When times are changing, as in today's society, we find ourselves asking each other this question.

It was the one posited to the early church in 2 Peter 3:11, one of the latest books in the New Testament, when they were experiencing situations not too dissimilar to our own today. How did the persecuted Christians respond at that time?

Early Apologetics

There are a number of written records (which did not make it into the Bible) of what is known as Apologia, or writings defending Christianity to its accusers. The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus is one such example of Christian apologetics.

One particular chapter in a long letter thought to be to Diognetus (a tutor of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, admired for his wise advice) from a disciple, gives some of the answers which are still relevant today. Read this section on how Christians were seen to be behaving then and meditate on whether it matches our understanding of how we should be seen to be behaving today:

"For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity.

The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines.

But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life.

They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.

They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh.

They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives.

They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life.

They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified.

They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers.

When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred."

How does this witness to you? Can you be an apologist in today's society so that those who are picking up the wrong message about Christianity can re-think all that they are currently believing? Do we have modern apologists who are prepared to fight the case for Christianity in the world today?