“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
“And all the other prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:25).
You’ve been put on the spot.
Someone is challenging you, daring you, cursing you or slandering you. You squirm. Nothing about this is pleasant. You try to think of an appropriate response.
Before you act, I have a suggestion.
There is one huge factor you should always bear in mind: Your response to your challenger is less for them than for the spectators who surround the two of you, observing this little conflict. They’re watching you. They want to see how you react, if you can take it, if you will respond in the flesh or show yourself to be a genuine Christian.
Unfair, you say? Maybe so, in some ways. But in another, this creates an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to do something everlasting.
All He needs is a willing Christian, someone who can (ahem) “take a licking and keep on ticking.” He needs someone who understands the wisdom of Luke 6:27: “loving your enemy, doing good to those who hate you, blessing those who curse you.”
The godly have a built-in audience for this. The world has bought tickets to the show that is you.
They’re always watching.
Outsiders wonder if you are for real, if the Gospel really works, if Christ is among you and alive today.
They hear our talk, see our churches, know our claims and wonder if this could be real.
The way you answer the attacker, your response to your slanderer, is not for that one. We should assume nothing you say is going to change his mind. Your response is for the audience.
Take a lesson from the stand-up comic. His response to the heckler in the audience is not to teach anything to the rude interrupter. Even though the comic addresses the heckler, it’s all for the audience. (Comedians have been known to hire hecklers to provide a platform for their choice comebacks.)
We respond to the individual, but we must never forget the world is watching.
This, doubtless, was a huge element in how God reached Saul of Tarsus. As the crowd was stoning Stephen to death and venting their rage upon him, this gentle soul responded in love. “They were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. … While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit … Lord, do not hold this sin against them’” (Acts 7:54-60).
Meanwhile, we read, “The witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul” (7:58).
Saul was watching. He was taking it all in.
What he saw that day never left him. He was never able to get out of his mind the image of the dying Stephen who lived and died as Jesus had, loving and giving and forgiving.
Saul was captured by the unforgettable display of Christlikeness in this first Christian martyr.
The world looks for any excuse to mark us off its list and dismiss our faith as just another religion. When we reflect the same trendy ways as the rest of the world, when we speak the same silly slang we pick up from the movies, and when we live by the same low ethical standards as those making no claim to following Jesus, we have lost the race before it starts.
Here and there, however, the world sees in the rare believer something it cannot explain away and is unable to erase from its collective mind. When that happens, the game forever changes. Many are drawn to Jesus and will live forever.
