It amazes me that despite the breakthough of information and knowledge
in this computer generation, I still have Christians (even some highly
placed ones) screaming at me that I should stop debating with Muslims.
They say it is not scriptural and they condemning the practice in it's
totality. When I ask such Christians for a scripture that condemns
Christian-Muslim debate, they pull out one of my favourite scriptures
that teaches an Apologist how to debate.
"But foolish and
unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. And the
servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to
teach, patient," ( 2 Tim 2: 23-24).
Let's do a study very interesting scripture.......
The
book of 2nd Timothy contains very profound words coming from a great
debating evangelist who was close to his death and knew he was soon going
to die. Acts 17:2 reveals that debate evangelism was the manner and
style Apostle Paul used in preaching the gospel. In fact it is recorded
in Acts 19:9-10 that he had a landmark debate with a certain great
philosopher called Tyranus. The debate was held on a daily basis for
good two years. Can you imagine that? In fact Apostle Paul never stopped
debating until he was arrested and throw into prison, from where he
started writing letters.
Timothy had worked closely under Paul as
his son in ministry and we all know how a dying man will pour out his
heart to his son for encouragement in the continuation of the good work.
How then can you interpret 2 Tim 2: 23-24 as a war against debate
evangelism?? I wonder how some Christians read their Bible. I think it is
share laziness, to just pick a verse or two of scripture and try to use it to satisfy your
emotions, instead of breaking it down to properly understand the message
from the context of that verse.
Come with me, as we dig in to 2 Tim 2: 23-24............
Verse 23: "But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes".
You
see, during debates there is always the temptation to loose your cool
and react emotionally. But a good Apologist must resist such
temptation. The Muslims will do everything to push you down with this temptation but you
must not fall. They will ask foolish and ulearned questions but you must
avoid asking foolish questions. A good example of "foolish and
unlearned questions" is when you are discussing a certain topic and seeing your strong point on the topic, the Muslim
starts asking questions from 27 other topics are if it's an online textual debate like the one we do on facebook, he adopts "copy and paste" from
one boring Islamic websites. You will be tempted to forget about the topic
at hand and start asking questions from his myriads of baseless "copy and paste" argument. Ethics of
Apologetics demands that you call him back to the topic of discussion
instead of allow him to run away from the issue and module up the
discussion. Kangarooing from one topic to the other will cause confusion
and forgetting of the main subject matter, which would get you frustrated and can lead to strife. I
have seen many debating Christians fall for this trap right on my facebook wall. When the man tries to run away from the topic, bring him back.
Don't go asking stupid questions from his senseless, out-of-point "copy and paste" topics which do not truly demand for answers but only seek to run away from the topic of discussion.
Verse 24: "And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men (including Muslims), apt to teach, patient,"
A
Christian Apologist is a servant of the Lord. He is exposing the lies
of the devil and calling men to the salvation of Jesus Christ. You
should be gentle with the Muslims. (Please don't mistake this with being
gentle on Allah.) you should not call the Muslim friend, "stupid",
"fool", "idiot", etc even if the Muslim throws such insulting and abusive words at you and even though he asks meaningless questions. If the Holy Spirit speaking through Pauls letter to Timothy says you should be both gentle and patient, you can be certain that your gentleness and patience will have to be tried, and there's no better person to give you this trial than your Muslim friend. Remember there is no level of insult that Jesus did not receive, yet he remained cool. You
must understand that God loves your Muslim friend and it is the will of God for him to
be saved. A good Christian Apologist should be "apt to teach". This
means you should be given to teach or inclined to teach or be ready to
expose the truth. This means when you tell the Muslim that Allah is
evil, you should be ready to present very clear evidence to prove your
point with love. You are not to condemn your Muslim friend but to call him out of error and point him to Jesus the saviour of his soul.
So
you see my friends, the very verse some church people quote to
discourage up from reaching out to the Muslims through debate, is the
very verse that teaches us how to debate. When next you sit in church,
tell the person sitting next to you, ... "give me chance!"
