Do All Men Speak Well of You?

These words from Jesus deserve serious contemplation by Christians today:

“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets," (Luke 6:26).

There you have it. Being a faithful witness for Jesus Christ is inherently offensive. The only way to be unoffensive is to be unfaithful to God. This means that when you are doing it right, people will dislike you, malign you, misrepresent you, tell others that you are unloving or arrogant, and invent all kinds of unsubstantiated reasons why you are wrong. When this happens, beloved, take heart and remember that they did the same thing to Jesus and his Apostles.

Of course, this does not mean that Christians get a pass on being unduly incendiary, harsh, or judgmental, etc. Not at all. Such behavior is unbecoming of a Christian and is worthy of strong rebuke. But it does mean that the only way to personally associate with Christianity and avoid being rejected by the world is to misrepresent Christianity like the "false prophets" misrepresented God in the days of old. God is not embarrassed of any part of his holy and inerrant Word and neither should we be. True love, as defined by Christ himself, will not cease to speak the truth in love even at great personal cost.

“And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Acts 10:42-43