Maurice Clarke knew the ship needed more lifeboats. About 1,000 passengers risked drowning without them, but the ship’s owners didn’t worry — “practically unsinkable,” one magazine even called the vessel. Furthermore, despite Clarke’s concern, the ship met, even exceeded, lifeboat regulations. Finally, “I might be shifted as suggested to me by the owners if I enforced my view,” Clarke wrote in his private journal.
The inspector, then, dropped the matter, and several days after — on April 15, 1912 — the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank within three hours. About 1,500 people drowned or died from hypothermia.
Today, maritime regulations demand cruise ships carry enough life boats to hold everyone, but not because of Clarke. Clarke apparently never publicly revealed the truth about his concerns. They only became known when an auction house sold memorabilia related to the Titanic’s sinking — 100 years later.
Clarke knew the truth, but he couldn’t defend it, in part because lifeboat regulations then seemed reasonable, and in part because he didn’t want to risk his position. Still, history doesn’t seem to hold Clarke accountable. After all, he couldn’t force anyone to include more lifeboats.
God, however, will hold Christians accountable, and He doesn’t want them to just understand truth or even the stakes. He wants them to understand why truth is true. He wants them defend it, no matter how reasonable other truths sound, no matter the risk.
And to defend truth, Christians must first and foremost defend their faith in Jesus, as the Apostle Peter wrote.
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.”
The Greek word “apologia,” or “answer” in King James English, means to give an account, plea, or defense, and Peter specifically encouraged Christians to particularly defend their commitment to live, suffer, and die for His kingdom — when worldly kingdoms promised immediate wealth, security, and pleasure.
However, while Christians defended a kingdom they couldn’t completely see, they never defended a blind faith. When God says to trust, which is the essential meaning of faith, He gives ample and clear reasons to trust based on observable evidence. Yet Peter still wanted believers to use this evidence to exalt Christ, His cross and His resurrection. He wanted them through the Spirit to meekly challenge the challengers’ blind faith in their own hopes and compare their gods to the true God — all to better see the glorious light of the Gospel.
Peter also knew Christians could not defend through suffering and death what they did not love during ease and comfort. They could not defend their reasons if they did not deepen their relationship with Christ through obedience, repentance, holiness, and Bible study.
Finally, Peter wanted them to defend their faith not just rationally, but through loving sacrifice. They defended Christ with equal eloquence when they sacrificed to support the poor; they defended Him when they forgave their enemies; they defended Him when they rejected the culture’s accommodating standards for morality and instead pursued the righteousness of God.
“For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2:15).
Lord willing, the columns to come will help believers today defend their faith in Jesus and better rescue others doomed to drown in their sin. They’ll first defend the Biblical account of the resurrection, the pivotal moment in which God crowned Jesus as King of kings and Lord of Lords; they’ll then defend His love and power even when pain and suffering tempts people to deny Him; then they’ll examine the Biblical account of Creation, of the place where many people first attack the Bible; finally, they’ll examine the true nature of faith.
(Note: Most of the material in these columns was created as part of a curriculum, still in development, for the Christian publishing company Christian Light. Learn more about their resources at www.christianlight.org.)
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