The role a mother plays in shaping her child’s worldview should not be underestimated. If she is not
equipped and empowered with the truth of the Gospel, her children will battle to navigate a world
that is largely shaped by the secular culture.
It is not easy to have answers for things like gender fluidity, feminism and evolution, but if more women and men are grounded in truth, they can provide good answers to their children’s questions. This was the main theme of the first-ever Apologetics SA woman’s conference that was held in Pretoria recently.
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“We need to be grounded in truth, and know how to answer the difficult questions our generation
has, so that we can serve the world that is in desperate need of the Gospel,” Nathanya Chapman, the
conference host said.
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Some of the important topics discussed at the two-day conference were “Understanding gender fluidity” by Prof Reitz Rodseth, “Feminism and the Christian woman”, by Dr Louise Mabile and “Understanding the role of the government”, by Nicola de Jager.
Nel Brace, who has a B.Ed and MA in biblical studies spoke about “What is the truth about love?” — a topic that stood out especially for me.
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“If we are not grounded in the truth, there is no way we can defend our faith,” Brace said. According
to her, one of the most important skills a Christian should have, is to be able to speak the truth in
love.
“If we don’t know what the truth is, and we don’t have a love for understanding it, we can’t
defend our faith; we need to live out the truth, especially in a hostile environment, just like the early
Church of Ephesus,”
Arrogant
“How many times have we heard that we are arrogant when we speak the truth? – One of the first
things people usually say is that we can’t possibly know the truth, and are arrogant when we
proclaim that we do,” she said. “But it is simply not true, the truth is grounded in reality – if we don’t
know what the truth is, there is no foundation for our faith. We believe in Jesus, because we know
that His Word is true, and everything in the Bible is grounded in reality, otherwise there is no real
reason to believe in God,” she explained.
According to Brace the secular culture wants to highjack our language so that we become confused.
“We need to listen closely for the linguistic theft of our popular culture, stealing the truth right in
front of our noses, things like – It is ‘your’ truth, is a lie. There can only be one truth, otherwise the
meaning of what truth is, is changed and it does not align with what reality is anymore. There are
words that we need to fight for, otherwise our children won’t have any real moral fibre, and they
won’t know the truth anymore.”
What is reality?
She saID that truth is not subjective, it does not matter what your perspective of truth is, or what
your opinion of the truth is — truth is truth and it cannot be changed. “Unfortunately if people don’t
like the truth, they will attack it by making it seem that you are unloving when you speak it and they
will retaliate by saying that you are judgemental and unloving,” Brace added.
“Again this is a lie, as we are according to the Bible able to make good judgements, and we should be able to tell someone that what they are doing is not grounded in truth. We have to realise that there is a war against false ideas. If we agree to falsehoods and accept them as truth, we lose the war.”
The meaning of love
Brace believes Christians should understand the true meaning of loving one another. “Loving
someone does not mean that you have to affirm everything the person does or says. We don’t need
to be tolerant of immoral behaviour. True love means that we actively seek to help a person
discover who they are in Christ, by helping them to become good.”
According to her we should all seek to help each other find our true purpose and fulfil it. “What is
a good knife?” she asked. “A good knife, is a knife that does what is was intended to do — which
is to cut easily through an item I want it to.” She said God created and designed us for a certain
purpose in his Kingdom – “Discovering who you are in Him, and fulfilling that purpose, makes you
a good person, because you are useful to God and thus honour Him with what you do.” she said.
“God created us to flourish and become all we were created to be.” She said that we should always seek to uplift others by telling them the truth in love. “If we don’t tell a person truth, we won’t help them to
reach their full potential in God.”
Brace said it is of utmost importance in this day and age to pursue the truth with all we have. “We
need to drive out the darkness of falsehood by discovering the truth and to share it with others. It is
the only way to break down strongholds.”
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Yes, may we encourage one another to speak God’s truth, to speak it in love but without it there is only confusion.