Posted March 10, 2026
NOTE: As the founder of a non-partisan ministry, I do not endorse candidates or political parties. My focus on the theological issues I will discuss today would be the same if the candidate in question was running as a Republican or an Independent.
Today’s news is understandably focused on Iran’s new leader, the war, and its implications for Iran, the Middle East, China, Russia, and the global future. With all of that, you probably wouldn’t expect me to devote today’s article to a response to liberal Christianity.
However, as I wrote yesterday in explaining the worldview Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico is popularizing these days, the way Christians approach our faith and its relationship with the world is foundational to our understanding of the world and our role in it. Talarico, who is a Presbyterian seminary student and thus considered a “Bible scholar” by some in the media, is advancing his liberal version of Christianity with regard to abortion, transgenderism, gay marriage, and the claim that all religions “point to the same truth.”
In response, I articulated the basic interpretive principle I utilized in my doctoral studies and taught in seminary classes and churches over the decades: the Bible can never mean what it never meant. This principle has been embraced by Christians across the vast majority of Christian history.
How does it apply to the conversation before us today? Let’s consider two principles, then we’ll finish this discussion on Wednesday.
Before we look at specific issues, we should begin with this foundational fact: “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) is our mandate as we engage others, whatever their beliefs.
The Bible commands us, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6). Likewise, Peter’s admonition is the mandate that has framed every class in apologetics (methods of defending the faith) I have taught and every book I have written:
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, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame (1 Peter 3:15–16, my emphasis).
Every person you meet today is someone created by God in his image (Genesis 1:27) and loved sacrificially by Jesus (Romans 5:8). Fellow Christians with whom we disagree on some issues, such as James Talarico, are nonetheless our sisters and brothers with whom we will share eternity (cf. Revelation 7:9–10).
Talarico himself states, “I have met so many Hindus, Buddhists, Sikh, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics who are more Christ-like than some of the Christians I served with in the Texas legislature.” I would not dispute his claim, but I am saddened by it.
Make no mistake: We are mandated to declare the clear truth of Scripture, however unpopular it might be (cf. Romans 1:16). But we should always declare the truth of Christ in the spirit of Christ. As the great evangelist Dwight Moody reminded us, “Your life may be the only Bible some people ever read.”
Jesus’ familiar dialogue with a Samaritan woman in John 4 has always served for me as a model for relational engagement, not least because John was not there to record it (v. 8). The Spirit obviously could have directly revealed the story to John years later, but it seems likely to me that Jesus told it to his best friend and beloved disciple (John 20:21), intending it to be an example for generations to come.
Here we discover three invaluable steps:
In our text, we find our Lord, a Jewish rabbi, meeting in public with a Samaritan woman. He knows that she has had five husbands and is now living with a man (John 4:18) and is thus so notorious that she is forced to draw water from Jacob’s well at noon, a time during the heat of the day when few others would be there (v. 6).
When she comes for water, he asks her for a drink (v. 7). Since he is a Jew speaking to a Samaritan, a rabbi talking with a notorious sinner, and a man conversing in public with a woman who is not his wife, she is shocked (v. 9). She would never have spoken to him, so he speaks to her. His initiative makes all that follows possible.
The woman came for water, so Jesus began with water and led to “living water” (vv. 13–15). He started with her physical need and pivoted to her spiritual need. This was his pattern across his public ministry as he healed broken bodies, opened blind eyes, cleansed leprous limbs, exorcised demons, and raised the dead—all as a means to his larger mission “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).
We can do the same with liberal Christians like James Talarico. They focus strongly on poverty, injustice, and discrimination; so should we. They claim that the church should be active in seeking the common good, and they’re right. Of course, I disagree with some of the ways they seek to frame this engagement, as I’ll explain tomorrow. But we can agree that Christians should be the change we wish to see, then work to bring that change to culture.
When the Samaritan woman stated that the Messiah “will tell us all things,” Jesus announced to her: “I who speak to you am he” (vv. 25–26). She in turn invited her village to meet Jesus (vv. 28–30), and they came to believe that “this is indeed the Savior of the world” (v. 42).
Christianity is about Christ. The purpose of all apologetic and cultural engagement is ultimately to lead people to the only One who can forgive their sins and change their hearts (2 Corinthians 5:17). Otherwise, we can win debates and lose souls.
Tomorrow, we’ll focus on some specific issues James Talarico raises, offering apologetic responses for biblical truth. For today, let’s decide that we want to engage those who disagree with our faith. Let’s not be culture warriors for whom the other “side” is the enemy, but cultural missionaries for whom they are our mission field.
Then let’s love them as we are loved and share God’s word as an expression of God’s grace, all the while praying for God’s Spirit to advance God’s kingdom in their hearts and lives.
Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). This is a powerful way to help answer that prayer, one soul at a time, to the glory of God.
“The purpose of apologetics is not just to win an argument or a discussion, but that people with whom we are in contact may become Christians and then live under the lordship of Christ in the whole spectrum of life.” —Francis Schaeffer
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