December 28, 2003 Communion Dedication - Baldwin Christian Church

Colossians 4:6 Let your speech [be] alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

The Pharisees were a pretty intelligent bunch, and it seemed that their words were always well planned and thought-out. However, in Matthew 12 they popped off foolishly at Jesus, saying that He was casting out devils by the power of Satan. Jesus didn't even have to hear their words, and He knew what they were thinking. He explained to them how silly it would be for Satan to cast out Satan, and reminded them in verses 36-37 that "every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."

When words come out of my mouth, I can't take them back. Idle words are lazy, having neither profit nor sustenance, they do nothing to further the work that needs to be done, and they're barren of the fruits of the Spirit. Literally in the Greek, idle words are words that "not work." Last week, Colossians 4:5 reminded us that we are to be about our Father's business, getting to know Him through the reading of His Word. Whenever opportunities arise to help others get to know Him, we need to rise to the challenge and redeem the time we've been given. Without grace, our speech can hinder this purpose. To the bending ear, our words can have a delectable or a detestable flavor, but what matters most is the lasting savor. If a bite of food is perfectly seasoned, I swish it across my taster an extra time or two. The power that entices us to take another bite is in the lasting savor. Even if the hearer doesn't particularly like the initial flavor of your speech, your gracious and perfectly seasoned words will get swished across their mental taster an extra time or two, they will become thirsty, and they will be enticed to take another bite.

This is our purpose. Witnessing the gospel of Jesus Christ is a modern-day offering. Under the old covenant, every sacrificial offering had to be seasoned with salt (Lev 2:13). Verses five and six of Colossians 4 are clearly written in the context of witnessing to those outside the church, but because verse 6 says "alway," we should also be practicing on each other inside the church. As the Pharisees found out in Matthew 12, we never know who might be listening to us, and when. People who are without Jesus somehow in their minds will try to use Him as the ruler to see how we measure up as so called "Christians." When they hear the words we utter, they pass them through a makeshift "Jesus filter" in their mind. This filter is what tells them whether our words sound like their idea of Jesus or not, and they do make judgments for or against the entire body of Christ based on this perception of us. In order to get it right, our every word needs to pass through the true "Jesus filter."

Now, if you think today's verse means that we only need to be ready with an answer when someone asks us a question, that's not entirely true. There's a Hebrew idiom that's very often found in both the Old and New Testaments, which reads, "answered and said," or "answered." This is a figure of speech that gains it's meaning from the context. It often appears when no question was asked, even in the red letters. In the New Testament alone, "answered and said" can mean "prayed and said" (Matt 11:25), "taught" (Matt 22:1), "exclaimed" (Mark 9:5), "asked" (Mark 12:35), "burst forth" (Luke 13:14), "confessed" (John 1:49), and "declared" (John 5:19).

Being ready to answer every man doesn't just mean preparing for tough Bible questions, it means being a living testimony to the truth and grace of Jesus Christ at all times. We must be ready at all times to respond or react in every situation with grace. The opportunities to share Jesus with those who ask us about Him are sometimes few and far between, but every day we all have many opportunites to provide a little savory seasoning in an unsavory world.