We are not entitled to the world's respect

solodeogloria

Good evening!

I came across this brilliant little article on Desiring God the other day. It is about how Christians should live in increasingly post-Christian environments.

A few quotes from the article:

Winning arguments is not the same as winning souls. Very few, if any, have lost a quarrel and found themselves converted. But we all know the impulse deep down, when engaging with unbelief, to lash out in an effort to show ourselves right rather than win the unbeliever.

We are all products of our age, in some degree, admits Carson, and in the days ahead, evangelicals desperately need to take their cues from Scripture, rather than engaging with society on its own terms, in its own tenor.

Carson’s concern is that far too often we have let the surrounding culture define the rules and assumptions of our engagement. When shouted at, we are prone to respond with the natural human instinct to shout in return. We return shrillness with shrillness. But in our increasingly post-Christian society, we are in increasing need of being the kind of people who respond to a slap on one cheek by turning to the other and who respond to vitriol and venom with gentleness, perceptive questions, careful listening, and loving kindness.

We need to learn, in the words of the apostle Paul, “to show perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:2).

“One of the things that Christians have to learn in this frame of reference is, even if the whole society becomes uncivil in all discourse, we must not descend to that level, we must not project ourselves as screaming angry people but as broken people living under the cross, submitting to the lordship of Christ, wanting to think fairly and accurately and faithfully and truly and hopefully and edifyingly in a Christ-honoring, church-building-up sort of way.

“If that earns us a certain amount of opprobrium, pay the price. That’s what we do. But we don’t want to descend to the screaming level.”

This is very relevant for how Christians conduct themselves on and off the internet with non-Christians.

I'm encouraged that Christians seem to be taking the challenge to live for Jesus in a secular society more and more seriously. I'm thankful for the change of tone and change of heart. We need to repent of when we've been more concerned with our pride in an argument rather than the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Much thanks in the Lord Jesus Christ,
solodeogloria