Whac-A-Mole: Atheism — Friday
2 Timothy 2:23-25
Again I say, don’t get involved in foolish, ignorant arguments that only start fights. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. (NLT)
I’ll admit it—I secretly love a nice, dramatic Facebook comment section. As we all know, nobody delivers a more compelling, worldview-changing message than a riled-up soccer mom or well-meaning Cousin Eddie lookalike on social media posts.
The truth is that jumping into social media conversations and throwing around the Bible and your beliefs isn’t apologetics, and in my opinion, it does more harm than good. If you’re not participating in those ways, maybe you fall on the other side of things and wish you knew a little more about effective ways to share your faith without coming across as offensive or out-of-touch to the atheist or non-believer in your life.
Today, I want to offer up a simple but useful tool I learned from Greg Koukl’s book Tactics that can prove invaluable in scenarios where either you’ve pursued a conversation with the atheist in your life, or you just end up needing to defend your faith to someone.
A quick term to know before we jump into this idea is burden of proof. It is essentially the idea that you owe someone a compelling and convincing answer to whatever they ask or say, and Christians often get trapped by it in conversations and interactions.
Koukl offers a solution he calls the “Columbo Tactic,” based on the old detective show of the same name. This tool allows for control of the burden of proof in conversations simply by asking questions.
Let’s say someone tells you, “I don’t believe in God.” If you’re someone who does believe in God, that puts the burden of proof on you to tell them why they should believe. With the Columbo Tactic, you can instead explore the beliefs of the other person with a simple question: “What do you mean by believe?” That shifts it back on them. Taken further, you could potentially wade through years of misunderstanding and superficial ideologies without ever mentioning your own beliefs until you’re ready to do so.
As we wrap up the week, I hope you’ve been able to reflect on opportunities you have to start introducing people to Jesus, but I also hope you feel more confident in your ability to do so. And remember that, even though we may not always have the perfect words or knowledge ourselves, He’s gracious to guide us and give us wisdom when we need it. Just as Jesus told His disciples, “…don’t worry about how to defend yourself or what to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what needs to be said” (Luke 12:11-12).
Friday’s Reflection
Where do you see opportunities to introduce people to Jesus right where they are? How can growing in your faith expand those opportunities? Pray that God continues to reveal both of those things to you!
