The Case for Case Making

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to the youth students at our church on the topic of discipleship.  The lesson I used as part of my preparation included passages from Matthew chapters 4 and 9 to show that Jesus’ team of disciples weren’t necessarily what we would consider the “cream of the crop.”  The other point emphasized in the lesson was that we must first repent and believe before becoming disciples of Jesus Christ.

Also during this time, I had started reading J. Warner Wallace’s Forensic Faith.  In the preface, he describes the “awkward truth” of the Case for Case Making.  This prompted me to pose a question to the students- “What needs to come first? Repentance or belief?  The point I was hoping to make was that not only is belief the first step, but understanding why you believe.  Meaning, we are Christians because we believe Christianity is true. 

Wallace makes a great point that we as Christians “have a history of doing whatever it takes to respond to real human challenges. But there is another real challenge on the horizon.  Christians are leaving the church in record numbers.  Surveys and polls have been exposing this trend for many years now.” ¹

While I think it’s critically important to work through the Bible with our young people, it’s just as important to emphasize the truths of Christianity so they can begin to understand the overwhelming evidence for what we believe to be true.

Click here for the Truthbomb review of Forensic Faith.

Footnotes:

1.   J. Warner Wallace: Forensic Faith p. 26

God Bless,