You can’t defend the faith without having studied it. First, you must study the faith so you don’t inadvertently fall into error yourself. Heresy is unwittingly preached in evangelical churches every Sunday by ill-equipped pastors. That’s a tragedy, and you don’t want to be among their number.

A call to the ministry is a call to the ministry of the Word. As such, we are called not only to proclaim it but also to defend it. The New Testament Epistles overflow with injunctions to guard the truth. Reflect on Paul’s words to Timothy—a mere sampling of the New Testament charges to defend the faith—and let their import for you and your call to ministry sink in:

• “As I urged you…instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines” (1 Tim. 1:3).
• “Retain the standard of sound words” (2 Tim. 1:13).
• The church is “the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).
• “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).
• The Lord’s servant is to gently correct those who “are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25).
• “You followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings…” (2 Tim. 3:10–11a).
• “Continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of ” (2 Tim. 3:14).
• “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Tim. 4:2–5).
• “I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7).

Paul speaks through Timothy to us, his charges echoing through the ages. As Christian ministers, we must be ready and willing to defend the faith. If ministers don’t do it, who will? That is one reason why God placed the “able to teach” qualification in 1 Timothy 3.

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