6
February 2016 • SR
We want to be loved by the world around us.
We buy things, drive things, wear things, and
especially say things to appeal to others. We
smell a certain way on our hair, a different
way on our face and neck, and yet a different
way under our arms. A part of this is to be
appealing to the people in our world. Do we
care too much what our world thinks and
feels about us?
I suggest that our desire to be lovable and
appealing to the people in our world shapes
our communication to them. And when it
comes to communicating our faith in Jesus
Christ, it too often produces silence.
We feel we can’t be lovable to others
if we are talking about Jesus. We are
silent about the most important mes-
sage to the world around us because
we want our world to love us. Does
Jesus have anything to say about
being loved by the world around us?
John 15:18-19 – Jesus said,
18
“If the
world hates you, keep in mind that it
hated me first.
19
If you belonged to the world,
it would love you as its own. As it is, you do
not belong to the world, but I have chosen
you out of the world. That is why the world
hates you.”
In much of the world, Christians are hated
and persecuted. In Western society, there
has been a dramatic shift in people’s attitude
toward Christians and Christianity. In the not-
too-distant past, Western society based its
laws and interpretation of laws on Judeo-
Christian values and principles. This is rapidly
changing. I personally believe that Christianity
in Western society is no longer the dominant
culture. Christians are more and more becom-
ing a sub-culture in a dominant culture that
believes there is no absolute truth or standards.
Truth and standards are relative and personal
(post modernism).
Christianity is based on the absolute truth and
standards found in the Bible. Christians for the
most part have become a people of silence
about the truth and standards of the Bible.
Christianity has become a culture of silence so
that the world around us will love and accept
us. When Christians do speak, we often
do everything we can to make the gospel
message more appealing in an attempt to
be loved and accepted by our world. We
somehow think that by turning down the
intensity of our light the gospel will somehow
become more appealing — and so will we.
Christians are the light of the world. Our lives
and our speech are the most significant ways
the world around us will see and hear the
love of Christ. We are the salt of the world.
Salt is a preservative to slow the process of
decay in the world around us. Our lives and
speech may be the only way in which our part
of the world will hear and see the message of
Salvation in Jesus Christ.
God has strategically placed us in our families,
our communities, our work place, and our
schools to be the light and salt in that part of
our world. In fact, we may be the
only
light or
salt in certain parts of our world. The intensity
of our light and the potency of our salt must
not be diminished by a concern for what others
think of us. We must be loving and sensitive in
sharing the gospel, but we must not be silent.
We can expect negative reactions and even
hatred to being light and salt in the world.
God’s mission for his people is not for us to
be loved by the people around us, but to be
loving to our world by “speaking the truth in
love.” God’s mission is for us to speak and live
in ways that people hear and see the message
of God’s love for the world in sending Jesus to
die on the cross. Silence is not golden for
Christians.
Silence
is not golden
for
Christians
— Rod Henry, Assistant Pastor
Next Step Christian Church
(an SDB church in Thornton, CO)
SR
