“Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. 6. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man.”
I guess that it would be easy to write about how to be a “dumb” Christian. I’m sure that I could find plenty of material in the Bible that would give examples of "dumb" Christians. But I prefer to look at the positive side and write about a “smart Christian.” Colossians 4:5-6 gives some good advice on how to live smartly for Christ. A smart Christian will attempt to be a good example to people who are outside of the Christian faith and the church. Paul advised the Colossian Christians to “walk in wisdom toward them that are without.” Being the independent minded people that we are, we like to think that it is no one else’s business what we do. I guess this would be true in a sense. We do not want to try to please people all of the time. But this is not what Paul meant. If we are to “walk in wisdom toward them that are without,” we need to set a good example. At the risk of appearing to be smug and self-righteous, I think that we should be Christ like in our lifestyles and attitudes. We need to be careful what we say and do around people who do not know Christ. The only part of Christ they will see before putting their faith in Him is what they see in us. This is an awesome responsibility, but it is a responsibility. We need to be more careful about this in our church relationships as well. No one is impressed with a negative, mean-spirited, troublemaking person. No one is impressed with a Christian that has one life at church and another in public. Be careful about your witness before the world. A smart Christian will “redeem the time.” The modern translation of this is “make the best use of time.” How we use our time is how we live our lives. What we give the most time to will determine the quality of our Christian lives. How can we make the best use of our time? I can only give you my opinion as to how this can be done, but I hope that you will not dismiss it. We need to set aside a definite time each day to read and study the Bible. If we do not pay attention to the Bible, we will not pay attention to how we live. We get our “marching orders” from the Bible. We grow in our faith through reading and studying the Bible. You have probably already guessed that prayer would be a part of our making the best of our time. We need to set aside a time each day for concentrated prayer. But prayer is not just something that we always do at a certain time in a certain place. That is good, but we can pray whenever we wish, and our days should be filled with what I call “little prayers.” By this I mean that we pray as we encounter people and circumstances in our daily lives. We can put up quick prayers on behalf of others or for guidance in our lives. Of course church fellowship plays a part in this as well, but we do not spend as much time at church as we do at home, work or school. We should make the best use of our time by being a good witness to the people that we encounter daily. A smart Christian will “let (his or her) speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every man.” This means that we should be careful how we talk around other people, and we should be careful what we say to other people. We need to speak with grace, which means that we will speak honestly to people. It also means that we will speak kindly to people. Just remember that sometimes kindness can be negative as well as positive. We just need to be extra careful how we give negative input. What we say should be tasteful and interesting, or as Paul wrote: “seasoned with salt.” Overall this means that we should be as careful of what we say as we are to what we do. Put these two verses down in your mind and heart and be a “smart Christian.” Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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