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    The Reason Why: Faith Makes Sense
    The Reason Why: Faith Makes Sense
    The Reason Why: Faith Makes Sense
    Ebook100 pages1 hour

    The Reason Why: Faith Makes Sense

    By Mark Mittelberg and Matt Mikalatos

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    About this ebook

    Everyone wants to believe in something beyond or someone bigger than themselves, but nobody wants to be duped. In order to provide answers to people who are seeking the truth, Mark Mittelberg updates for today the classic book by Robert Laidlaw that sold millions, The Reason Why. This short book gives clear, concise reasons why belief in God makes sense.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTyndale House Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2011
    ISBN9781414352596
    The Reason Why: Faith Makes Sense
    Author

    Mark Mittelberg

    Mark Mittelberg is a bestselling author, international speaker, and executive director of the Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University (StrobelCenter.com). Mark was the primary author of the Becoming a Contagious Christian course, translated into 20 languages and used by nearly two million people, and now the all-new Contagious Faith book and video training course.

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    • 4/5
      Apologetics and material setting forth of the Christian argument are quite prevalent these days, especially since there seem to be quite a few who stand up loudly against Christianity in society and popular culture. Yet far too many in our society have not even stopped to give the matter much thought-- they have gone along with the currents of society and do not really know any better. They might imagine that science has disproven the existence of God, or that any higher power might remain unknowable. Regardless of their views, they are not extremely well thought out, and spiritual concern may not be very high.Mark Mittelberg is well-known for his apologetic material; he has now worked to revise Robert Laidlaw's The Reason Why, and the work is now available as The Reason Why Faith Makes Sense. While some of Laidlaw's original material is quoted, most of it seems to come from Mittelberg. The book is designed as a basic discussion of the big issues involved-- the origins of everything, who God is, who we are, what the problem is, and how we get to the solution.The book is quite short-- 120 smaller pages using a large font. It could easily be read in the space of an hour or two in an afternoon or evening, and that is its purpose. It is really designed for the person we described above: someone who may not agree with the Christian perspective on things but mostly because they are not aware of the arguments for Christianity. The book cogently sets forth the gist of the arguments in a fairly understandable way, starting with the existence of God the Creator, moving on to the Bible as His revelation, why it is that we are accountable before God, who Jesus was and what He did, how forgiveness is available, and what must be done about it. There are some notes at the back that go into some of the issues in more detail, but the overall material remains quite basic.The material is very consistent with what Mittelberg has written elsewhere-- see particularly The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask-- and The Reason Why Faith Makes Sense can properly be seen as the small handout edition of his apologetic works.For its purpose, the majority of The Reason Why Faith Makes Sense is excellent. It is just too bad that when he gets to the point of discussing how to "accept Christ," Mittelberg deviates from the Biblical pattern of confession, repentance, baptism, and obedient discipleship (Romans 10:9-10, Acts 2:38, Romans 6:3-7, 1 Peter 3:21), and instead advocates for the non-Scriptural innovation of the "sinner's prayer". Mittelberg also highly recommends the NLT, probably not least because it is the translation printed by Tyndale, the publisher of his book. One can find an easy to understand version (e.g. ESV) without getting an interpretive version (the NLT).If one is looking for a basic way to present the main arguments for the Christian faith, there is value in The Reason Why Faith Makes Sense. Sadly, however, it cannot be really recommended for its target audience-- the "ignorant unbeliever"-- because of how it would lead them astray at the end.*--book received as part of early review program

    Book preview

    The Reason Why - Mark Mittelberg

    Introduction

    Spiritual vertigo—that’s what a friend of mine calls it. It’s that dizzying feeling you get when you suddenly sense that the arguments or claims you’re hearing have knocked you off your spiritual moorings, leaving you wondering what you can really believe in and how you can be sure. If you haven’t felt the doubts and anxiety associated with spiritual vertigo yet, you probably will—regardless of what you believe.

    Our culture is bent on the idea of questioning everything, including whatever it is you’re currently trusting in. The process of examining your beliefs can be very unsettling. On the other hand, it can force you to refine your assumptions and beliefs in order to make sure you know where they are pointed and why.

    This happened to me years ago, when I took my Introduction to Philosophy class in college. I felt like I was in way over my head. As a business major, I wasn’t sure I should even be trying to interact with what seemed at the time to be such lofty and out-of-reach ideas about knowledge, truth, metaphysics, and faith.

