Religious Nuts

Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. - Colossians 4:6


I have a friend who was invited to a dinner party where he was seated next to a belligerent unbeliever who delighted in taunting Christians.

Throughout the evening, the man baited Matt mercilessly about the evil of Christendom throughout the ages. With each insult, my friend calmly replied, "That's an intersting point of view." And then he asked a question that revealed geuine interest in the man and deflected the discussion away from the issue that divided them.

As the two were walking out the door at the end of the evening, the man fired a final jab, at which point Matt put his arm around the other man's shoulders and chuckled. "My friend," he said, "all night long you've been trying to talk to me about religion. Are you a religious nut?"

The man's animosity dissolved in a burst of laughter and then in sobriety, for he was indeed a religious nut. All human beings are. We're insatiably and incurably religious - hounded by the relentless love of God, though we may try to keep Him away. Matt's kindness and deft humor awakened this man's heart so that he could be receptive to the gospel.

We are to be "wise as serpents" (Matt. 10:16) when dealing with non-Christians, speaking to them "with grace, seasoned with salt" (Col. 4:6). - David H. Roper


You have called us, Lord, to witness -
Called to speak the truth in love;
O how much we need to Your guidance
And Your wisdom from above. - D. De Haan

As the "salt of the earth," Christians can make others thirsty for the Water of Life.

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Matthew 10:16-22

"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you.

Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, don't be anxious how or what you will say, for it will be given you in that hour what you will say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

"Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. You will be hates by all men for my name's sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.

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