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<\/a><\/p>\nAnthony Horvath, PhD, is a Christian author, publisher, and apologist who works out of central Wisconsin.\u00a0 Contact him at director @ athanatosministries.org.<\/em><\/p>\n The word for the kind of work I do is \u2018apologetics.\u2019\u00a0 It is from the Greek.\u00a0 Many joke:\u00a0 \u201cDoes this mean you are in the business of saying you are sorry?\u201d Very funny!\u00a0 It actually means, \u201cto make a defense.\u201d Christian apologetics is the \u2018defense of the Christian faith.\u2019<\/p>\n This defense usually happens along intellectual grounds, and for some Christians that is an insult to the very idea of \u2018faith.\u2019\u00a0 Obviously, it matters how we are defining our words, but suffice it to say, it is indeed possible to dwell too much on facts and arguments, but it still remains that the same God that brings us closer to him through faith in Christ also made our brains.\u00a0 Moreover, Jesus himself never relied on mere assertions and platitudes.\u00a0 He backed up his claims by miracles and appeals to the Scriptures.\u00a0 See, for example, John 14:11.<\/p>\n So, what kind of work is \u2018apologetics,\u2019 anyway?\u00a0 Well, one of the things I spend a lot of time doing is simply correcting misconceptions about the Bible, God, Jesus, and Christianity, and all the rest.\u00a0 Many times, I am talking with a non-Christian.\u00a0 Often, however, it is another Christian.\u00a0 When it is a Christian, they are often surprised to learn that a small detail can matter so much.\u00a0 However, when you spend as much time talking with people who have fallen away from the faith as Christian apologists tend to do, you learn that it was the small details that added up to fuel a crisis of faith in the first place.<\/p>\n This Easter, I want to call attention to one of those small details.<\/p>\n On this blog, one of the most popular articles I have posted is about the number of guards at the tomb of Jesus<\/a>.\u00a0 Presumably, churches are putting on passion plays, and are looking for insight about that part of the play.\u00a0 (You may have noticed elsewhere in this magazine that my own ministry is doing a passion play this summer, called \u201cThe Passion Experience<\/a>.\u201d)\u00a0 Now, if you ask a group of Christians how many guards were at Jesus\u2019 tomb, the general response will be that there were two guards.<\/p>\n Where does this idea come from?<\/p>\n It almost certainly tracks back to Christian art over the centuries<\/a>, which almost always depicts the tomb with only two guards.\u00a0 This is a \u2018fact\u2019 that Christians believe about the resurrection account that is not derived from the Scriptures, but from artistic portrayals.\u00a0 Even the recent movie, \u201cRisen\u201d only has two guards at the tomb.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mention this to condemn artistic portrayals.\u00a0 I am just explaining where this particular view probably arises, although it does naturally speak to the power of art more generally, which is something else my ministry <\/a>spends a lot of time talking about.<\/p>\n Why does it matter?<\/p>\n Who cares how many guards were at the tomb?<\/p>\n