December 9 2002

ARTICLE TOOLS

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In a postmodern world in which people see many 'truths' as equally valid, how can you convince someone of the truth of salvation through Christ?
—Michael Curley, Hacienda Heights, California

One of the most obvious challenges Christians face from our postmodern culture is that there are so many "truths" that it seems impossible to speak of the one who described himself as the Truth. I have space to look at only two approaches to this question.

You could begin by affirming the importance of truth itself, and then move on to explain why the gospel indeed provides this truth. We all need to base our lives on something reliable, something that may be trusted. After all, who wants to base a life on delusions, lies, or dreams? The traditional evangelical emphasis upon the objectivity of truth affirms that we need to find something that is true in itself, not something that we would just like to be true.

You could then move on to affirming that the gospel is indeed true by focusing on the way in which it has transformed your own life. This allows you to build on two emphases that postmodernity finds particularly attractive—personal experience and telling stories.

Our culture seems to have come to value stories over arguments. This allows you an opening to tell your story—the story of how the gospel became real in your life. The gospel is not just true, it is real. Telling your personal story of faith is one of the best ways of declaring the transformative power of the gospel.

You might like to try a second approach: Focusing on the attractiveness of the gospel. You could point out how Paul regarded all his achievements as being trivial compared with the unsurpassable richness of knowing Christ (Phil. 3:7-8): "Whatever was to my profit, ...