Speaking to God and Others

Colossians 4:2-6 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

2 Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving. 3 At the same time, pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the message, to speak the mystery of the Messiah, for which I am in prison, 4 so that I may reveal it as I am required to speak. 5 Act wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. 6 Your speech should always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.

Col.4:2 Devote yourselves in prayer

You can not pray too much, while it is often impossible to close your eyes and bow your head, you can always say a word or two to God. This is especially important if you are about to talk to someone who is not a Christian. While ultimately it is up to God to save souls, he wants to work through us to accomplish this in the people who will ultimately be saved. We can’t do it alone, we need to talk to God about it so he can guide our speech, to keep us calm when the situation gets heated, and guide us to the right things to say when we have forgotten the proper response.  Being thankful to God is always important, not only does God enjoy and deserve praise, but it gets us in a mindset that we become more likeable people. If you act like you were weaned on a pickle people will be uninterested in following the lead of a bitter person, praising God helps prevent that.

Col. 4:3 3 At the same time, pray also for us that God may open a door to us for the message, to speak the mystery of the Messiah, for which I am in prison,

While ultimately the “us” in this passage was written by Paul, but mostly about Silas and Timothy I believe that a principle can be applied that we should include in our prayers for ourselves, and our Christian leaders a request that God will give us opportunities  to speak about Christ, and if need be suffer for his words. Suffering for any cause now days is something that most think should be avoided but as exercise makes us grow as people physically, suffering gives us strength in other ways. It, of course, isn’t pleasant, but God can turn it for your good.

5 Act wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. 6 Your speech should always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.

Acting wisely begins even before you come across people who have questions about Christianity, or non-Christians.  If you don’t have answers for many of the questions that you know others have about Christianity, you won’t know how to answer each person, so studying the word of God, and the words of those write about Christian issues is a wise thing to do, but you should do this knowing that no one but Christ knows all the answers. Pick an area or two that you can absorb yourself in, and learn the names of resources that know the answers to things that you don’t specialize in.  That way when you come across questions that you can’t answer you can promise to get back to them with an answer.
It is also wise to keep a notebook on you (a phone app will suffice) You can write down questions that you need to research, contact info of the people who asked you those questions, and random things that you thought of during the day that might play an important part in your Christian walk, that you may need to remember later.
We often tell ourselves we will remember, but often we don’t WRITE IT DOWN!
Prayer request can be kept in your portable notebook as well.

Read more in part two