Bible Synapse
Should believers give an answer to those who ask about their faith, or avoid such talk?
Hard question · Acts and the letters · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Be ready always “to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear”.
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
Walk wisely toward outsiders; let your speech be gracious, “that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man”.
Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Deceivers deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; whoever does not bring this doctrine, “receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed”.
For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
Timothy is to guard what was entrusted to him, “avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called”.
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. The first to Timothy was written from Laodicea, which is the chiefest city of Phrygia Pacatiana.
“Shun profane and vain babblings”: the teaching of men like Hymenaeus and Philetus, who say the resurrection is already past, spreads like gangrene.
But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymeneus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.
The objection
Peter tells believers always to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about their hope, and Paul tells the Colossians to know how to answer everyone. Yet John forbids believers even to receive or greet someone who does not bring the true doctrine, and Paul tells Timothy to avoid and shun ‘profane and vain babblings’ and opposing arguments. Should believers discuss their faith with those who disagree, or avoid them?
The answer
The passages are about different people and different kinds of talk. Peter and Paul are speaking of ordinary unbelievers, “them that are without” (Colossians 4:5), who ask about the Christian hope. Believers are to be ready to explain it “with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15), in speech that is gracious and “seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:6). Paul did this all the time: at Athens he reasoned in the synagogue “and in the market daily with them that met with him” (Acts 17:17).
2 John speaks of someone else: travelling teachers who claimed to bring the Christian message but denied that “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” (2 John 7). Churches then met in homes and gave travelling preachers lodging and help on their way (3 John 5–8). To take such a teacher in and send him on with a blessing was to back his mission. That is why John says that “he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 11). He is forbidding support for false teaching, not conversation with unbelievers. Barnes makes the point that ordinary kindness is not forbidden, only what would encourage them as religious teachers.
The warnings to Timothy are of the same kind. The “profane and vain babblings” are the empty talk of false teachers inside the church, like Hymenaeus and Philetus, who said that the resurrection had already happened (2 Timothy 2:16–18). “Science falsely so called” translates pseudōnymos gnōsis, ‘what is falsely called knowledge’ (1 Timothy 6:20). Timothy is to refuse such speculation and hold to the gospel. Yet in 2 Timothy 2, the chapter that tells him to shun the babblings, Paul also tells him to go on “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves” (2 Timothy 2:25). So believers are to give a reason for their faith to all who ask, but not to give a platform to those who would corrupt it, or to waste their time on empty wrangling.
From the classic commentators
This cannot mean that no acts of kindness, in any circumstances, were to be shown to such persons; but that there was to be nothing done which could be fairly construed as encouraging or countenancing them as "religious teachers."Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible, on 2 John 1:10 (1847)