“It doesn’t matter how much faith you have, if the object of your faith is not valid you will go straight to hell,” he said. “The value of the faith is not in the one trusting, but the one in whom you are trusting. … It is not the faithfulness of the one who believes, but rather the faithfulness of the one who is believed in.”

Josh McDowell told the 1,800 people present at the 18th annual National Conference on Christian Apologetics, that when he came to Christ, one of his all time favorite verses became, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32 ESV).

“As a non-believer I had a lot of misconceptions about the truth,” McDowell said, and he shared several of the misconceptions with those attending his conference workshop.

The Oct. 28-29 apologetics conference was held at Northside Baptist Church in Charlotte and sponsored by Southern Evangelical Seminary.

1. “I truly believed that the Christian faith was a blind faith.”
In introducing his first misconception, McDowell quoted two Scriptures:

“… ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” (Matthew 22:37 ESV) (emphasis added)

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,” (1 Peter 3:15 ESV) (emphasis added)

McDowell told the crowd about some fellow believers “who could tell me what they believed, but not why they believed it. … My heart cannot rejoice in what my mind rejects,” he said.

“The Christian faith is an intelligent faith,” he said, adding that Christians should “never be afraid of a question you can’t answer, because there are answers.”

McDowell said there were times when he had to put the questions on the “back-burner” until he had time to find the answers, but, “Here is the key: the evidence for Jesus’ deity is sufficient but not exhaustive.

He quoted John 20:30-31: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” (ESV)

“There is sufficient evidence for an intelligent faith in Jesus,” he said.

2. The Christian faith was a subjective faith.
McDowell’s second misconception was that Christianity was subjective. He thought that “it didn’t matter what you believed as long as you believed it. … A believer said to me ‘I can’t prove it, you just got to have faith.’”
……

3. That the heavenly Father was just like my earthly father.
“People would say to me ‘your heavenly Father loves you,’” said McDowell, “and that did not bring joy, it brought pain.”

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