Why Faith?
If someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it (v.15).
READ: 1 Peter 3:13-18
In an interview pop music star Katy Perry stated that
she wasn’t thrilled with her strict religious upbringing.
“I didn’t have a childhood,” she explained. “I’ve always been the kid who’s asked ‘Why?’ In my faith, you’re just supposed to have faith. But I was always like . . . why? At this point, I’m just kind of a drifter . . . open to possibility.”
Not having been there, I can’t comment on Katy’s upbringing and what she didn’t like about it. But her words are telling: In my faith you’re just supposed to have faith. To that, I pose a Katy-like question: Why? For faith simply in faith is an empty pursuit. However faith in Jesus is something real and life changing.
Here’s why: To have faith in faith leads to trusting in something that lacks substance. It’s like clinging to a climbing rope for safety, but then discovering that it’s simply falling to the ground—not tied above or anchored below. True Christian faith, however, is confidently believing in Someone—Jesus.
The apostle Peter told his readers, who were suffering for their faith, to “always be ready to explain” their “Christian hope” (1 Peter 3:15). He had walked with Jesus, watched Him perform miracles, witnessed His death on a cross for his sins, and spent time with Him after He rose again from the grave. Peter possessed a rational, reasoned belief.
That belief—that faith—is what we can possess. Not grasping for an unsecured rope, we firmly hold on to the One who has shown Himself to be trustworthy and true. We believe, as Peter wrote, that “Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but He died for sinners to bring [us] safely home to God” (v.18). Now that’s Someone to have faith in! —Tom Felten
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