Prepared defense

In Luke 21 Jesus warns of things to come. He also asks that when his followers face persecution that they do not rely on a prepared statement but look to him for their words.

This statement has been used to justify last minute laziness on many occasions but reliance and laziness are not the same thing. Reliance, in our context, seems to me to be having a a well-knowing and well educated background from which to pull our apologetic - so we know the facts of our faith, we have considered some of the tough questions for ourselves. But when we come to talk about or defend our faith we do so knowing that we are relying on the Grace of Jesus Christ and not our own cleverness.

So can we only be evangelists if we are very clever. No - because know Christ is as important as knowing facts about Christ - but this is not an action of laziness. Both to know and know about Christ will take some commitment on out part so that when our faith is brought into any arena of judgement we can indeed know wholeheartedly on whom we rely.