*** SHOW NOTES (not fully edited or a transcript) ***

Lead:

When in dialogue with someone, how do you discover where they’re at and get them to the good news of the Christian worldview? Today we summarize Nancy Pearcey’s method from Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes. #conversational apologetics #forthehope

Intro:

Wooohooo! We start the Book of Romans here at For the Hope with a couple firsts…we hit an all-time high in terms of unique listeners this last week, and here’s a first…if you’re of a certain vintage, you’ll probably remember an old TV show called “Name That Tune.” Well…

…another first, we added a music snippet from one of the movies that has influenced culture with a non-Christian worldview more than most. And I know that even with a couple seconds of “name that tune” you know the movie right? Star Wars.(1)

Worldviews are a bit like that…there are foundational questions that everyone has an answer to whether they realize it or not. Where’d this all come from? Why are we here? Why is this place royally messed up? Where’s it all go?

Today in our All Minds Segment I’m going to share with you a literal summary of a summary of a killer book that, if you’re a Christian ambassador, helps you see the steps of connecting with someone’s worldview and mapping a path to the good news of the Christian worldview. If you are NOT a Christian and you’re still just checking out the whole Jesus thing, you might find this interesting, too.

But as we always do here, we start with the Bible, and today we kick off one of the chewiest books in the whole Bible, Paul’s letter to the Romans (that he obviously wrote before he was martyred at the end of yesterday’s program). This means there’s a new video from The Bible Project to check out (just go to forthehope.org and search for episode number 918). And here’s the big picture of where we’ll be for the next 8 days:

The Book of Romans tells us that the Gospel — the good news — A) reveals God’s righteousness, B) creates a new human which C) fulfills God’s promise to Israel and D) unifies the church. And in the first few chapters we see that all humanity is trapped in sin and needs to be rescued, that rescue won’t happen by trying to obey the old Jewish laws, God’s righteousness has offered the world rescue through Jesus, and those who trust Jesus as their Savior creates the faith-based, multi-ethnic family promised to Abraham way back in the book of Genesis.(2)

Sponsor:

You! If you’re enriched by what we do, would you kindly share it with others or give us a review or rating on your favorite podcast app? And if you buy a book from one the affiliate links in the sources below, that supports this ministry, too. THANK you.

Bible:

Passage: Romans 1-2
Translation: ESV (English Standard Version)
Verses: 61
Words: ~1334

All Our Minds:

So the first thing you should do is add Nancy Pearcey to your read list. There isn’t a bad book in the bunch. But today I want to give you what is literally a summary of a summary of a methodological approach to use that helps you dialogue with someone. To be sure, not all of our conversations follow nice little patterns, but I trust that in just exposing the five steps to you that you’ll catch the essence of what we are called to do — with all gentleness and humility — as ambassadors. And again, if you’re a skeptic, you will learn something that is utterly foundational to your worldview, too. Oh, and you should know that I’ve reworded some of them so some things take a little less explaining, because we’re going to barely do justice to what Nancy wrote in a whole book.

1. Identify the idol

An idol is any substitute for God, not just something made out of stone or gold. It’s something valued more highly. As we read in Romans, if humans don’t worship God, they make a deity out of something. Or as Pearcey puts it, “…they fasten on to some part of the created order and declare it to be ultimate reality.” If you don’t know what that is for the person you’re speaking with, start by identifying their idol.

2. Identify what the idol denigrates

Here’s the problem with idolatry: when one part of creation is deified, the other parts will be denigrated. When you find that thing/belief that the idolatry devalues, dismisses, or denigrates, you have found that which falsifies their worldview dehumanizes people -- lowers their concept of humanity -- by denying an attribute that makes us distinctively human).

3. Do a thought test

Test their worldview against the facts of experience and truths of the created order. Because both physical nature and human nature give evidence of the Creator, false worldviews will fail to fit the evidence. They will contradict knowable facts.

4. Shine a spotlight on the conflicting beliefs

With gentleness and humility, demonstrate where their worldview is self-defeating so that you escalate their cognitive dissonance. Every one of them will. If necessary, point out that they can’t hold that worldview without making an exception for their own thinking.

Every false worldview is self-defeating because it reduces reason to something less than reason. Yet nobody can build their own case without using reason. Shining a spotlight on the conflicting beliefs makes obvious where it undercuts or refutes itself, escalating their cognitive dissonance. Or as I first heard Greg Koukl say, “You leave ‘em with a pebble in their shoe so every time they take a step they think about it.” But assuming we get to keep talking, Pearcey’s fifth step is…

5. Make a case for the Christian worldview

Address their sense of a need for more, or wholeness, or conscious consistency by showing how Christianity resolves that conflict.

The bottom line

All of this is helped, of course, when you’re confident that the Creator and Sustainer of the cosmos - the very one who created it all in perfect order — has a way of seeing things that is perfectly cogent and coherent and explains all reality. It doesn’t mean that I or we perfectly understand it all, and that’s where trusting Jesus and what He did for us that we couldn’t do comes in. BUT…none of us make even a single decision in all of life with perfect knowledge, so why not trust the one with whom and by whom and in whom everything else makes sense…philosophy, science, psychology.

Ok, maybe none of us will ever understand why Jack in the Box puts so much sauce on their burgers…pretty sure not even God knows that answer to that.

Wisdom:

Passage: Proverbs 10:1-6
Translation: ESV (English Standard Translation)
Verses: 6
Words: ~95

Love you!

-R

ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.

Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.

Sources and resources:

Thank you for supporting this ministry should you choose to use the Amazon affiliate links below.

(1) John Williams, Star Wars: Main Title (link)

(2) The Bible Project, “Overview: Romans 1-4,” October 8, 2016, instructional video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej_6dVdJSIU&list=PLH0Szn1yYNecanpQqdixWAm3zHdhY2kPR&index=12&t=0s.

(3) Nancy Pearcey, Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes (Colorado Springs, CO : David C. Cook, 2015), page 255-257. Kindle.

Not cited today, but this week we’re using one of my faves! —> Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008).

#918: Romans 1-2 | Idol to Gospel | Proverbs 10:1-6