Every answer must take into consideration the person it is directed to. Human interchange requires more than a string of unfeeling, cold, hard facts. We live in the era of fast answers. The simple, quick answer is fine if we can elaborate when called on to do so. Thus we must continually advance our knowledge in our faith, otherwise our answers will be superficial and obviously so.
Many times there is something more to a question or statement than meets the eye.
It should be gospel orientated. A mere intellectual game will prove little. The aim is to clarify some problem that has arisen from the gospel in such a way as to end up at the gospel again. The classic examples of this are questions concerning the existence of God or science and Christianity. Our answers should conclude on an examination of the person of Jesus.