Apologetics Now or Apologizing Later

"But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” 1 Peter 3:15

Ar e you teaching apologetics to the children in your ministry? Do you have a plan to teach kids not just what we believe, but why we believe it? Think about this statement with me for a few minutes.

If we don't teach children apologetics now, one day they may be apologizing for what we taught them.

Want to wait until they are in high school? That will be too late. The enemy isn't waiting. Satan is waging an all-out effort to capture the hearts of children before they leave elementary school. I often think about this quote.

In the race to a child's heart, the first one there wins. -George Barna

13% of today's children say they are atheists. In a post-Christian nation, this is twice the number of adults who claim to be an atheist. Can you sense the urgency of this?

I think we often stick our head in the sand and pretend that everything is just fine. We tell ourselves that the sweet little kids in our ministry would never even consider walking away from what we are teaching them. But nothing can be farther from the truth.

In many cases, here is what happens. They arrive at college, unprepared and not equipped to answer the hard questions about the faith. And when they are questioned at a deeper level, they have no answers. Over a period of time, they enter a faith crisis and are swayed to turn their back on Jesus and His church.

Enough is enough. It's time we stop with the cute little lessons and help kids discover the solid foundation our faith is built upon. If we don't help kids answer the tough questions, they will get the wrong answers as they are growing up and will walk away in many cases.

We can't wait until the enemy brings the wrong answers. We must be proactive.

I was doing an apologetics series about the Bible with the children. I went to some atheists' websites and found verses that they claim are errors in the Bible. I then brought those verses to the kids and helped them see that the verses did not contradict each other. None of the verses were errors.

Here's an example.

In John's Gospel it says that Mary was at the tomb. (John 20:1)

"Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb..."

But then the Bible says in Mark 16 that there were 3 women at the tomb.

"Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb. On the way they were asking each other, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”

At first glance it looks like these verses contradict each other. John says that only Mary was at the tomb. But Mark 16 says there were three women at the tomb. Which is it? Is this a contradiction found in God's Word?

No. If you take a closer look at John 20, it goes on to say this...

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and WE don’t know where they have put him!”

Notice what the verse goes on to say. Mary says that "WE" can't find Him. "We" is plural. So even though John only mentions one person by name (Mary), it goes onto say there were more people there with Mary when it uses the pronoun "WE."

There is no error found in these verses. But if we don't help kids take a deeper dive on verses like this, they can be led astray if we don't help them discover the correct answer to questions like this.

We know the vast majority of people come to Christ while they are children. We must focus our outreach to children while we have the opportunity.

Here are two apologetics teaching series that I have produced. These are designed for children. They can be used on Sunday morning or as mid-week Bible study series.

You can click on the images below to see sample curriculum, teaching videos, large group teaching, small groups and more.

These series can help you prepare kids to know why we believe the Bible is true, why Jesus is the Son of God, why we believe God created the world and much more.

We have a big job ahead of us. The cute little answers we have provided for kids in the past will not work with today's kids. We must dive deeper and teach them the why or they will grow up without a solid Biblical framework to live by.