Bodie Hodge - Confound the Critics: Answers for Attacks on Biblical Truths

First printing: August 2014

Fourth printing: August 2021

Copyright 2014 by Bodie Hodge. All rights reserved. All right reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, broadcast, stored, or shared in any form whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews. For information write:

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ISBN: 978-0-89051-838-0

ISBN: 978-1-61458-415-5 (Digital)

Library of Congress Number: 2014943928

Cover by Diana Bogardus

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson,Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture marked NASB is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960,1962,1963,1968, 1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture verses marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Special thanks: Dr. Georgia Purdom, Dr. Terry Mortenson,

Dr. Tommy Mitchell, Dr. Jason Lisle, Frost Smith,

Stacia McKeever, John Upchurch, Andrew McKenzie,

Jeremy Ham, Tim Chaffey, Paul Taylor, David Wright,

Troy Lacey, Tim Lovett, Eric Lutz, and Ken Ham.

Contents

Introduction

How can this book help me?

For years, hosts of people have asked Answers in Genesis to help them reply to newspapers, opinions, internet websites such as blogs or debate boards, books, DVDs, and other media by non-Christians who are attacking creation or other aspects of the Bible, the character of God, or Christianity in general. Many of these attacks are rather hostile in their approach, and Christians really struggle with answering many of the claims.

Many Christians have written books that help people answer these questions, and I've been a part of some of these books (e.g., The New Answers Book series, Ken Ham, gen. ed.; How Do We Know the Bible Is True? series, Ken Ham and Bodie Hodge, gen. eds.; Demolishing Supposed Bible Contradictions series, Ken Ham, Bodie Hodge, and Tim Chaffey, gen. eds.). Some Christians have written books that discuss the theory behind how to answer (e.g., Always Ready , Dr. Greg Bahnsen; The Ultimate Proof of Creation , Dr. Jason Lisle), but this book is unique in that it helps put the theory and answers into practice. By the way, these books that I just mentioned, I highly recommend.

For example, let's use a game to provide a good analogy. Let's say you want to play pool. You can study the science of momentum about how balls move and interact with each other. You can even study the various games (8-ball or 9-ball) and learn all about them, and this is good, but until you put what you've learned into practice, that knowledge does you little good. You need to be able to hit the pool ball into the pocket when the time comes.

That is the thrust of this book. It is to help show you how to use the answers and how to use the theory when the time comes. I do this by giving you practical examples of situations that I've been in and how I responded when the time came. So hopefully, these examples will help you apply answers when the time comes for you. Consider some verses to get you going:

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5; ESV).

But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame (1 Peter 3:1516; ESV).

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8; ESV).

Stats

At the ministry of Answers in Genesis, we receive a large volume of correspondence that needs a response. In the years that I strictly worked correspondence, we received about 10,000 to 16,000 emails, phone calls, and written letters. One year, I did some statistics on the emails and found that about 6.5 percent were hostile non-Christians (mostly atheists and agnostics or other forms of humanism). And sadly, about 3 percent were from hostile Christians (mostly those who believed in an old earth and/or evolution and mixed it with the Bible)!

If this percentage is largely accurate (and it seems consistent with other years as well), that means we've had to deal with about 950 to 1,520 negative correspondences per year! Reading such diatribes can get you down, but you need to look at it as an opportunity to witness to people and help correct them where they have misunderstood biblical Christianity. Don't take such attacks personally, but remember:

"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me [Jesus] before it hated you" (John 15:18).

Getting started in a response: a few helpful hints

As I dealt with quite a bit of hostile correspondence, I realized that I needed to look at this as a positive. I had an opportunity to reach out to an unbeliever, or perhaps a compromised Christian. I needed to be discerning for several reasons. Up front, it is our responsibility to get the person to realize the importance of Christ for their lives and repent (2 Peter 3:9), or if they are a Christian to realize the importance of God's Word in their lives as the authority in all areas (2 Timothy 3:16).

Discernment in general

First, you need to be able to determine the stance of the writer of a negative letter. Is the writer a Christian, atheist, compromised Christian, Mormon, Hindu, Islamic, angry, sad, mocking, etc.? This will help you determine how to reply. And you need to keep in mind that these people are not the enemy, but that the false philosophy has taken them captive (Colossians 2:8).

Discernment about their view of the Bible

Also, you need to be discerning about how they might view the Bible. If they appear to believe the Bible, then use Scripture (and a lot of it!) and set up the debate as that faulty belief system vs. God's Word . By setting it up as "a viewpoint vs. Bible," they should be helped to realize that it is really about a "false philosophy vs. God." It takes the battle away from "you vs. them" and puts it where it should be: God, demolishing the false view (Hebrews 4:12). Many of these people do not realize that they have bought into a secularly biased worldview, or if they do realize it, they fail to realize why it is wrong or inconsistent, especially with God's Word.

If they don't seem to believe the Bible or even mock it, you should still use it but make sure to address why it can be trusted, using things like "presuppositional apologetics" or other aspects of the ultimate proof (don't let this scare you, as these are addressed in some of the books I've previously mentioned). Essentially, you need to "pull the rug out" from underneath the unbeliever's worldview by showing how they are borrowing from a biblical worldview to even make their case and, hence, revealing that the Bible is true whether they have realized it or not.