, Francis Schaeffer published “How Heresy Should Be Met.”  He proposed that, to neutralize the heresies defrauding people in our time, what is needed is a three-fold strategy:

“The final problem is not to prove men wrong, but to win them back to Christ.  Therefore, the only ultimately successful apologetic is, first, a clear, intellectual statement of what is wrong with the false doctrine, plus a clear, intellectual return to the proper scriptural emphasis, in all its vitality and in its relation to the total Christian faith, plus a demonstration in the life that this correct and vital scriptural emphasis meets the genuine needs and aspirations of men in a way that Satan’s counterfeit does not.”

The ultimate apologetic is churches where (1) falsehood is exposed, (2) the gospel is clarified, and (3) we together, though imperfect, become living proof that the gospel creates beautiful human beings in beautiful community.