What is it all about?

There's one verse in the Bible that's always made me a little worried when I've read it. Well, one particular verse, that is. If I thought about it there would be probably be quite a few worrying moments, but let's not do that now.

The verse is this one...

"And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it." (1 Peter 3:15 NLT)

What is Christianity all about? It's kind of hard to explain for many people, even Christians. What is the gospel? I actually wonder if many Christians might be secretly hoping that nobody ever asks them this question. Maybe they've got some vague ideas - love, peace, something about Jesus? - and maybe they've picked up some other ones that somehow don't quite seem to fit, but if someone asked them to give an explanation...

I think on some level it shouldn't be an easy explanation, because the story and the person we're trying to describe is far more complex and wondrous for feeble human words (one of the reasons one of those 2-minute, 5-step gospel presentations will lead you down the wrong track)... It's like trying to describe a Mozart concert to a friend who didn't make the show ("Well, first the violins played an F, then dropped to an E, then did that again, then I think the clarinets might have done something - Oh it was magic!).

But that certainly doesn't mean there is nothing we can say. It just means we need to stop being lazy and trying to spit out other people's pithy descriptions. If you don't know what to say, put the work in and figure it out.

If you need some help, the best book I've read on the topic is Simply Christian, by Tom Wright. Or find a group of people and discuss it - see if you can come up with something together. Maybe read through one of the gospels together..

If you need somewhere I start, have a look into Jesus' phrase "The Kingdom of Heaven." That's what Jesus himself preached about whenever he spoke. What was he talking about? Or take Peter's verse and figure out what our hope is.

One final clue, just to clear away the most common misdirection: the answer is not "to go to heaven when I die."