Dear Truro family,
Towards the end of his letter to the early church in Colossae, the Apostle Paul gave them this word of instruction regarding how to behave towards those outside of the Church. “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Col. 3:7-8). It should be instructive to us that, at the very center of “walking in wisdom” is the question of whether or not we’re “talking with wisdom”. How we walk towards outsiders is inseparable from how we talk to outsiders.
What was true for those first-century Christians is just as true for us 21st-century Christians: our speech has a direct impact on our witness. And in a culture whose speech is increasingly marked by divisiveness and incivility, opportunities abound for Christians to show a “yet more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31b) of speech marked by a graciousness and love that has no other explanation than the grace and love shown to us in Jesus.
Your brother,
Jamie