Equipping families for worship through apologetics

1 Peter 3:15 instructs us to "regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you."Wow, what a challenging exhortation! There is an ever growing number of threats to Christendom. Is this verse saying that it is the Christian's job to defend against any and all threats, objections, attacks, and false gospels? As unrealistic as that sounds, yes, that is exactly what Peter challenges us to do. Most church people think that they are living up to "regarding Christ as holy," by abstaining from using His name as a curse word, but this exhortation goes much deeper than that. When we truly regard Christ as holy we will by nature begin to fulfill the great commandment Matthew 22:37-38 "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment." When we love the Lord with all of our heart then we will care about the things of God. When we love with our soul, or life, then our purpose will be to live for His glory. And lastly, when we love with our mind we will seek to know the Lord, and that includes being able to defend His existence, His nature, and His Word to "everyone who asks reason for the hope that is in us."

At first I Peter 3:15 does indeed sound unreasonable, but let's look at it this way. The God that entrusts us with our heart, soul, mind, and strength requires us to use those gift for His glory. He gave us those gifts for that reason, and to use our heart, our soul, or our mind for anything else is to rob God of the glory He is due. The unreasonable thing is to use even one second of our spare time for selfish ambition or vain pursuits when "every good and perfect gift is from above (James 1:17)." We must offer those gifts back to the giver. Our lives must be living sacrifices (Romans 12:1-2). We must mourn over lost time, recognizing that all of the free time that we have wasted doing things that do not matter was granted to us for a purpose; He calls us to use every fiber of our being for His glory. We have no excuse for our excessive, God denying ignorance of His Word, His Law, or the evidences that prove His Lordship over humanity when we consider all of the luxuries we have been given (computers, cars, wealth, education, ect.). No one is doing the "best they can" or anywhere close to "good enough." Even if we start viewing every moment as a stewardship, and use it to the best of our ability, fulfilling I Peter 3:15 will be a lifetime quest that we will never perfect. The Bald and the Bearded want to strive toward it with you. Ask questions. We will try to help you find answers. I hope this portion of our blog will begin to equip leaders with a trusted ally in the battle for our culture, one soul at a time.

(The Bald One- Matt)