Colossians 4:6 is a one-sentence guide to Christian speech:
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
Christ brought the comfort of grace and the "salt" of truth (John 1:17). That's why our words should be gracious, wholesome, and kind (Ephesians 4:29) and sprinkled with "salty" truth.
"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot." Matthew 5:13
How do we add the salt?
When we’re given opportunity (Colossians 4:5), we let people know that we pray, seek God, read our Bibles, do what's honest, speak up for the unborn, hate immorality, and love people enough to share Christ with them.
We’re compelled by Christ's love to share both His grace and His truth (2 Corinthians 5:11-21).
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For more 1-minute devotions on Christian speech, check these out:
6 Christian Rules of Speech
Name-Calling is for Losers
Discuss, Debate, Discredit
Don't Bother Me With the Facts
Ad Hominem Disagreement
Bible Love Notes
The “salt” is the wisdom of the Holy Spirit- not just a bunch of to do rules about what to say and not say to make sure everyone knows you are a Christian. These feel like a bunch of rules that the Pharisees would concoct.
ReplyDeleteHi Mike,
DeleteYou seem angry, and I'm not sure why.
When you say this is a bunch of rules like the Pharisees would concoct, I assume you are talking about the paragraph that says, "When we’re given opportunity (Colossians 4:5),we let people know that we pray, seek God, read our Bibles, do what's honest, speak up for the unborn, hate immorality, and love people enough to share Christ with them."
It's true that you could do all of these things like the Pharisees just to look good. But we can also do these things because we love God, and since they are all based on God's New Testament commands, it's not the "rules" that are the problem.
Obviously, everything we do should be done in God's Spirit, and this passage, given to Paul by the Holy Spirit, commands us to to express our views with grace.
For example, if we disagreed with a blog post, we would graciously express our differences. We wouldn't say things like "These feel like a bunch of rules that the Pharisees would concoct."
Thank you Gail! Your comments helped me. Because we love God it shouldn't feel like rules. Because we love God we should do the things that please him. God is good to us and we should show the same goodness to others.
ReplyDelete