Topics to Avoid

Acts 20:20
    
    I have heard my entire life that there are two topics you never talk about, politics and religion. This is obviously to try to keep the peace or be beneficial in some way. What I have discovered in my life so far, is that it has not worked one bit! All it has done is create two generations who don’t know how to talk about politics or religion. They hold beliefs for no other reason than “This is what I believe.” They can’t articulate their points of view and certainly can not defend their religious convictions with scripture. Is this what it was like in the first century? No! When speaking to the Ephesian elders, Paul says, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house” (Acts 20:20). The man who said “be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1) said he taught people everywhere he went. Peter tells us to “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15). When commanded by the religious and political leaders of the day, the Sanhedrin council, to stop teaching Jesus Christ, ‘Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men”’ (Acts 5:29). We absolutely need to talk religion around those we don’t agree with. We need to remember how to do it: gentleness, reverent, reproving, rebuking, exhorting, with great patience and instruction, and always geared toward reaching the lost (1 Peter 3:15; 2 Tim. 4:2; Matt. 13:18-23). What we don’t find in scripture is first century christians not talking about a topic because the person, be it a friend, family, or a stranger, doesn’t agree with them. I love you all!


In His service,
Steven Hugley