Luther on Defending Our Faith

1 Peter 3:15
In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you!

Luther wrote, "when you're challenged to defend your faith, you should never respond with arrogance; never be defiant or forceful like you're tearing trees out of the ground. Instead respond with humility and fear, like you were standing before God and answering to Him. If you stand before a prince and have prepared yourself well in advance with scripture you might think, 'just wait I'll give the best answer!'. But the devil will grab the sword from your hand and give you a shove, you'll be disgraced and find out that you put your armor on backward! He can even take the best Bible verses from your hand so you can't use them anymore, even if you have them memorized. God allows this to happen to subdue your arrogance and humble you. And if you want to avoid this, then stand in fear and do not rely upon your own prowess. Instead rely upon what Christ promised you, 'they will hand you over to the authorities, but don't worry about what you are to say or how you will say it. When the time comes you'll be given what you are to say. Indeed you're not the ones who are speaking anyway, the spirit of your Father is speaking through you!'". (Matthew 10:19-20.)

I think that in this day and age those of us who are serious about witnessing to our faith, often want to arm ourselves with scripture first. It's one of the reasons I've heard in the past why Lutherans feel so inadequate about witnessing their faith. They feel intimidated by other Christians who know the chapter and verse of what they want to say, and can support their beliefs and convictions with proof texts. Luther's advice was adapted from the same advice Jesus gave to his disciples in Matthew; that we should never have to arm ourselves with the Bible - it is not designed to be used like bullets shot at people who don't agree with us! We should not walk forth in a proud spirit, but in a spirit of gentleness and humility. And we should never be afraid to witness our faith, Lutheran's probably know a lot more about the Bible than they think, in fact it's been my experience that Lutherans are much better catechized than other Christians, and much more certain about their beliefs than they think. We should never be arrogant about our faith either. We're prepared to answer as we stand before princes, presidents, or even the devil himself, because we know we confidently speak about God and our words come from God. The word of God is not something merely written in a book, it's an incarnate Word, Jesus Christ risen and standing at our midst through every circumstance of life!