Taking Every Thought Captive

Answers Book for Teens (AB4T) is designed to provide biblical answers concerning, God, truth, and morality for teens who have questions.

A total of fifteen questions are discussed. The questions are well-chosen for the target audience and flow in a logical fashion. The thing that stood out most to me about the answers was the extensive use of scripture. The answers never backed away from explicitly stating what God has already said on these questions.

The presuppositional approach the book takes is to be highly commended. The first question in the book is: “How can anyone believe hat the Bible is true since it was written so long ago when people didn’t know stuff?” The answer takes the reader through the presuppositional answer to this question. Here is one excerpt from the answer,

See, if the Bible weren’t true – we would have no basis for truth to even exist. Or for that matter we would have no basis for logic to exist. In fact, we would have no basis for knowledge at all! [1]

Furthermore, the answer says that Christianity must be true because all competing worldviews cannot account for knowledge and logic. In order to explain these things, these other worldviews have to “borrow” ideas from the Christian faith.

Question #4 asks, “Who has the most evidence – Creationists or Evolutionists?” The answer is well stated that both have the same facts! They only differ in the interpretation of those facts. The answer goes on to explain the role of presuppositions in interpreting facts. [2] Again, the use of biblical thinking and apologetics is to be commended. In fact, the transcendental argument for the existence of God is explicitly mentioned later in the book in response to the question, “With everything I hear about God not existing, how can we even know that He does exist?” [3]

Additional questions discuss racism and sexuality in the light of God’s Word. The biblical answers given deal with these issues in a straightforward and loving way.

The one concern I had with this book is that there are a few statements that seem to stem from Arminianism. Perhaps future books in the series will deal with God’s great salvation in a more careful and thorough way.

Overall, the book and its approach to answering questions that young people may have concerning the Faith are to be commended. The presuppositional apologetics are spot on. I would even recommend this book to a believer who needs a basic introduction to apologetics. If you give this book to a teenager, please follow-up with them on the answers. While they are more than just mere introductions, they are not and do not pretend to be exhaustive. They are just right to open up further discussions about our great God and His Word.

[1] Bodie Hodge and Tommy Mitchell with Ken Ham. Answers Book for Teens: Your Questions God’s Answers. Green Forest: Master Books, 2011. pg. 8.

[2] Ibid., pg. 27.

[3] Ibid., pg. 36.