Theology is an exciting topic, but one can sometimes overdo it. When invited by someone’s question about the peculiarities of one’s faith, many believers go beyond a simple answer and offer up instead a complex, 30-minute sermon before taking another breath.

While that can be fun, it’s usually not what most people with a simple question are looking for, and if done to the wrong person at the wrong moment, it can quickly drive people away from a new church they are checking out. And if that happens, they won’t return.

So, for example, if someone asks about Sabbath versus Sunday worship, a good response would be one that takes no more than a couple minutes. A poor response would be one that starts off with an explanation of the Council of Nicea, anti-Semitism in the early church, and even credit repair services before finally getting around to saying, “But basically, the point is that we know the Sabbath is on Saturday because the Jewish people worship then and have never changed their day of worship, whereas we can trace the point at which Christianity abandoned the Biblical Sabbath for Sunday worship… and Sunday worship isn’t supported or endorsed by a single Bible verse.”

Better to just use the last couple sentences, I think, and save the listener a lot of pointless showing off of how much one has learned. Give those new to the faith a chance to grow into it, just like you were given.

Tags: Council of Nicea, credit repair services, questions, simple answers