How to Answer Hard Questions

I love questions. I think asking questions and wrestling with the answers is the only way to grow.

My prayer for you as leaders in your schools is that you would be the people that your classmates go to when they have a question.

What does the bible say about this?

What does God think about this?

Why do Christians believe this?

But for some of you, the thought of somebody asking you a hard question is terrifying.

What if you don’t know the answer?

What if you don’t know what the bible says?

What if you don’t really even know what you believe?

I don’t think these questions are hard because they are difficult to answer. They’re hard because the consequences of holding an orthodox Christian position in our culture is costly.

So what I want to try to do super quickly. Probably too quickly. Is give you 4 principles for answering any hard question you’re asked and then demonstrate what that looks like on one of the hardest questions being asked right now.

1 Peter 3:15–18 ESV

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

Begin with the Heart

Your heart posture is the most important thing when you seek to give an answer to hard questions that our culture asks and especially that your friends and classmates are asking you.

Peter writes to honor Christ the Lord as holy in your heart before you give an answer.

In my experience, I have never been able to argue someone into the kingdom of God, so if my heart posture is to win an argument rather than honor the Lord as holy, I’ve missed it before I’ve even begun.

Build a Strategy

The next thing Peter says is to always be prepared to give an answer.

In order to be prepared you need a strategy. Every good coach goes into a game with a game plan they are confident in. My offensive coordinator in college would even script out the first drive of the game. He called the plays before the game even started because he anticipated what the defense would do.

You need to build a strategy for answering questions so that you don’t say something dumb. And as you practice your strategy in real time having discussion around these topics, make notes and change things for next time.

But good strategies don’t just happen, they’re thought through. So if there is a big hard question or topic that you know gets brought up all the time (sexuality and gender, race and justice, predestination, or women’s roles in the home or church leadership, etc.) and you don’t know how you would answer if someone asked - then you need to spend some serious time coming up with a game plan, building your strategy.

You can not have sloppy answers and be a leader.

Jesus tells us to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves (Matt 10:16) and Peter echos that when he says that our answer should come with gentleness and respect. But to be a snakebird you have to think through what you’re going to say.

Bring the Word, Not an Opinion

This should be the backbone of your strategy.

What I have seen in our generation, Gen Z, is that we do not know the Word at all. We are biblically illiterate. If i don’t know the Word, then I don’t know Truth. If I don’t know Truth, then I’m just giving someone my best advice or most persuasive opinion - and my opinion does not have the power to transform someone’s heart and bring them from death to life. But God can do that. and his Word is a sure foundation.

You strategy should always be rooted in taking someone to the scriptures as much as possible.

Force someone to wrestle with what the Word says. But in order for that to be possible, you have to know the Word yourself.

So if you haven’t dusted off this book in a while, it’s time to get on it. Don’t feel guilty about not having read it - there is no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus, but be determined to know what God says so that you can obey him and point others to the Truth.

Be Prepared to Suffer

This is the part everybody hates.

In the passage i just read, Peter doesn’t say you might suffer, he says it’s guaranteed.

Paul says in Philippians 1:29 that we have the privilege of suffering for Jesus.

Jesus himself says that the world hated him so it’s gonna hate us too. (John 15:18)

It is guaranteed that when you give biblical answers to the hard questions your friends ask, there will be people who hate it, and it’s going to be costly to your social status.

The temptation we are faced with is to turn this into a culture war. To try and fight. But we are not called to power up and fight, but to suffer well.

There are a lot of hills you could die on. And I see people picking unwise hills to die on. You ever heard that expression before? I heard one pastor say it this way: “You’re going to die somewhere if you follow Jesus, so choose the hill.” There are some things we absolutely must die for as a follower of Jesus. Somethings don’t matter quite as much.

So here are the Four Principles:

Begin with the Heart

Build a Strategy

Bring the Word, not an Opinion

Be Prepared to Suffer

This is the SparkNotes version of my strategy for addressing what I think is one of the hardest questions of our day: the questions regarding homosexuality.

This is not a one-time conversation. This is a strategy designed for many conversations over coffee.

The goal is not to “win” an argument or “be right” where others are wrong. The goal is to know what God says and communicate his Truth to your friend who is asking the question.

I always start with this: Acknowledge that the church has not done a great job of handling these topics with mercy and love for those who are struggling with same-sex attraction. There has been a high degree of truth, but too little love when it comes to how many have addressed these conversation. Ephesians 4:15 tells us to speak truth in love, and far too often we are guilty of speaking hard truths without the grace that someone would need in order to wrestle with their sexuality and walk out in holiness.

Next: Ask how often does the bible talk about homosexuality?

(Many assume that the bible addresses this issue head-on in many of the biblical books. However this isn’t the case.)

Homosexuality is only specifically addressed 6 times:

Genesis 19

Leviticus 18:22

Leviticus 20:13

Romans 1:26-27

1 Corinthians 6:9

1 Tim 1:10

I always throw Genesis 19 out of the conversation right away. What is described in Genesis 19 is nothing like a commited relationship between two consenting adults of the same sex and therefore is contextually irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

Read the five remaining passages.

Then I think this conversation has to turn towards the broader topic of sexuality and God’s design for sex. Instead of just calling homosexuality a sin, make it clear that all forms of sexuality that are expressed in ways that are outside of God’s purposes for sex are sinful. (This includes pornography and straight couples sleeping together outside of marriage - it is all sin against God.)

I use this analogy: Sex and sexuality are like a fire. When the fire is contained in a fireplace, it is a beautiful thing. When the fire leaves the fireplace, it has great capacity for destruction. God always wants what is best for us, so why should we settle for something that is clearly not God’s best?

Jesus is clear about the purpose of sex and it’s God-designed function in Matthew 19:4-5. Marriage and sex are designed by God and therefore get to be defined by God. And his definition is that sex is to be contained with a marriage between one man and one woman.

The last play in my strategy is to Address Objections.

Here are the most common objections I’ve heard:

The word Greek and Hebrews words translated as homosexuality in our English bible translations doesn’t actually mean homosexuality.

Homosexuality in ancient times didn’t look like a consensual, committed relationship between two people of the same sex. If they saw what gay marriages look like today they wouldn’t have called it a sin.

It is unfair and inhumane to say that someone who is same-sex attracted can’t have sex.

Answering these objections takes lots of prayer, lots of grace, lots of trust, and lots of studying.

Don’t be intimidated, do the work and build a strategy! It’s too important not to.

Here are my recommended resources for building your own strategy for answering this hard question:

People to be Loved by Preston Sprinkle

Gay Girl, Good God by Jackie Hill Perry

Is God Anti-Gay by Sam Allberry

Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin