JEFFERSON CITY — The MBC has launched the Missouri Baptist Apologetics Network, a group of church leaders committed to the defense of the Christian faith and called to equip believers to more effectively share their faith. Learn more at mobaptist.org/apologetics.
Following is a profile of Bill Victor, a member of the Leadership Development Team at the Missouri Baptist Convention and pastor of Missio Dei Church on the campus of the University of Missouri.
To answer the hard questions about Christianity, Bill Victor starts in the center – the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Establishing the truth of the resurrection sheds light that puts the rest of the Bible into perspective, Victor explained.
“Jesus is part of a bigger story and if you take His death, His teaching and His authority seriously, you’ll want to find out the story He is part of,” he said.
Victor earned a doctorate in New Testament from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. As a member of the Missouri Baptist Apologetics Network, he brings an expertise rooted in facts.
“I approach things from a historical perspective,” he said. “My specialty is in discussing the Gospels as historical documents and the historical aspect of the resurrection.”
He has given presentations on the realities of the resurrection and addressed the topic of the trustworthiness of Scripture. For instance, one of the problems skeptics have with the Gospels is that they were written from a spiritual perspective, suggesting that means they cannot be factually accurate.
“My counter is the Gospels are not that much different than historical documents of that time period,” he explained. “The Gospels look like historical biographies of their day.”
Victor is also the pastor of Missio Dei Church, a campus church at the University of Missouri, and part of the Leadership Development Team with the Missouri Baptist Convention.
“The students know they can ask me any question about the Bible,” he said. “They know I have worked through these issues and I’m not looking at simple sources. They trust they’ll get a thoughtful answer from somebody who will affirm the claims of Scripture.”
It is a critical time as students, along with all Christians, are being bombarded by people questioning Jesus and calling into question the motivation of people of faith. Victor finds encouragement by studying history – how a group of 120 believers in an upper room grew to 30 million followers in 300 years.
“The early church didn’t grow through military might or political power,” Victor points out. “They were ostracized and persecuted and seen as weird. They did it because they were committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They loved their brothers and sisters and they loved others.”
They were also absolutely convinced of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“If this is true – if this person rose from the dead – he saw himself as the culmination of Israel’s story,” Victor said. “We should examine everything in light of that and you will understand the Bible more clearly in light of the resurrection.”