Friends: We always love talking about Jesus, but that doesn’t mean we can always be sheep. Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #1037

September 29, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Gentleness, Respect, and Tenacity

By Bob Walters

“… 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

This is among my favorite Bible verses for a couple of reasons.

First, it is calming; I only have to explain why I, personally, have hope. I can do that all day long. I can always explain Jesus to my own satisfaction, but whether I can explain Him adequately to someone else is a more daunting challenge. We find Jesus in our own hearts; that is why we know Him as a personal Lord and Savior. He is everyone’s, as well as ours alone. That is why everyone’s testimony is unique.

I envy, in a good way, the natural evangelists; but my gifts lie elsewhere.      

Second, the verse instructs us not to be a jerk about Jesus; to have “gentleness and respect.” Jesus was kind, but also direct with the truth and creatively vivid with His illustrations (swallowing a camel, plank in the eye, brood of vipers etc.). People will argue about whether Jesus ever laughed (the Bible doesn’t tell us), but it takes an educated, period-specific, cultural sense of Jewish humor to cull the humorous bits from the Gospels. My erudite Bible mentor George Bebawi, who grew up Jewish (in Egypt of all places) before finding Christ in his late teens, thought Jesus was hilarious.

Anyway, we should fearlessly share about Jesus, live in confident hope, be kind to others, show our faith by virtue of a caring and intelligent demeanor, love – but do not bow to – our enemies, and pray mightily for guidance, discernment, and the right words.

Jesus knew how to temper his language. He spoke kindly to the lost, softly and confidently to the demons who knew who He was and feared Him, but was often harsh and condemning – and cunning – with the Pharisees who refused to recognize Him.

The Pharisees, you see, had inherited the “world,” i.e., status, wealth, power, pride, and jealousy of their position. They forgot there was a Messiah with whom they could inherit the Kingdom of God. They lost sight of the truth, and could not see Jesus.

And that’s today’s lesson for today’s Christians: let’s keep clear sight of Jesus.

Jesus was tenacious and wise. By his truth and authority, believers were drawn to Him then and are still drawn to Him today. Hebrew scripture, i.e., the Old Testament, was replete with prophesies of His coming, His person, His purpose, His providence, and His destiny. The Pharisees of His time were willfully blind to the scrolls, but John the Baptist, the Disciples, and many others saw the divine in Jesus’s person.

Today, we have the whole New Testament to explain prophecy to us and we wonder how anyone, ever, could be in the presence of Jesus, whatever he looked like, and not sense the glory of His person, relationship with God, and love for mankind.

But … folks make those errors all the time.  In our current age, in a rapidly deteriorating post-Christian American culture, our mission becomes not just personal reflection and prayer, but the tenacity of Jesus and of Jude 1:3-4, “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. … [against] ungodly people who pervert the grace of our Lord.” How do we contend for the faith … our faith?

One way is simple: vote. Get to the polls this fall. Don’t lay back. Be tenacious against threats. In a nation slipping from its Christian underpinnings, whether by the ignorant secular culture or heretical progressive Christians – e.g., “Islam is just another religion,” “Jesus was non-binary”– sane Christian citizens must pick up the mantle of tenacity defending our nation from those who attack truth and seek to remove our freedom to worship.

The ungodly, freedom-squashing left will be at the polls. Will we?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) asserts the current American faith and political contest is not between Christianity and Islam; it is between a Constitutional Republic and Sharia Law.