Imagine the following scenario. You find yourself in conversation with a skeptic. This person may be an atheist, a doubter, or a spiritually wounded person. The bottom line: they think differently from you about the Christian faith.
During the conversation, the two of you open up to one another. Suddenly, your skeptical friend begins to share his or her thoughts, reservations, or objections with you. This is the pivotal moment: do you shut up and let your actions do the talking, or do you share your faith overtly?
If you’ve ever participated in one of these conversations, you likely walked away wondering if you made the right choice.
Were you silent when you should have spoken?
Did you speak when you should have sympathized?
Thankfully, we are not the first generation of Christians to face this dilemma. We can look back to the first-century church for advice.
We would do well to learn from Peter’s advice to Gentile Christians living in Asia Minor. He writes, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 NIV).
Peter’s audience lived in a pre-Christian society. Unlike us, they did not inhabit a world deeply influenced by Christian beliefs and ethics. As a result, the people around them thought the way they conducted themselves was strange and counter-culture. At times this peculiarity piqued curiosity. At other times, it produced harassment, criticism, and even persecution.
Though Christian beliefs and traditions profoundly influence our society, an ever-increasing number of people do not know the Christian faith. As it turns out, our post-Christian society presents us with many of the same problems 1 Peter’s audience faced. The people around us think the way we conduct ourselves is strange and frequently counter-culture.
As a result of these similarities, we can learn much from Peter’s advice in 1 Peter 3:15. Back to our original question: Should we shut up or share? Peter offers us three pieces of advice.
First, preparation requires us to shut up.
Peter advises the Gentile Christians to “always be prepared to give an answer.” They lived in a culture that found their way of life perplexing. The call to follow Jesus invited them to value the Kingdom of God’s priorities instead of the kingdom of man’s.
Like much of the New Testament letters, the Church wrestled over what it meant to follow Jesus. Did Gentile Christians need to become Jews? To what extent could Christians continue living like they did before they came to know Jesus? Many of the issues were contentious, and prominent Church leaders held different positions.
Through all of this, however, Peter insisted that Christians carefully consider the reasons for their faith and conduct. He knew that outsiders might question Christian ethics. While he was convinced that living as a Christian would ultimately prove beneficial to society, Peter wanted the believers to prepare to explain the reasons for their beliefs.
Before we try to share our faith with our skeptical friends, we should carefully prepare ourselves for questions. Why do we hold certain beliefs? Are we sure our behavior reflects Christ?
Second, share based on their questions.
Peter wanted his audience to be prepared to answer any question they might face. However, this doesn’t mean he expected them to share the reasons for their faith in every conversation.
Certainly, Peter believed in a time and place for the public proclamation of the gospel. After all, he once preached a sermon through which thousands of people came to know Jesus (Acts 2:41). However, Peter’s advice in this passage is for the interactions when people ask questions.
Conversations with our skeptical friends, whether they are atheists, doubters, or spiritually wounded people, should be based on their questions, not on our desire to demonstrate our intellectual brilliance.
Their questions should form the basis of our preparation. We do not study our faith for ourselves only, but for our neighbors. Our goal isn’t merely to produce an air-tight argument that will persuade them to our point of view.
Our goal is to consider our faith from their vantage point. What questions might they ask? What objections will they raise? How might the Christian life seem offensive to them?
The more we can anticipate and entertain our friends’ questions, the more robust our faith will be and the better prepared we will be to converse with them when they ask us questions. In the end, Peter is convinced that this will demonstrate the validity of the Christian faith.
Third, shut up and share like Jesus.
Peter gives his advice to Christians facing public consequences and potential persecution. When he advises his audience to answer anyone who questions them, he knows the questioner will likely be their adversary. Still, he insists that Christians engage anyone who asks them a question in the same fashion that Jesus engaged those who persecuted him.
To be clear, your conversation with a skeptic will likely never result in your persecution. This observation, however, means we have no excuse to ignore Peter’s advice. All of our encounters with the skeptic should look like Jesus on the cross.
This means that when we shut up, we should shut up like Jesus, who “was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).
We should let our atheist, doubting, and spiritually wounded friends expend their anger and frustration on us without fear of retribution. We must be a place where they can vent about their past experiences and current frustrations. The only way to do this is through our silent empathy. We should stretch out our hands and embrace our friends with the love of God that is willing to die for them in silence.
When following Peter’s advice, we discover our voice only after we die for our friends. Jesus proclaimed the gospel to those who were long imprisoned after His resurrection from death. Even so, we should learn to share with our skeptical friends after we have learned to die for them.
This means our sharing comes after we have spent sufficient time considering their questions. In our silence, we take on their perspective to explore our faith. Why do we believe the way we do? Why do we behave the way we do?
So, when should we talk about Jesus with a skeptic? We should talk to them about Jesus after we have considered their questions. Then, when our skeptical friends ask us about our faith, we should share with them about Jesus.