Imperishable Inheritance

On Wright State’s cam­pus we had the infa­mous “Quad God” (in one form) who felt it was his pur­pose to come to our cam­pus and call every­one in his sight from a “whore” to call­ing men “fem­i­nine” and doomed to hell (cf. Perry’s arti­cle). It is inter­est­ing to see the draw that this man has; his draw is not from peo­ple who want to hear what he has to say, peo­ple are drawn to him in order to per­pet­u­ate hate. There were non-believers who stood up and apol­o­gized to Chris­tians, because this man made Chris­tians every­where look rather foolish.

When I arrived last Thurs­day I was approached by many of the Chris­tians on cam­pus to get up and say some­thing. In fact, I was a lit­tle over­whelmed with how many told this to me. It was almost an expec­ta­tion. Even though I did even­tu­ally get up and denounce the man as a false prophet, there are rea­sons that kept me from going straight up and from going back. The thought revolves around how we, as believ­ers, are to defend the faith (and we were defend­ing our faith against this man’s ver­sion of Chris­tian­ity). Peter makes the apol­o­gists man­i­festo in his first epistle.

But even if you should suf­fer for the sake of right­eous­ness, you are blessed. AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, but sanc­tify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to every­one who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gen­tle­ness and rev­er­ence; and keep a good con­science so that in the thing in which you are slan­dered, those who revile your good behav­ior in Christ will be put to shame.
1 Peter 3:14–16

Let’s make some obser­va­tions on this text. Peter lists the fol­low­ing qual­i­ties in defend­ing the faith:

1. It is a bless­ing to suf­fer for right­eous­ness (14a).
2. Don’t fear intim­i­da­tion (14b).
3. Always sanc­tify (hold close) Christ (15a).
4. Be ready to make a defense for your hope (15b).
5. Defend the faith with gen­tle­ness and rev­er­ence (15c).
6. Keep a clean con­scious when being slan­dered (16a).
7. Oth­ers will be put to shame by your good behav­ior (16b).

So, what can we learn from Peter’s admo­ni­tion; and what do I want to share about why I was hes­i­tant to get up? We must, first of all, stay con­scious of the fact that we are to be meek and rev­er­ent in defend­ing our faith; and oth­ers see­ing our Christ-like behav­ior will be moved by it. The list above “sand­wiches” the admo­ni­tion to defend the faith with proper behav­ioral char­ac­ter­is­tics when doing so.

The man who came did not abide in love, and there­fore there was no truth in him. When we defend the faith we must have in our minds the desire to be hum­ble, open, and will­ing to be suf­fer for the right­eous­ness we are defend­ing. Take every oppor­tu­nity to defend the faith, but if in doing so you aren’t going to dis­play the char­ac­ter­is­tics of Christ then are you really accom­plish­ing any­thing at all? That man on the Quad may say the “cor­rect” Gospel, but he shows no true fruits of receiv­ing the Gospel. We must be cog­nizant to always be salt and light in this dark world.