Be Gracious In Your Speech....

The following passage caught my eye the other day as I was skipping around in the book of Colossians. It occurs to me now that it goes along with what I posted yesterday. 

From Colossians Chapter 4:

^2-4Pray diligently. Stay alert, with your eyes wide open in gratitude. Don't forget to pray for us, that God will open doors for telling the mystery of Christ, even while I'm locked up in this jail. Pray that every time I open my mouth I'll be able to make Christ plain as day to them.

^5-6Use your heads as you live and work among outsiders. Don't miss a trick. Make the most of every opportunity. Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out.

The excerpt above is from the Message Bible.  The King James words vs. 3 thusly

that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ,

A door of utterance...how about that.  I like that.  To speak the mystery of Christ.  And in the Emphasized Bible....

 ......that, God, would open unto us a door for the word, so that we may speak the sacred secret of the Christ

And how should we speak of the sacred secret, the mystery of Christ?

Your discourse being always with benefit, with salt, seasoned, - that ye may know how it behoveth you, unto each one, to be making answer. (Emph)

And the King James says:

5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. 6 Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

"Redeeming the time"...interesting phrase don't you think?  And what should be the tone of our conversations? Gracious.  Or in King James speak, seasoned with salt.

I have seen Christians speak in a most ungracious manner (Ann Coulter comes to mind) as they try to ram their "gospel" down the throats of non believers....believers who see things differently than they do.  Today on EU someone posted an article that slammed Sue Monk Kidd...entitled

FROM SOUTHERN BAPTIST TO GODDESS WORSHIP: SUE MONK KIDD.

This is from the Way of Life website.  May I just call a spade a spade here and declare that this is utter bullshit.  One thing I really do appreciate about sites like this....in an effort to discredit they usually publish the most delightful quotes from the works of the authors/preachers/teachers they pick to lambaste.  I've found some of the best quotes on sites light this.   

Examples?

“I thought: Maybe the Divine One is like an old African woman, carving creation out of one vast, beautiful piece of Herself. She is making a universal totem spanning fifteen billion years, an extension of her life and being, an evolutionary carving of sacred art containing humans, animals, plants, indeed, everything that is. And all of it is joined, blended, and connected, its destiny intertwined. ... In other words, the Divine coinheres all that is. ... To coinhere means to exist together, to be included in the same thing or substance” (pp. 158, 159).

Hmmmm...God depicted as a black women.  Where have I come across that theme before?  I'm sure there is a section on this vast web site (no heretic left behind) that disses The Shack, too. 

And more from this web site

“... beginning in my early thirties I’d become immersed in a journey that was rooted in contemplative spirituality. It was the spirituality of the ‘church fathers,’ of the monks I’d come to know as I made regular retreats in their monasteries. ... I thrived on solitude, routinely practicing silent meditation as taught by the monks Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating. ... For years, I’d studied Thomas Merton, John of the Cross, Augustine, Bernard, Bonaventure, Ignatius, Eckhart, Luther, Teilhard de Chardin, The Cloud of Unknowing, and others”

I guess the list of those she studied explains it all...mystics, all of them.

“I would go through the gate with what Zen Buddhists call ‘beginner’s mind,’ the attitude of approaching something with a mind empty and free, ready for anything, open to everything. ... I would give myself permission to go wherever my quest took me”

I think her focus is on the divine feminine...which does not resonate with me...since God has revealed himself to me as father. Perhaps the author of this article has not taken note of the fact that one of the names of God means "many breasted one."  Sounds kind of feminine to me. 

The purpose of the whole web site is to expose the false teachers, the heretics....which seems to include just about everyone....