but reverence Christ as Lord in your own hearts. Always be ready with a reply for anyone who calls you to account for the hope you cherish, but answer gently and with a sense of reverence;
never paying back evil for evil, never reviling when you are reviled, but on the contrary blessing. For this is your vocation, to bless and to inherit blessing;
and inasmuch as I have gone carefully over them all myself from the very beginning, I have decided, O Theophilus, to write them out in order for your excellency,