Whether it is in the workplace, school, or community, we come across those who doubt, question, or scoff at the idea that God exists. This is not a new phenomenon. It has been this way since the beginning. Genesis 6–7 reminds us how quickly men and women begin to doubt, question, and scoff at God and His works. Men and women in Noah’s day mistook God’s patience for God’s nonexistence or at least His uncaring attitude toward men and sin (1 Peter 3:20).

In 2 Peter 3:1–7, Peter reminds those believers who were scattered throughout Asia Minor and who were then suffering persecution to remember “the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (v. 2) that scoffers would go on with their attacks:

They deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. (vv. 5–6)

What did Noah do in the face of the skeptics? He patiently followed God’s instruction to build an ark and testified to God’s coming judgment by way of a flood. How were the persecuted believers in Asia Minor to respond? By “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

First Peter 3:14–17 is a classic text for Christian apologetics. Peter tells believers that they are always to be prepared to make an apology, translated “a defense” in the ESV, for the hope that is in them. This defense is to be a reasonable presentation of the gospel that has brought them hope and why they as believers have this hope in light of their present circumstance of suffering persecution.