Expository Apologetics (Basic Guide)
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What Is Expository Apologetics?
Recently someone I had connected with via social media made this request: “I want to learn more about expository apologetics.” The term expository apologetics comes from the book with that title by Voddie Baucham.
I read Expository Apologetics in 2018 and remember enjoying it. However, that was a while ago. So, to bone up on the concept, I watched this video, where Baucham lays it out in his own terms. What follows are my notes and interpretation of Baucham’s method of expository apologetics, as he explains it.
Why does he call his approach “expository apologetics?”
Expository preaching is the proclamation, interpretation and application of a biblical text.
Apologetics derives from the Greek word apologia, meaning a reasoned argument or defense. Apologetics is the discipline defending the truth of the Christian message.
So expository apologetics is the proclamation, interpretation, and application of Scripture to questions and objections.
Baucham says apologetics is about knowing “what you believe, why you believe it, and be[ing] able to communicate that in a winsome and effective way to others.”
To effectively defend your faith, you don’t need to know all the world’s religions. You just need to know what the Bible teaches. Further, you need to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities the Lord gives you, because of the situations and circumstances in your life. God will provide you with chances to get into discussions about your faith.
Biblical and systematic theology are crucial tools for expository apologetics, which we will come back to in the sections on creeds, confessions and catechisms below.
So you need to know what Christianity is, and you need to know how to listen.
Listening is an important element of expository apologetics, as it enables you to hear contradictions in the non-Christians position. Listening is also vital, in that it allows you to discover what the person actually believes. This keeps you from attacking straw men.
How do we do this well? Scripture gives us examples, and Baucham cites two such examples from the ministry of the Apostle Paul.
Paul’s Apologia
For biblical inspiration on how to make this work, Baucham draws our attention to the methodology of the Apostle Paul. Specifically let’s look at what Paul says as he defends the faith and answers objections in Romans 3 and Acts 17.
What is Romans Chapter 3 Talking About?
Baucham cites four examples from Romans 3 to show how Paul uses apologetics.
He answers one objection straight from Scripture. In Romans 3:4, Paul asks, “What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God?” Paul responds to this challenge with a reference to Psalm 51:4.
He answers another objection with a general theological argument. In Romans 3:5–6, Paul asks, “Is the God who inflicts wrath unrighteous?” He answers with an appeal to the theological principle that God is the judge of the world.
He refuses to answer a strawman. A strawman argument is a misrepresentation of a view, in order to more easily defeat it. In Romans 3:8, Paul simply dismisses a strawman common in his day: “And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), ‘Let us do evil that good may come’? Their condemnation is just.”
He sometimes goes on a theological diatribe. In Romans 3:9–20, Paul answers the question of whether Jews are better off by taking the reader through several passages in Psalms and Proverbs, to establish a doctrine of total depravity.
The big takeaway from these examples in Romans 3 is this: Paul didn’t abandon Scripture or feign neutrality when defending the truth, and neither should you. Don’t put down your Bible. Don’t act like God doesn’t matter. And don’t pretend to be neutral.
Acts 17 Commentary
After laying out Paul’s first approach to apologetics in Romans 3, Voddie Baucham looks at Acts 17 to expose Paul’s second approach. In Romans 3, Paul was speaking to people who knew the Bible. In Acts 17, Paul speaks to those who are biblically illiterate. However, even here he does not abandon his worldview. The expository apologetics approach of answering objections with scriptural truth still stands.
Instead of quoting Scripture to his audience in Acts 17, Paul goes to the metanarrative of history: creation, fall, redemption/repentance and consummation.
Paul talks about the “God who made the world” (creation, Acts 17:24), the sin of idolatry (fall, Acts 17:29), the need for repentance (redemption, Acts 17:30), and the future judgment (consummation, Acts 17:31).
Paul unapologetically takes his pagan audience to the biblical worldview. This shameless standing on biblical truth is at the heart of Expository Apologetics.
Voddie Baucham says that we have lost strength in this area today because we have lost our ability to indoctrinate people. By this he means indoctrination in a positive sense, viz. teaching sound doctrine.
What is the Purpose of Creeds and Confessions?
How should we prepare to engage in expository apologetics? For Voddie Baucham, the best preparation is to study the historical documents of the church that were designed to summarize and teach the biblical doctrine (to “indoctrinate”) in a memorable way.
Imagine a world in which the majority of Christians were taught the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds. Surely, there would still be some disagreement, but this would be a world in which the church was prepared to articulate and defend the Bible’s teaching, perhaps much better than we can today.
What Are the Best Apologetics Resources for Children?
Voddie Baucham says that a catechism is “the number one apologetics training tool in the world.” (I agree with him, and I made this exact point in my interview on Eli Ayala’s show, Revealed Apologetics, here.)
Why is this? Because a catechism is literally questions about God, the world, and life, answered with Scriptural truth. Given that this is the exact goal of expository apologetics, one can see why Baucham favors catechesis as apologetics training.
Get your own free copy of the catechism I wrote for my own children, Catakids!, here.
So if you want to learn expository apologetics, study your Bible and learn the historic creeds, confessions and catechisms of the faith. Test everything—including those historic documents—by Scripture, and if you disagree with certain parts, leave those parts out.
Voddie Baucham’s Expository Apologetics Waltz
Baucham presents a three-step method for defending the faith (this is very similar to my own three-step method. For that, go here). He calls this the Expository Apologetics Waltz.
Listen and discover their argument.
Demonstrate the logical inconsistency (e.g. they appeal to morality without God).
Demonstrate how that thing (e.g. morality) works in your worldview, and get to the Gospel.
There is a strong emphasis on evangelism in Expository Apologetics, which I appreciate.
For more on Baucham’s Apologetics Waltz, check out this article by my friend Tom Schmidt.
The goal of expository apologetics is know what you believe, why you believe it, and be able to communicate it effectively and winsomely to others.
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