Martin Lloyd-Jones, one of the greatest English-speaking preachers in history, defined preaching as “Logic on fire.” The preacher’s job is to demonstrate the clarity of the central argument made in Scripture concerning our relationship with God. When that message becomes clear to the mind, it demands a response from the heart. That’s where the “fire” comes in.
As Ben Baile has written, “Lloyd-Jones highly valued reason, but he knew that it alone is not enough.” Given the clarity, priority and urgency of the Bible’s message of reconciliation between God and man, the only reasonable response to that message is a deeply personal and heart-felt sorrow over sin, fear of God’s judgment, humility before God’s glory, comfort in God’s love, joy in God’s forgiveness, and hope in the cross where Jesus died for sinners.
But preachers aren’t the only ones who should be marked by “logic on fire.” Every believer has the privilege and responsibility to share the good news of Jesus with the world. If Jesus really is “the way, the truth and the life,” and if “no one comes to the Father except through” him, we have a sacred duty to share that urgent message with the world (John 14:6). Evangelism and missions are the logical end of what we believe. And since the heart can’t embrace what the head can’t perceive, our communication should be logic on fire.
One implication of this is that our credibility with skeptical unbelievers largely hinges on our ability to think and communicate logically. If we believe and pass on the many lies in our politicized culture that are aided and abetted by logical fallacies, why should anyone believe us when we present the logic of the gospel?
In this age of mass media, it’s never been more important for Christians to ably identify, analyze and avoid logical fallacies. I’ve written about this in other places, but recently, two good friends invited me to talk about it on their podcast, No Dumb Questions. Destin Sandlin represents the hard sciences and Matt Whitman represents the humanities, and in each episode they cover topics that are far ranging, from the serious to the silly. Somehow, they were able to make the topic of logical fallacies a fun discussion in this episode and I hope you enjoy listening to it here.
And speaking of listening to content, did you know you can listen to this article on your Substack app? There's a button you can click at the top of your screen that lets you listen to this article instead of reading it, which is really handy if you’re driving! Check it out:
One more thing: I publish this newsletter every Thursday and my aim is to equip Christians to live for Christ and help inquirers investigate the Christian faith. If you know someone who might benefit from it, find a recent article you like and send it to them. Maybe they’ll subscribe!
As a regular listener of the podcast, I had the momentary mental equivalent of “jumping for joy” when you were introduced on the episode
Wow! So richly worded! I want to commit your opening paragraphs to memory! The necessity to recognize fallacies and to clearly communicate the logic and reasoning of the gospel in a winsome manner has never been more urgent. Thank you once again, for saying what needs to be said.