This website represents nothing more than a partial fulfillment of what God has called me to do. Christ’s Great Commission, as you know, commands that we “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded to you". (Matthew 28:19-20) As the rector of our church put it:
[W]herever we go, we are to represent and reflect Christ, to bring his perspective, to bring his attitude, to bring his truth into every situation that we move into. . . . We are to help people know and love and trust and obey God as best we can. Now, if you love Christ, this is your mission. Whatever your vocational calling is, this is our mission.1/
Moreover, the Bible urges us time and again to defend our faith:
always be[ ] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15) (ESV) the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 2:24-25) 2/
The old me would have marginalized or rationalized away the Biblical imperatives set forth above, opting instead for the intellectual and emotional – if not spiritual – safety available to those who keep their faith private. But that no longer is an option for me. I have chosen submission to Christ. That submission requires that I carry out His mission.
And I ought to do so expecting to meet resistance. Jesus prayed for the disciples: "I have given them your word and the world has hated them". (John 17:14) Paul observed: “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18) The same is true today and most likely will be tomorrow. There will be skeptics unsympathetic to my Christian beliefs and their effect on my perception of worldly events. The Lord will not shield me from their scrutiny by taking me out of the secular world. (John 17:15: "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.") After all, but for the skeptics, Christ's Great Commission may not have been so Great.
2/ See also 2 Corinthians 10:5 ("We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought to make it obedient to Christ"); Jude 3 ("contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints").
