How to Answer

Transcript

I just wanted to share a tip that has helped me form a response to questions from those genuinely seeking answers.

Let me give you a real-life example.

The very first question on the first evangelistic course I did, I invited the room to ask any questions at the end, and a person asked the question “what about Dinosaurs?”. The first question was, “What about dinosaurs?”. That was it. The session by the way was about Jesus’s death and resurrection, not dinosaurs.

Someone after said to me, that person was just being daft, she can’t be serious. But I said no, it was a genuine question, I could tell she wasn’t trying to trip me up in any way. She was saying, what do I do with this piece of the jigsaw. It’s it our job to help them place the piece within it.

But here’s the thing. Very often we stamp the piece as biblical and then try to force it back into their secular jigsaw or foreign God jigsaw. This is a mistake I’ve made before and I’ve seen countless times.

First of all, we must understand that they are coming from a different worldview than ours. They have a different Jigsaw.

Secondly, when someone asks a question, they are focusing in on a specific topic, and it’s tempting to meet them at that microscopic level. But before you know it your guard is up, and it can spiral into a mini augment and it doesn’t really help anybody especially those listening on.

Here’s what we can do – zoom way back out. Questions are almost always zoomed in. We have to zoom right back from street view to God universe view.

We have to show them that to answer the question we are coming from a different perspective, we are looking at it from a different angle, from a biblical worldview. And this is why I think it’s so important that as Christians who have been charged by Peter to “Always be prepared to give an answer”… know that a foundation of being prepared is to understand the biblical worldview. We need to understand the biblical framework – the pillars of history. Now even amongst Christians there are varying worldviews and frameworks, but at least understand your own.

We need to grasp the story of the bible from start to finish, and I don’t mean every little detail but the pivotal moments of history. Creation, the fall, corruption, the flood, what happened at Bable, Abraham and the covenants, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 tribes, the first coming, cross, resurrection, church age, the second coming and restored earth to come.

When you have the story map laid out at the back of your mind, you can take a question like “what about Dinosaurs”, and you zoom out… and tell them if you like… “let’s zoom out for a moment”. Then form your answer from a biblical worldview:

God created the universe in six days, and it was on the six day of creation that he created all the land animals and then the first people Adam and Eve. This was before they had sinned and so lions were not trying to kill them and the same goes for dinosaurs. Sure, we’ve all seen Jurassic Park but, in the beginning, it wasn’t like that at all. There was harmony among God’s creatures. That is why when God finished creating, he looked and as Genesis says “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (1:31 NIV). It also means that Dinosaurs didn’t live many millions of years before man but rather alongside man. You could turn to Job 40 with its description of a dinosaur or explain some of the scientific reasoning – from ancient accounts and artefacts to dinosaur red blood cells being found. After the fall, sin brought about death, fear was later instilled in animals, and of course if you are hunting for food, a big target to hit like a dinosaur that will feed the village for a month is a likely option. So it’s no surprise they are extinct like many other animals. And you can go on from there.

Having that story map or mind map can give you real confidence. Not that you may be able to answer every question flawlessly, but that you know where you stand, and you invite them to stand with you and ask, what do you think looking at it from this point of view.

You zoom out, then locate roughly which part of the story map they are referring to and go from there.

You may be asked how the Jewish people fit into the Christian picture. So you zoom out, located the pillar of the story of Abraham, or you may wish give them a quick run through from creation to Abraham: including the promised seed, the messiah, God’s plan to restore the earth and how he’ll use this people group.

If you’re asked about suffering, you zoom out, locate the fall of man and even the fall of Satan and his followers, and you position it from there.

If you’re asked about the trustworthiness of the bible, you don’t panic and go straight to evidence to support you. You zoom out. Before you locate a section of the story, you explain who God is, his omniscience, omnipotence, his ways of dealing with mankind, and then slowly zoom in by explaining the inspired scriptures were written down by 40 plus authors over 1600 years all with the same theme etc.

But the point is that you are removing presuppositions of their own worldview, showing them the topic from a biblical view, and then slowly zooming in to form new conclusions.

By doing this they may not agree with your worldview, but if you form your response well, they are likely to agree that from your worldview it is reasonable to conclude as you are. Equally I understand when someone says they don’t believe in God, that they think dinosaurs lived millions of years before man – I don’t agree that their worldview is correct, but I understand how they have formed that conclusion from the way they are looking at it. Does that make sense?

Once you are aware that it is not a battle over evidence, we all have the same evidence, it’s a battle of worldviews and how you view the evidence or subject.

So, I hope this was helpful in some way.

Learn the biblical framework. Zoom out, explain the position you are viewing from, then move in slowly to form a response.

Remember you are not necessarily trying to convince them of one thing. You are challenging their worldview and trying to persuade them to consider the biblical one.

Every question is an opportunity to help shift and shape worldviews.

See you soon.