Peter wants us to be ready to make a defense of the hope that lies within us. Yet, with gentleness and reverence. For a non religious person, the idea that Jesus came from heaven as God, died on a cross for our sins and rose again so we might have new life seems to be utterly ridiculous. Paul says we are fools for Christ. Madness. And yet, we are to get across to them what it is we believe most profoundly. How? If we look at the context of this exhortation, we see that we are to be the royal priesthood of a new temple before we can proclaim about its excellencies. Our being precedes our telling. Our greatest defense is a good offense. As we saw displayed in this year’s Super Bowl, you can defend all day long but until you advance, you can’t win. Going on the offense is understanding that we are Christ embodied emissaries living out a new narrative way before we open our mouths and make a defense of what we believe and why.