CE,
Not so! I'm talking about the examples given by the apostles in the Book of Acts.
Whenever they first approached pagans, who neither believed nor even knew the Old Testament Scriptures, they never began by quoting Scripture. Rather, they first approached them in reference to the physical creation and their intuitive knowledge of a primeval Creator (note especially
Acts 14:11-17 and
Acts 17:18-31).
Even at the Areopagus (Mars Hill) in Acts 17, Paul declared the knowledge of God to Jew & Gentile:
22 Then Paul stood up in the court and said, `You men of Athens, I see that you are very religious and worship many gods.
23 As I walked about, I looked at the things you worship. I saw one place where you make sacrifices. You have written on it, "To the God we do not know." You are worshipping that God, but you do not know him. I will tell you about him.
24 He made the world and everything in it. He is the Lord of the sky and the earth. He does not live in houses that people make with their hands.
25 Men cannot worship him by things they make with their hands because he does not need anything. He is the one who gives life and breath and everything else to all people.
26 God made one man. From that one man he has made all the nations of men to live on the whole earth. He has given to each nation a certain time and a certain place to live.
27 He did this so they would look for him. He wanted them to reach out and find him. But he is not far from each one of us.
28 In him we live, and move, and are alive. Some of your own writers have said, "We have come from him".
29 `Therefore we have all come from God. So we should not think that God is something made of gold, or silver, or stone. He is not made by men's hands.
30 In times past God did not look at what people did. They did not know any better then. But now he is calling all people to stop doing those things.
31 God has set a day when he will judge the whole world in the right way. He has chosen a man to do this. He has proved to all people who the man is. He has raised him from death' (Acts 17:22-31 WEB).
As a former Pharisee, Paul would have known this theology about the existence and character of God from the Scriptures, but he did not begin his presentation: 'This is what the Bible says ...'
We can do the same with atheists and other unbelievers.
Oz