Scripture and You

How To 'Be Ready to Give An Answer'

By Paul M. Elliott
Scripture prescribes three steps in the kind of Gospel witness the Lord will use.

From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Scripture prescribes three steps in the kind of Gospel witness the Lord will use.

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear (1 Peter 3:15).

The early church suffered persecution and opposition, but this also opened many opportunities for witness. In our day we also experience opposition to the Gospel that likewise brings opportunities. In the verse above, the Holy Spirit through Peter gives us a three-fold key to making the fullest use of such occasions.

First, we are to "sanctify the Lord God" in our hearts. The Greek is hagiasate - to set apart as holy. We must recognize and rest upon the holiness - the complete "otherness" - of our Lord. He is above, outside of, unmoved by, and in complete control of, all the circumstances we face, all the situations in which we find ourselves, and all the people we encounter in life. He is sovereign in salvation.

Second, "always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you." The Greek word translated "ready" is hetoimoi - a readiness that is based upon the necessary preparations having been done. We prepare ourselves for the conflict, as Paul writes to the Ephesians, by taking up "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God" (6:17). It is that Word which is "living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).

Third, we must give our witness to the unbelieving world "with meekness and fear" - the words in the original denote, more literally, humility and respect. Such humility is born out of an understanding of the holiness of our God, and that the power is not in our flesh or intellect, but in His Word. Such respect is born out of an understanding that the unbeliever who is in the bondage of sin is nevertheless one who was created in the image of God - an image marred both inwardly and outwardly by the curse, as our own is. As Paul recalled his coming among the pagans of Corinth, many of them deep sinners, who later became the first Christians in that city, he wrote,

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

Some time ago we were told of a believer who works in a government office. This individual became aware that a coworker, also a Christian, was witnessing to another coworker who is a Jehovah's Witness. Some of the resources the coworker was using to witness to their unsaved coworker were from the Bible Knowledgebase of TeachingTheWord Ministries. When we heard about this, we provided both with copies of our book, The Truth About the Jehovah's Witnesses: How Do the Watchtower Society's Teachings Compare With Authentic Scripture?

One of the main reasons many people find these resources useful in "being ready to give an answer" is that they do just what the book title says: We hold the teachings and philosophies of the unbelieving world up to the light of Holy Scripture. As we say in the preface to this book,

the principal weapon of our spiritual warfare is, as Paul declares in Ephesians 6:17, "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God" - unchanging and unchangeable... [T]his book is not an attempt answer every variable teaching of the Jehovah's Witnesses in detail. We focus, rather, on the heart of the matter: the life-and-death differences between Watchtower Society teachings and authentic Scripture on the key issues of eternity - about the nature of Scripture itself; about the nature of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit; about man, life, and death; and about salvation, Heaven, and Hell. We take this stand upon Scripture alone with the confident prayer that the Holy Spirit will honor His Word. He has promised that it will not return to Him without fruit, but will accomplish the purpose for which He has sent it (Isaiah 55:11).

It is our fervent desire to help prepare Christians to stand upon the authority and power of the Word in their witness. We pray that many Christians may be "ready to give a defense" through prayerful preparation and recognition that the Word and the Spirit are the true sources of Gospel power, and that through their witness many may be brought into the kingdom of Christ.

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