Iran, Idolatry, Irony
So then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as God is pleading through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
-2 Corinthians 5:20
Like so much of the world, I’ve been following the recent conflict between Iran, Israel, and subsequently the United States. While I’m far from fluent on Middle East affairs or diplomacy, I do find certain aspects particularly intriguing. Like the fact that Iran used backdoor channels to communicate its intentions to strike at specific U.S. bases in the region, effectively ensuring that the attacks would be ineffective. To the naked eye it simply doesn’t make any sense. It requires a more intuitive knowledge and understanding of Iran and how it functions in order to discern why one would launch telegraphed strikes with intentional impotence.
While I don’t understand the complexities of Middle Eastern politics, I have lived in a post-communist eastern European nation. I wouldn’t claim any level of expertise on their politics either, but I do understand how they communicate and some of their worldview lenses. It’s been interesting over the years to watch American diplomats make blunders in this context I’m familiar with, usually without any cognition of the faux paus that hindered their efforts.
The role of an ambassador is a vital one! It acknowledges that there is a discontinuity between the context one is from, and the one to which he goes. The ambassador is given the responsibility to translate the wishes and intentions of the home entity into the appropriate language that will be best heard and comprehended by the foreign party. It is his solemn duty to minimize the noise that might hinder the message, and amplify the essential objectives of it.
We are Christ’s ambassadors! We have been entrusted the solemn responsibility to translate the message of the kingdom of heaven to the perishing souls in the kingdom of hell, to bring light into the darkness, to bring spiritual life to the spiritually dead. The message is vital and so is your role. I think we all understand this well enough, so why are we so reluctant to do it? Why, with our clear commission to go and make disciples, do we find the actual task so daunting that we rationalize leaving it to the vocational ministers among us? Why is it so hard to share the gospel as a faithful ambassador with my neighbor?
In the end, we must confess that our fear of man competes with our fear of God. Sharing the life-transforming message of the gospel with unbelieving friends, family, neighbors, or coworkers calls for a measure of boldness. We might be concerned about how the conversation will be received, worried we’ll spark a debate we’re not ready to navigate, or fearful of straining an important relationship. These concerns are understandable. Even so, we can't allow them to keep us from our calling as God’s ambassadors, bearing the message of reconciliation.
Our compassion for the dying must overcome our desire for a life free of conflict or confrontation. Our submission to Christ’s lordship must compel us toward full obedience at any cost. The gospel of Christ is an offense to many who hold worldviews inspired and engineered by the father of lies. Our proclamation of the good news may indeed result in persecutions in varying forms.
Perhaps, in some God-ordained irony, it is our fear of man which serves as a partial motivator for engaging our neighbors more effectively with the truth of the gospel. A degree of fear may be the very thing that elevates our evangelistic efforts to be more fruitful. How? In the same way that an ambassador must consider the hearer of his message and how to frame it in such a way that will be best received, we too seek to present the gospel so that our hearers may receive it. This is not to advocate any degree of theological compromise, but rather a sensitivity to understand the hearer better so that we can better deliver the gospel. When we invest in knowing and understanding the worldview of the hearer, we can then bring the gospel to bear in powerful and challenging ways on that worldview.
We can be bold witnesses. We can be bold and adept witnesses. What we cannot be is abashed witnesses, or bear no witness at all. If we consider sharing the gospel more dangerous than not sharing the gospel, we are struck with a second irony… that we are in the greatest danger of all!
“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
Why is the prohibition of any gods before Yahweh the first commandment?
[You shall have no other gods before Me. Exodus 20:3]
It is not simply a matter of hierarchy or exclusivity. It is the precursor to all other sin. It is the predisposition of every human heart to elevate our desire above His throne. The life of faith is always a matter of lordship. What do we fear? We fear something more than we fear God, and this is our idol. That which makes us compromise His lordship in our lives is our true lord. Or another way, that which erodes our trust in God is that which competes with Him for it.
And so I suppose we now have a tension: In a positive sense, our love of our Lord, and our love of fellow man should drive us toward emboldened and empowered witness. In the negative equation, we fear God, but not as much as we ought, while we fear man more than we should, illuminating a hidden idolatry in our hearts. But, that fear of man can create a useful impetus to make us better ambassadors if leveraged strategically, motivating us to be more skillful and perceptive communicators of the message we’ve been given…like true ambassadors.
In the economy of evangelism, the sum of a negative and a positive is a double positive! We are compelled to share the gospel for the sake of our love for God and our neighbor. We are motivated to share the gospel in a more thoughtful way because of our sinful fear of man. What a picture of how God works through sinful humans to accomplish His purposes! For those of you who claim no fear of man, I congratulate you, but I’m glad in God’s grace for the rest of us.
May we be found faithful on every account of His great commission…by His grace.
