From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 4 (final) of a series. Read part 3.

"Christian apologetics" is not the exclusive domain of a purported class of trained specialists. It is the responsibility of every believer, indwelled by the Spirit and equipped with God's Word.

What is the true nature of Christian apologetics? We find the answer in First Peter chapter 3, beginning at verse 15:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense [in the original Greek, an apologian, a reasoned answer] to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.

The Keynote: Holiness

Far too often even those who are labeled as experts in apologetics violate an essential rule of Biblical interpretation by lifting this passage out of its context. The context of First Peter 3:15-16 is not a how-to course on debate, argumentation, semantics, or logic. The context is a series of commands and exhortations regarding Christian conduct. The entire epistle of First Peter is about living in holiness in a world that is hostile to holiness. Holiness in thought, word, and action is the keynote. The Holy Spirit through Peter strikes this keynote for the first time early in chapter 1:

Therefore gird up the loins of your mind [literally, "prepare your mind for action"], be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:13-17)

With the theme of the book and the context of the passage in mind, what does chapter 3 beginning at verse 15 tell us about apologetics?

Five Great Principles

It tells us, first of all, that this is not the exclusive domain of a purported class of trained specialists. The command to "always be ready to give a defense" is addressed to all Christians, not a select few. "Giving a defense" is something that every Christian is capable of doing, because every regenerated saint has the indwelling Spirit of God and the living, powerful, authoritative, eternal Word of God: 

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever, because "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the Word of the Lord endures forever." Now this is the Word which by the Gospel was preached to you. (1 Peter 1:22-25)

Secondly, we must "sanctify" the Lord God in our hearts. This means that we must "set apart" God in our thinking. His mind must be paramount in our minds. We must seek to make His thoughts our thoughts by the careful study of His Word. His authority must be paramount over any other authority, spiritual or temporal.

Thirdly, we must be ready to give a reasoned answer to everyone - believer or unbeliever - who asks a reason (logon, literally "a word") about the hope (elpidos, the confident expectation) that is within us. That word about our confident expectation can only have one firm basis: not the corruptible thinking of fallen man, but the incorruptible written Word of God that "endures forever".

Fourthly, our declaration of confident expectation in God is to be given "with meekness and fear". The word that is translated "meekness" is prautetos. This is the antithesis of the "false humility" in which false teachers delight as a mask for their inward pride (Colossians 2:18). It speaks rather of an inward spiritual temperament that accepts the authority of God to say and to do what He wills without dispute or resistance, knowing that all that He says and does is for our good.

Note carefully that this is not a meekness and fear toward men; it has nothing to do with surrender or compromise. It is a meekness directed not toward men, but toward God. Our heart-attitude in giving an answer for the hope that is within us must be an all-consuming concern with pleasing our holy God, giving a defense that honors Him, coupled with a righteous fear of dishonoring His name by misrepresenting Him or His truth.

The word that is translated "fear" is phobou. It has to do with a reverential fear of God as the controlling motive in giving an answer. It denotes a dread of displeasing the One who is our authority in all things. It further denotes an attitude of trust in God rather than in the flesh. This again underscores the fact that the "meekness and fear" spoken of in this verse has to do not with an attitude toward men, but toward God

Fifthly, the declaration of our confident expectation is to be given "having a good conscience". The words in the original would be more accurately translated "an unimpaired conscience". This speaks of a clearness of conscience that results from making God paramount in our thinking, resting in the confident expectation declared throughout His Word and not resisting His authority, and seeking His control over the answer we give.

Five Great Contrasts

What is the sum of these things? This passage tells us that we must think and act in a way that is the exact opposite of the thinking and acting of the false teachers that Paul describes in Colossians chapter two. We must practice holiness in our apologetic in a world that is hostile to holiness.

Recalling passages we have previously examined in the book of Colossians in conjunction with these words in First Peter, we find five great contrasts between those who promote falsehood and those who defend the truth of God's Word.

First, those who invent and promote counterfeit revelation are intruding into those things which they have not seen. Genuine Christians, in contrast, must testify of that which we have seen, the written Word of God.

Secondly, the spiritual counterfeiters put forth their false belief systems in the pride of the flesh. We are to give a reasoned answer for the hope that is within us, with "meekness and fear" - with humility and respect toward the Word of God and the God of the Word.

Thirdly, spiritual imposters put forth counterfeit revelations and false belief systems because they are "not holding fast to the Head" - the Lord Jesus Christ. The force of the words in Colossians is that they do not possess Christ. On the other hand, we who are truly believers do possess Christ, and we are to "sanctify the Lord God in our hearts". God is to be the Lord of our hearts, the Lord of our thinking, the Lord of our answer to counterfeit revelation. This means that the written Word of our Lord God must be the defense upon which we stand, the source of our reasoned answer to all men.

