How would you respond to that question? If that came from a lost person it would be very beneficial to their eternity if you could give more than, “Well I grew up in a Christian home.” Or “I just always have been.” Peter reminds us that we should be able to give a defense, a reason for the hope that we have.
but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. – 1 Peter 3:15 (CSB17)
You don’t get to say, “Well I have not been to seminary” or “I will have to get back to you on that.” If we are genuinely followers of Christ, we need to be pre-pared, we are instructed to be prepared, by the Word of God. Is it reasonable to be a Christian? Let me attempt to give you at least two possible lines of defense for the faith that you claim to have.
First of all, I look around at creation and I have a very difficult time believing that this happened by accident. The shear magnitude of what would have had to take place for us to simply have evolved from nothing. Male and female would have had to evolve at the same time in the same way for reproduction to be possi-ble. Our DNA is specific to each one of us even more certain than a fingerprint. Every cell in my body has my specific DNA and I have trillions of cells in my body. According to what I have read each cell contains enough information about me to fill 600, 1000-page books. I can’t see how any of that could happen by acci-dent. There is so much more about creation and the detailed nature of creation that I could not possibly even scratch the surface in this brief article.
The other reason I can accept Christianity as truth is because of the eyewit-ness accounts we have. If this had been made up, we would have stories that were exactly alike, and the heroes would be without flaws. You don’t make up histori-cal accounts from the first century and show major flaws in your leading characters (Peter’s denial for instance) nor would you have women be the first to find Jesus’ body. That doesn’t fit the culture of the day. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that there were some 500 eyewitnesses still alive in his day. If people were going to refute His resurrection, if it didn’t actually happen, that would have been the time to do it. However, too many people were still alive that saw Christ alive after He had been crucified and laid in a tomb.
These barely scratch the surface of being able to give a reasonable answer as to why you are a Christian. I would encourage you to equip yourself so you can give a defense. J. Warner Wallace has written a book called Cold Case Christiani-ty that is easy to read and enjoyable to read. He gives you reasons why you can trust the Gospel accounts and I would encourage you to read it. Wallace is a cold case investigator in California, a former atheist, who applied his investigative skills to the Gospels and found the evidence to be too compelling not to accept it as val-id.
You can give a defense for the reason you have hope if you are willing to equip yourself for those opportunities. Too many people around us will spend eter-nity in hell because they have not heard a compelling reason to believe the Bible. Let’s do what we can this year to change that for those we come in contact with. The Holy Spirit still has to change the heart, but we can push them to think about the facts while the Holy Spirit opens their eyes.
In His Amazing Grace,
Dan