Understanding the Times by Ham Ken

Author:Ham, Ken [Ham, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Chapel Library
Published: 2013-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

6. 1 Peter 3:15 “Be ready always to give an answer”

“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness gentleness and fear [respect].”

One of the problems in the Church is that we have not given answers as we should have.

We did some research recently. We published it in a book entitled Already Gone,[33] which I authored with Britt Beemer from America’s Research Group. We wanted to find out why two-thirds of our Christian young people are leaving the Church. We interviewed about 1,000 young adults between 20 and 29 years old who used to go to church as kids and no longer go to church. We only interviewed those who had attended a conservative church because we wanted to skew the results: these would be the best they could be. We wanted to find out why they left the Church. Most of those interviewed had attended public school. This is true in our culture, 90% attend public schools; and 85.9% of children from church homes go to public schools.

When we asked them, “At what age did you really begin to question the contents of the Bible?” their answers were surprising. It was not in college. 42% are already questioning the Bible by the end of middle school and another 45% by the end of high school.

Then we asked them, “If you don’t believe the Bible, when did you first start to have doubts?” They were not having doubts in college—we lost them long before college. 40% of them were having doubts by the end of middle school and another 44% by the end of high school.

Then we asked, “Would you say questioning was the beginning of your doubt in the Bible?” 56% answered, “Yes.” Questioning, questioning—it is the Genesis 3 attack! They go to public schools, watch television, and are taught about “millions of years” and evolution. Then they come home to their parents or go to their pastor or Sunday school teacher, and they ask about “millions of years” and evolution—and they are told, “You can believe that if you want; it really doesn’t matter. Just trust in Jesus.” And then we wonder why we are losing them!

Here is the answer to why we are losing our children: the problem is our Christian education! The research found that we are not teaching the Bible as a book of history and that we are not teaching our children before they leave home [how] to defend the Word. We have not taught them to answer the skeptical questions of this age. We have not taught them apologetics.[34] We have taught devotion, spirituality, and morality, which is what you hear a lot of times from the pulpits—relationships, spirituality, morality. But we have not taught the Bible as actual history, and we have not taught how to defend the faith against all manner of skeptics in this modern age.

The

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