Defending the Gospel by Kel Richards

It can happen at a barbecue. It can happen on a beach. It can happen to anyone, anywhere. It's that moment when a friend, relative or colleague makes a comment about your Christian faith and you suddenly realize you haven't the faintest idea what to say in response. Your mind is a blank. You're frozen to the spot. Worse still, what you say is not very helpful at all.

In Defending the Gospel, broadcaster and Christian evangelist Kel Richards shares how, over the years, he has improved on his ability to answer questions that non-church friends have asked about what Christians believe. With warmth, humor and clarity, he demonstrates how to anticipate gospel-related questions, how to construct the framework behind your response and how to get a conversation going.

This edition has been updated with new advice for the pressing issues of today, plus helps the reader with their 'world view evangelism'. It also incorporates parts of the new Two Ways to Live.

Title

Defending the Gospel
Author(s)

Kel Richards
Series

Two Ways to Live
ISBN

9781925424959
Publisher

Matthias Media
Topic

Evangelism & Mission
Audience

Adults
Published

01/05/2023

Overall rating

5.0 based on 1 review

Apologetics for all

Kel Richards has produced a guide to apologetics that will be helpful to all Christians, who are called to defend our hope (1 Peter 3.15). Books on apologetics can be quite factual and daunting. This one is very accessible as it focuses on how to talk to real people. The liberating truth is that we don’t have to defend anything except the Gospel, the hope we have in Jesus Christ. This means that we don’t have to defend the church, the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades or anything else that isn’t the Gospel. We don’t have to get bogged down in scientific arguments about creation and evolution (leave that to the experts), instead focus on the purpose (why does anything exist) rather than the process. A helpful insight is that you don’t have to prove something to know that it is true, again this avoids fruitless arguments. Instead Richards calls on Christians to listen and ask questions. Two ways to live is recommended as a structure to share the Gospel message. However we have to work harder than in the past as most Westerners have lost any conception of God, living on the ground floor of the house while forgetting there is another floor above. The rest of the book shares ways of defending different aspects of the Gospel: God, sin, judgement, Jesus, the resurrection, and the challenge of the Gospel. Other issues covered are suffering, truth, sex, religion and the church, as well as the different types of people we meet. Read this book, pray for people and see where your conversations go…