In apologetics you often hear the admonition that “It’s important for every Christian to know what they believe and why they believe it”. The next thought that is implied but seldom voiced is that we then need to do something with it. The information age we live in provides a near limitless supply of theological and apologetics resources to be found with little effort but information in and of itself is of little value unless we learn to apply it to our lives and also share it.
At Matthew 5:13, Jesus declared that his followers are the “salt of the Earth”. By this he meant that we should permeate society with the gospel and to “flavor” the culture by spreading the love of Christ. He then went on to warn that if we lose our saltiness then we are no better than common gravel to be thrown down onto the ground and trampled upon. Next, he referred to these same people as the “light of the world”. In saying this he calls us to act like light both in dispelling darkness and leading lost people from the shadows into the light of God. He then cautioned against hiding one’s light “under a bushel”. I fear that Christians in America have become increasingly prone to hiding our lights from public view. Twenty years ago a believer may have soft-peddled his faith for fear of being thought of as a religious fanatic. Today, this stigma still exists but lawsuits against Christians have become an additional deterrent to openly practicing one’s faith. At the first hint of litigation many schools and businesses have run up the white flag rather than to defend lawsuits from organizations who have vast resources to use for such litigation. Another threat that has the church in America in retreat is the possibility of being stripped of tax deductible status as a punishment for failing to toe the cultural line. I was in a group several years ago where a Christian from North Carolina made the statement that churches in the U.S. were under threat of losing tax deductible status if they spoke out on social issues. My friend, Oleg Turlac, who grew up in the Soviet Union, simply responded “so what?”. This exchange highlighted perfectly the anemic posture of the church in America as opposed to Christians who suffer true persecution.
While the Christian church in rabidly anti-Christian countries such as China and Iran are growing like wildfire, far too many churches in America have adopted a posture of retreating behind our walls and trying not to lose what we already have. It is literally impossible to carry out the great commission and circle the wagons at the same time.
It is not too late for America, though. In a previous article I related the story of how Billy Graham came to faith. It began with a timid Sunday School teacher named Edward Kimball who shakily shared his faith with a teenager named Dwight L. Moody. Moody then influenced Wilbur Chapman, who influenced Billy Sunday, who indirectly led to Mordecai Hamm being invited to preach a revival crusade. It was at one of these services that young Billy Graham was saved. A 2008 study estimated that 2,2 billion people had heard the gospel straight from Billy Graham’s mouth.
Romans 8:11 tells us that the very same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of each one of us. Let us embrace our role as salt and light as we both pray and work toward revival in our country and around the world.
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