Fourthly, spiritual counterfeiters trust in their own flesh, and in appeals to the flesh, for results. We are not to trust in our own flesh, or make appeals to the sinful flesh. We are not to trust in our own ability to always say all of the right words in just the right way, or to come up with a method or gimmick that will "work". We are to trust in God the Holy Spirit.

1 Peter 3:16 commands us to act and speak in such a way that those who oppose us will see our good conduct in Christ and be ashamed - literally, that they may be confounded, that their sinful agendas may be thrown into disorder. In other words, Christians are not to operate by the unbelievers' rules. When Paul says, in Colossians 1:18, "Let no man cheat you of your reward," he is effectively saying, "do not let the false teachers make the rules." Christians must never operate by the unbelievers' rules. We operate by God's authority. He has made the rules. It is up to us to obey them. The false teachers' refusal to operate by God's rules is the inherent flaw in their entire structure of falsehoods.

And lastly, this means that while the false teachers worry about their reputations, and try to protect their reputations in sinful pride, we are not to worry about our reputations. We are to do what God tells us to do, and leave our reputations in His hands. Many Christians today want to wrap up their own reputations in results, real or imagined. They think and act as though their reputations suffer if there are no results visible to human eyes. But we are not responsible for the results of our defense of the faith. God is. He has promised that His Word will not return to Him empty, but will accomplish the purpose for which He has sent it. He alone can keep that promise.

Paul at Mars Hill: Biblical Apologetics in Action

This is exactly the pattern we find in the Acts chapter 17, when the Apostle Paul came to Mars Hill in Athens. We read that the pagan philosophers who gathered at that place "spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." Their idols, which represented their manifold counterfeit belief systems, were on display all over the city.

But did Paul first become an expert on their false teachings? Did he try to keep up with all of their moving theological and philosophical targets? No. Paul simply declared the truth of God to them. He declared to them the one Source of genuine authority. He proclaimed to them salvation in Christ. He understood their one real need, and so he addressed their one real need. Therefore, he testified to that which he had seen. He did it in the fear of God. He did it on the authority of Christ and His Word. And he trusted God for the results.

And what were the results? We are told, in Acts 17 beginning at verse 32, that "some mocked." Others said, "We are willing to listen to you again, some time." And, we are told, in verse 34 - and I am giving you a literal rendering of the Greek - that "a certain few joined him and believed." Some mocked Paul and his message. Some put him off. But a certain few, those of God's calling and choosing, believed.

That is how God uses the testimony of the genuine Christian, rooted and grounded in the authority of God and His Word. God uses our defense of the hope that is within us to show the hardness of the hearts of some. God uses it to plant a seed that He may later bring to spiritual life in others. God uses it to remove the supposed excuses of unbelievers, so that they will stand before Christ the righteous Judge without excuse. The people Paul addressed in Athens, every one of them, were from that moment onward more than ever without excuse before God, because Paul was a faithful messenger of God. But God used Paul's defense of the faith to immediately change others - a certain few - from spiritual death to spiritual life by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

In every case, God did the work. We must do our part. We must prepare our minds for action. We must be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us. But we must trust God to use our testimony to the truth according to His plan. The responsibility for results is His, not ours. This is our answer. This is the Christian's only place of confidence as we confront counterfeit revelation. As Paul wrote to the Corinthian church,

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so many, peddling the Word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:14-17)

An Eight-Year Old Demolishes the Transsexual Lie

I recently heard of a very simple but striking example of this. A Christian mother told me she had caught an unsaved adult relative trying to influence her eight-year-old son to accept the abominable falsehood that people can choose a "gender identity" - that a male can "self-identify" as a female and vice versa. The mother said her little boy, who has been faithfully homeschooled, simply looked at his unbelieving relative and said, "That's wrong. The Bible says that God made boys and God made girls."

Could there be a more straightforward and authoritative apologetic for the truth?

Is that to say that an adult believer would not bring forth supporting Scripture, and expand upon that very simple but actually very complete "reasoned answer"? Of course an adult could and should do that, as this mother did. But would ten thousand words or the exercise of sophisticated methods have brought any greater condemnation on the head of the false teacher? The prepared heart of a child pulled down the stronghold of an adult's ungodliness with a few simple but on-target words. Truly, that young mind was "ready for action". With the simplicity of a child he had "set apart the Lord God in his heart."

May it ever be so with each of us. May we ever be ready to give a defense. But may our minds never be "corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:3).

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