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Credit: JD Hancock "Kirk vs. Picard" (cropped)
Ever faced hostile questions like these?
“God commanded the people of Israel to slaughter thousands—men, women, children and cattle—and you want me to believe the God of the Bible is good?”
“When you stop eating shellfish and wearing poly-cotton shirts, I’ll take your views on homosexuality seriously.”
For many people these are slam-dunk arguments that enable them to dismiss the Bible, the God of the Bible and the Christian faith without further thought. Memes on these and many other subjects pervade the internet—and people are only too happy to throw them around—and sometimes, in your face. That’s when Jane, Jason and James T. can come to our rescue. Let me explain…
Of course we have a good answer to all these questions and many more. The problem is it’s a complex answer. It’s an answer that means we have to explain about the big themes of what the Bible teaches about creation and the fall. It’s an answer about biblical theology and the progressive unfolding of revelation and covenants in the Bible. It’s an answer that shows the Bible has one story line—what was right and good then at one point in Bible history is not the same now that Christ has come and revealed the gospel of grace in all its fullness.
They are good answers, but they are just complicated, long-winded and difficult to follow answers that take time, knowledge, skill and practice to articulate well. Oh… and someone who is prepared to listen.
The soundbite problem
The problem is that the arguments that are thrown around are what journalists call soundbites. A pithy, easily remembered, single point statement that is quickly understood.
Soundbite arguments win the day every time.
What we actually need is a soundbite answer.
Ever faced hostile questions? What we actually need is a soundbite answer.
Enter Austen, Bourne and Kirk. Here’s my soundbite riposte to the questions above.
“Yes—and Elizabeth Bennet hates Mr Darcy and will never, ever marry him.”
“Yes—and Jason Bourne never discovers who he is and why he has the powers he has.”
“Yes—and Captain Kirk dies in the opening few minutes of the movie…”
Cue confusion. “But that’s not right…”
“I know. But if you only read the first few pages, or watch a single scene, you can make perfectly reasonable and fair deductions that are just completely wrong. But you’ve got to know the whole story to work out why. And what you have to understand is that the Bible is a story, with a plot and development, and change and drama and reversals and a conclusion. So any one part of it only really makes proper sense if you’ve grabbed the big picture of the whole story. I’d be very happy to spend some time working through that with you if you’d be interested…”
Change the story to suit the person you are discussing with, but my thought is that this approach might have a chance of putting us back on the front foot, and open the door to a detailed conversation that leads to the gospel.
Give it a try, and let us know how you get on…
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Tim Thornborough is the founder and Publishing Director of The Good Book Company. He is series editor of Explore Bible-reading notes, the author of The Very Best Bible Stories series, and has contributed to many books published by The Good Book Company and others. Tim is married to Kathy, and they have three adult daughters.
