Building One Another
SAY SOMETHING Vol 12 No 11
April 30, 2013
Dear Friend,
If you “see something say something” is becoming a catchword in American society. While it refers to vigilance in an insecure world, the phrase has me thinking about the reticence of many Christians to “say something” about the Lord they follow.
Nearly one hundred years ago, G. Campbell Morgan was to write:
It has become very difficult for Christian people to talk of the things of Christ to each other. They meet together in ordinary life, and they talk of everything except the deepest things of their spiritual life; and that not because they have not deep experience, not because they are unfamiliar with the things of God and His Kingdom, but because they never learned how to help each other in mutual converse concerning them.[1]
I find it fascinating that Morgan was speaking of Christians speaking of their faith to other Christians, a supposedly safe environment, much less to those who are not followers of Jesus.
When he refers to “ordinary life,” Morgan was speaking of the conversations we have on a daily basis and not of the specific setting of a Bible study where matters of faith are discussed. In the vast majority of cases, American Christians today do not speak about their faith in personal conversation even when given an obvious opportunity to do it.
One way for you to gain confidence in speaking of spiritual matters is to be a part of a face-to-face small group Bible study with other Christians. In daily life, when you realize you may appropriately speak of the Lord you love, take courage and say something!
“For we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard." Acts 4:20*
With joy - E. Stanley Ott