I don’t know anyone that authentically follows Jesus that hasn’t struggled with faith at some point. Some people struggle intellectually: they learn something new and don’t know how to compute it with their faith. Others are troubled because of crisis: Something horrible happens and they don’t know if they believe anymore, because they can’t imagine God letting the pain or evil they’ve experienced go unchecked.

A little observed fact about Christianity is that struggle is a good thing. Few good things happen without scars. (And everyone needs to grow up, out of the ignorance of youth.) No one ever lived a great life without some sort of turmoil. The greatest leaders in Christianity have suffered for their beliefs, and nearly all of Jesus’ earliest followers died for their beliefs.

Mind over matter. Faith over intellect. Wisdom over knowledge. We’re convinced that the alternative is better: that one of these is better than the other. But Paul says that knowledge is a gift. It’s not something to be set aside when you start believing, but incorporated.

Intellect itself convinces us that some people are more gifted with knowledge than others. We’ve been in classes with these people, and we all know the stories of the most gifted among them (e.g., Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison). But Paul is talking about a different kind of knowledge. It’s not just one about facts and numbers. (Although the type of people gifted with the type of knowledge Paul is referring to would likely be good with that as well.)

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

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Imagine waking up tomorrow in a hospital bed, unsure of how you got there.  As you look up around the room, you notice several unfamiliar faces that are looking empathetically at you.  In the midst of your aching head and confusion, one of those persons says they're your spouse.  But you don’t recognize them, and you have no idea how you got there.  You just want to go back to your life as you know it and wake up from this bizarre dream.

Suppose in that old familiar life you were already engaged or even married to someone else.  Suppose you had a career in law but in your newly awoken life you were a renowned visual artist.  The amount of disorientation – a rebirth and change in your life that was unforeseen and now unrecognizable – would be staggering.  Yet, it would be true.

For the past few days I have been trying to think of the top ten verses that would be most helpful to apologists and evangelists. I have reflected on my own experience and also gotten feedback from many of you on Facebook and Twitter. So, here are my top ten verses to defend your faith (in no particular order):

1 Peter 3:15: “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;”   As an apologist you may find yourself having to defend the purpose of apologetics. This is the classic verse indicating that everyone is to be prepared to give an answer with gentleness and respect.

John 1:1-3: “¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”  This is one of the most compelling and clear articulations of the deity of Christ. It shows that Christ is the eternal creator and is one with (although distinct from) the Father.

“Just some ordinary conversation over dinner.”  At least, that’s how my host described this event.  In January, I was invited to have dinner with a couple of dads and their sons to facilitate a discussion on the problem of evil.  It was a spur-of-the-moment request and details were a bit fuzzy, so I met my host Jon 30 minutes prior to talk specifics.  He informed me that not only would Christian dads and sons participate, but his 60-year old parents, both skeptics of Christianity, would join us as well.  That night’s conversation turned out to be exceptional.  Why?  Because of apologetics.  

For too long, apologetics has been given a bad rap.  Too many Christian voices point to a few poor apologetic examples, extrapolate them to every apologist and apologetic encounter, and then dismiss the entire enterprise.  But in doing so, Christians abandon one of our greatest tools to engage the world for Christ.  My recent conversation demonstrates why.

Joe Carnahan’s The Grey is the first truly great 2012 release. Which is surprising. I didn’t expect all that much from it, thinking it might just be a typical “angry Liam Neeson” action film. But wow is it more than that.

Ostensibly a “been there done that” narrative (survivors of a plane crash in the harsh environs of remote Alaska try to stay alive), The Grey adds impressive layers of depth to what might otherwise just be a serviceable action thriller.

Neeson leads a band of seven survivors when a plane full of oil drillers crashes in the wintry, impossible wilderness of Alaska. From there, the movie could essentially be called Man vs. Wild. Or, more appropriately: Man vs. Wolves. There are wolves everywhere, and they are territorial and hungry. They like killing humans. And, one by one, they savagely pick off the band of plane crash survivors, stalking them mercilessly with those big, bad, glow-in-the-dark eyes.

This week Daniel Radcliffe and Demi Moore--with personal demons to spare--have again shown how celebrity confessions redefine redemption for a public community. I always believed forgiveness was an act of God wherein a man’s spirit is made right again through divine mercy. Yet the new faith for a secular world has made public opinion the modern high priest: we allow you to do bad things--and then forgive you for it--as long as a self-effacing confession comes with it.

It’s Public Relations 101: If You Judge Yourself, We Won’t.  High profile confessors fare much better than high profile defenders. If you cop to your sins quickly in this country, you’re beloved. Radcliffe, who recounts struggling with alcohol as a young actor in the spotlight, humbly admits his faults this week and suddenly the public swoons over his maturity. Moore, who openly confesses a life of self-destruction and narcissism, is surrounded by supporters who wish her a safe passage. 

When a Hollywood studio options the rights of a book to make into a movie, fans of said book get nervous. And rightly so – how many adaptations have we seen in the past where things go from grand and glorious, to botched and reworked?

So, when I had the chance to learn more about the film “The Vow” (due out this Friday), I learned that fans of couple Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, whose lives and book inspired the film, will be in for a potentially unpleasant surprise: Screenwriters Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn have never read the book. They just got some ambiguous direction. “They (the studio) really said ‘a couple, they’re married, a crash, she doesn’t remember him.’” So naturally, we are in for rough waters, right?

But for “The Vow,” the filmmakers were intent on making a compelling narrative inspired by true events, not based on true events. Said Kohn, “I’d prefer that. It leaves us free to create whatever we think would make the most of that dramatic situation. Whatever characters we want to create, whatever past we want to have for them, we can invent. I think that left us free to create something that we felt best served that.” After all, there are some book adaptations that are so faithful that they lose sight of the possibilities given the medium of film.

Recently, Mark and I had a conference call with a pastor of a large church to pick his brain on some potential writing projects. As he spoke wisdom poured out of his mouth and one of his comments struck me, “God just doesn’t seem real to a lot of people any more.” 

He believed a big reason why is due to our avoidance of suffering.

Okay – I don’t like to suffer and I’m guilty of doing my best to rid it in my life and my family’s life. I want everything to be fun, easy-going and feel-good. However, by doing this, am I missing out on an opportunity to experience God in a new and deeper way?

Perhaps I’m not alone in dodging suffering. Our culture has made it convenient for us. If something hurts, we can numb it with a pill. Our mobile and transient lifestyle allows us to escape stressful relationships. We can change churches, schools, jobs, even marriages instead of dealing with the issue.

A popular political debate which has been prevalent for centuries revolves around the question of what the future holds for the Jewish people.  For Christians and Jews this is a question that goes beyond politics.  The debate is a matter of theology too.  With the latest political uprisings in the Middle East, the questions of how peace will be accomplished in that part of the world go on, as well as what the future holds for Israel.  Despite all the enemies, hateful messages, and acts that have been brought against Israel throughout their history, God has always preserved for himself what the Bible calls a “remnant”.

A “remnant” is a small part of something that remains after the rest has gone.  In anthropological terms a “remnant” is an isolated group of people surviving from a culture or group. The “remnant” is a significant aspect of God’s relationship with Israel as it is representative of his covenant relationship to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not on any basis of works done by these patriarchs, but because of God’s gracious election. (Romans 11:28)