How do we defend the faith?

Question 60001.

Nobody teaches most of us how to defend the faith. We learn to pray, we learn to find Habakkuk without the contents page, and then one day a colleague says something about the Bible being edited by emperors and we discover we have nothing to say.

Scripture is not vague about this. It gives us a method, a manner and a limit, and I want to walk through all three, because the manner is where most of us come unstuck and the limit is what keeps us sane.

Start with the command

Peter tells scattered believers under real pressure to be prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope in them, 1 Peter 3:15. The instruction to defend the faith is given to the whole church, not to a department of it.

Jude adds urgency, telling his readers to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The faith there is a body of truth with edges, something that can be handed on and therefore something that can be lost.

I take from those two verses that every believer is expected to defend the faith at some level, and that being unprepared is a fixable problem rather than a personality type. If you want the wider definition of the discipline, see what apologetics is.

The method Paul actually used

Watch Paul move between audiences and you learn more than from any manual. In the synagogue at Thessalonica he reasoned from the Scriptures, because his hearers accepted them. At Lystra, among farmers with no Bible, he pointed to rains and fruitful seasons and the God who gave them.

At Athens he stood in front of philosophers, quoted their own poets, used an altar to an unknown god as a way in, and then landed on the resurrection and the coming judgement, Acts 17:31. Same gospel, three different routes to it.

So the way to defend the faith is not one memorised argument deployed regardless of the person. It is knowing your hearer well enough to find the door. That takes listening, which is the part most training courses skip.

Ask questions before you answer

Jesus answered questions with questions constantly, and it was not evasion. A question exposes what is really being asked, and what is really being asked is often not the words on the surface.

When someone says they cannot believe in a God who allows suffering, the honest follow up is to ask whether something has happened. Nine times out of ten there is a name and a date behind the philosophy. To defend the faith with a syllogism at that moment is to answer a question nobody asked.

The other benefit is that a question moves the burden. Every position has to account for the same world, and asking a sceptic how his own account explains moral outrage or human dignity is not a trick. It is an invitation to think.

Know the ground before you defend the faith

Some preparation is unavoidable. If you want to defend the faith when the Bible is attacked, you need to know something about how the text came to us, which I set out in whether we can trust the manuscript transmission.

If the conversation turns to whether any of it happened, the resurrection is where I would go, since Paul stakes everything on it in 1 Corinthians 15 and invites his readers to check with witnesses who were still alive. I gather the material in the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

And if the objection is that all religions are basically the same, the differences are not decorative, as I show in what about other religions. You do not need to master everything. You need one solid path through the ground you actually walk on.

The manner is not optional

Peter’s instruction ends with gentleness and respect, and Paul tells Timothy that the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, correcting opponents with gentleness, 2 Timothy 2:24. It is possible to defend the faith accurately and sinfully at the same time.

I have done it. There is a particular pleasure in taking apart a weak argument, and it is not a holy pleasure. The person in front of me is not a target, and the aim is not the last word.

Gentleness is also strategically superior, though that is not why we do it. Nobody was ever humiliated into the kingdom. When you defend the faith with obvious care for the person, the argument gets a hearing it would otherwise be denied.

Evidence, reason and their proper place

God is not embarrassed by evidence. Luke writes so that Theophilus may have certainty, John records signs so that we may believe, and Jesus offers Thomas his hands and his side. Faith in Scripture is trust grounded in testimony rather than a leap in the dark.

At the same time, evidence never compels. The religious leaders had a resurrected Lazarus available for inspection and their response was to plot to kill him. That is not an evidence problem.

So I use evidence honestly and hold it loosely. It removes excuses rather than producing faith, and knowing that difference has saved me a lot of frustration when a good answer does not land.

Handling the moment you do not know

You will be asked things you cannot answer. Say so. The words I do not know, but I will find out and come back to you, have opened more doors for me than any clever reply.

What you must not do is bluff. Christians who invent answers to defend the faith do lasting damage, because the invention is usually discovered and everything true you said gets discarded with it.

Then actually go and find out. A conversation continued next week is worth more than one won today, and the effort itself communicates that the person matters to you.

Your life is part of the argument

Peter puts the defence between two commands about behaviour, honouring Jesus in the heart before it and keeping a clear conscience after it. Paul tells Titus that sound teaching should adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour, and the word is where we get cosmetic.

That is uncomfortable, because it means the strongest way to defend the faith in most workplaces has nothing to do with argument. It is being the person who tells the truth when it costs, who does not gossip, who is unhurried with people nobody else has time for.

The New Testament assumes that a watching world will ask about the hope in you. If nobody ever asks, the answer may not be that our arguments are weak.

Where it all ends up

Every good conversation should be heading somewhere. Objections are the porch and the gospel is the house, and it is possible to spend years on the porch discussing the brickwork.

So learn to turn. When an objection has been genuinely addressed, ask the question that moves things on. If this were true, would you want to know Him? That question has ended more of my conversations usefully than any argument.

And keep praying while you talk. To defend the faith without prayer is to treat the exchange as a purely human transaction, and Paul asked the Colossians to pray for open doors as well as clear words.

What to do when the conversation turns hostile

Not every exchange is a genuine enquiry. Some people want an audience, some want a fight, and Jesus Himself declined to answer certain questioners, saying nothing at all before Herod. Knowing when to stop is part of the skill.

Paul shook out his garments at Corinth when the opposition became abusive and turned to those who would listen. That was not defeat, it was stewardship of limited time. To defend the faith wisely includes recognising when a door has closed, at least for now.

Proverbs holds two verses side by side about answering a fool according to his folly and not answering him, which used to puzzle me until I realised it is a warning that no rule replaces discernment. Watch the person rather than the argument. If continuing would only harden him or humiliate him, leave it, pray, and let your ordinary kindness over the following months do what your words cannot. The Greek behind gentleness in Peter’s charge, prautes, describes strength under control rather than weakness, which is exactly what walking away sometimes requires.

So, now what?

Choose the one objection you meet most often and spend a month on it. Read one solid treatment, write out your answer in your own words, and say it aloud to somebody who will tell you if it sounds pompous.

Then go and be interested in people. Ask better questions than you are asked. Most opportunities to defend the faith arrive because somebody felt genuinely listened to first.

And leave the results with God. You are a witness, not the judge and not the jury. Who is the person God has already put in front of you?

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

2 Timothy 2:24-25, ESV