The Bible subjects the apologetic enterprise, as it does everything else, to the Lordship of Jesus Christ: "Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense..." (1 Pet. 3:15); and "...take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. 10:5) Since the prerequisite to giving a reasoned defense is setting apart Christ as Lord, since we are called to make every thought obedient to Christ as Lord, and since the Bible is the source of our knowledge of Christ and of His will, then of necessity we must derive our apologetic methodology from Scripture.
When calling on and reasoning with men and women to submit to the authority of God, or for the truth of the Bible as the Word of God, it would be inconsistent to subject the truth of this conclusion to norms and standards or to a general method that is itself hostile to that authority from the outset. We would, in effect, be arguing for the authority of Christ or His Word on the basis of some other authority, which tacitly assumes that this other authority is more authoritative than the Lord or more trustworthy than His Word.
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