The natural impulse for more aggressive Christians is to take up a challenge and attempt to prove the other person wrong. Don’t do it. If you try, you’re just giving him a free ride.

All I want to do is put a stone in someone’s shoe. I want to give that person something worth thinking about, something he can’t ignore because it continues to poke at him in a good way.

How do you reverse the burden of proof when the other person is making the claim? You do it Columbo style—with a question. Here it is: “How did you come to that conclusion?”

Caught off guard, some will admit they don’t have any reasons for their view, which is a remarkable confession. This frank admission always prompts another question from me: “Why would you believe something you have no reason to think is true?”6 Notice that this is just a variation of our second Columbo question.

Here’s the key principle: without God’s work, nothing else works; but with God’s work, many things work. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, love persuades. With Jesus’ help, arguments convince. By the power of God, the gospel transforms through each of these methods.

I encourage you to consider the strategy I use when God opens a door of opportunity for me. I pray quickly for wisdom, then ask myself, What one thing can I say in this circumstance, what one question can I ask, what single idea can I offer that will get the other person thinking? Then I simply try to put a stone in the person’s shoe.

This is why your second Columbo question, “How did you come to that conclusion?” is so powerful. It helps you handle outlandish speculations and bizarre alternate explanations by placing the burden of proof where it belongs—on the shoulders of the one making the claim.

We cannot grasp the authoritative teaching of God’s Word unless we use our minds properly. Therefore the mind, not the Bible, is the very first line of defense God has given us against error.

Always make it a goal to keep your conversations cordial. Sometimes that will not be possible. If a principled, charitable expression of your ideas makes someone mad, there’s little you can do about it. Jesus’ teaching made some people furious. Just make sure it’s your ideas that offend and not you, that your beliefs cause the disruption and not yo