    Then one day our professor stood in front of our class and systematically challenged what he called the traditional view of God. He proclaimed that the concept of an eternal, unchanging, all-powerful God was based on ideas from a book—the Bible—that was written by hopelessly flawed human beings, had been edited and embellished over time, and was full of factual errors and contradictions.

    If that’s a view you hold, keep reading. But although things might be different today, at that time most of the students in class had grown up with the traditional view, including me. I wanted to refute what the professor was saying, but the thought of getting up and challenging this learned teacher made my knees grow weak and mouth go dry. Worse yet, I realized I didn’t really know what to say. I didn’t agree with him, but I didn’t know how to refute his claims. I felt intimidated and spiritually insecure.

    What bothered me most as I left class that day was the realization that I hadn’t ever thought deeply about many of the beliefs I’d grown up with. I’d accepted most of them by simple trust, expecting that my parents and teachers had told me the truth. But now I needed to know, in real terms, whether it made sense to hold on to my beliefs about God, Jesus, the Bible, and the message of divine grace and forgiveness. I wasn’t anxious to throw away what I’d been taught, but I didn’t want to take it all on faith, either. In short, I needed—and maybe you need—to find out whether there is a real basis for believing any of these things. Put another way, I needed to know the reason why.

    You may have grown up with a background similar to mine. Or you may have been taught to hold very different religious views, or none at all. You might be reading this and realizing that you, too, have accepted most of your beliefs by simple trust, expecting that your parents and teachers have told you the truth without considering the claims seriously for yourself. But no matter what we grew up thinking about existential questions, the truth is that we all believe something. And as I did back in Intro to Philosophy, at some point we must each face the same issues: Is there meaning to life? Does faith make sense? Can logic or evidence point me toward a trustworthy set of beliefs? If so, which one?

    * * *

    The universal need for answers to these kinds of questions prompted Robert A. Laidlaw, an innovative and highly successful businessman in New Zealand, to write a powerful little book called The Reason Why a century ago. What he produced quickly mushroomed into a worldwide phenomenon.

    Laidlaw initially wrote The Reason Why to explain his faith to his employees at the department store he founded in Auckland, Farmers Trading Company—a business that is still thriving today.1 Initially he printed only 5,000 copies, thinking such a large quantity would probably last a lifetime. But there was such strong interest in the book that he had to immediately reprint it, and this process was repeated over and over again. Since that first edition it has been published in numerous forms and translated into more than thirty languages, and there are now more than 50 million copies in print!2

    I was first exposed to Laidlaw’s book around the time I was feeling spiritual vertigo in that philosophy class. I found its information and anecdotes to be extremely down-to-earth and helpful. I read it through several times, as well as studying a number of other books that went into greater depth on the questions that most concerned me. This served to dramatically reinforce my faith. The irony is that after that rocky foray into the field of philosophy, and after completing my bachelor’s degree in business management, I ended up earning my master’s degree in philosophy of religion—and I have been speaking and writing in this area ever since.

    But I keep going back to the simple brilliance of The Reason Why, and as a result I have given away literally hundreds of copies to people with all kinds of faith-related questions. I’ve found that its stories still pack a punch, but over the years I have increasingly realized that its language and some of its examples needed an update—and that its repertoire of reasons needed an expansion to address more of the issues being asked in our current culture. It was out of that awareness that the vision grew to write a new and expanded version of The Reason Why for a new generation.

    With inspiration and some of the stories drawn from the original—mixed with many of my own approaches and examples—this is my humble attempt to present to my contemporaries the same important truths that Robert Laidlaw so effectively presented to his.

    It is my sincere hope that what you read on the pages that follow will provide you with the reasons you need in order to find a clear and confident faith. Please read it with an open heart and a receptive mind. And as you proceed, be mindful of the promise Jesus made in Luke 11:9-10:

    And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

    Mark Mittelberg

    Denver, Colorado

    Matters of Faith Really Matter

    Maybe you really will live to the ripe old age of eighty, ninety, or even higher. Actuary tables say that these days your chances are fairly good. By most standards that would be a pretty long life span.

    But have you ever thought of that length of time against the backdrop of eternity? Try plotting those eighty years on a chart next to eternity and you’ll soon realize that your entire earthly life is represented by a tiny dot that’s barely visible next to what follows it! What if all your days here are mostly just preparation for the life that comes next—the real one? How would knowing that now

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