If you Believe, can you tell me why?

Recently I had an opportunity to attend a baptist heritage conference. Dr. Ted Alexander was speaking about our forgotten baptist heritage. What he told us about baptist history was 90% new to me! I who claimed to be a baptist, could only have hoped, at best, to give a vague explanation of why I was a baptist. Looking further into what I believed, I found that this was the case in many areas of my "faith". While on many subjects I was firmly convinced of what I believed, I could not comfortably explain this faith to an unbeliever. Sure, I could give some generic answer to a question here, and there, and then feel smug until they asked for a real, genuine and specific answer. Then I had to "hem and haw" and beg God to forgive me for my lazy study habits.  If I correctly interpret I Peter 3:15, we are commanded to be ready to tell why we believe what we believe. If I do not do this, I am not simply making a choice not to do "extra study", I am in direct violation of God's word. I have been challenged and convicted to study to not only know better what I believe, but also to be able share why, with others. I would hate to someday stand before my God, and find out that I had turned men away from the gospel with my lack of care about my faith. We have a glorious Saviour, who in his love has given us his written word, that our frail minds may better know Him and how to show, in some small way, our thanks for so great a salvation. How can we be so hardened to such matchless grace, as to neglect the study of so precious a book? Let us pray for, and encourage one another to study diligently the Holy word of the Lord who loved us, and gave himself for us.