This week’s Hammer Verse reads: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” To grasp this verse clearly, let’s put it into the thought-flow of Paul.
After giving instruction for how our sufficient Savior should transform every area of our lives in the first three chapters of his letter, Paul turned to a challenge for us to pray, which in context also arises from our new life in Christ (4:2-4). Paul makes these three points: (1) Continue in prayer in such a way that you don’t quit and you are watchful in it—suggesting that prayer is one of the chief means whereby, in life’s trials, we appropriate God’s grace and promises in faith (2). (2) As you pray, keep a thankful heart to God, which is a chief sign of true faith in and worship before him (2). (3) Paul exhorts the Colossians to pray for him in his evangelistic endeavors, which is a good reminder to us that we should bring before God both our evangelistic efforts, as well as those of others (3-4). These two verses are not only important because they show how much God’s mission ought to be at the heart of who we are and what we do, but also they remind us that God typically works in the lives of others as his Spirit changes them through his Word in response to prayer.
Of course, Paul not only thinks he should be involved in evangelism, but so also should the Colossians (and us), so he gives a challenge to live properly toward outsiders with the purpose of winning them to Christ (5-6). Here we find our verse for the week. So, part of living out our new life in Christ that involves reaching out prayerfully to others with the gospel is to pay very close attention to how we speak around others. Paul makes three simple points about our ongoing conversation.
First, our speech should always be characterized by grace. Similar to what Paul writes in Eph. 4:29, instead of speech that tears down or corrupts, what we say should impart God’s undeserved favor that saves and transforms. This means at least whatever we say should in no way lead people away from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even more, it should lead them to it. As such, our speech should present a good witness to others about the reality of Christ in us and should often speak of what God has graciously done in us. Finally, it means we will look for opportunities to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to others (see v. 4), which is a large part of what it means to make the best use of the time (5).
Second, Paul calls us to work on our conversation skills when he writes: “seasoned with salt”. This clause could merely mean something similar to what Jesus meant in Matthew 5:13 when he spoke about us being the salt of the earth—namely that our speech is to preserve and produce good, it is to be godly. Most likely, though, it also is used in a similar fashion to how people in the Greco-Roman world spoke of speech seasoned with salt—it is to be a zesty and lively conversation. In other words, even if we are not naturally a good conversationalist, we should work at being able to talk in a way we make people thirsty for Christ.
Finally, if we work on the first two characteristics of conversation, Paul says that we will “know how…to answer each person”. As we get to know people, pray about evangelism (3), look for opportunities to share Christ so we can make the best use of the time (5) by bringing about gracious dialogue, then we will get better and better at responding to what people say, especially when they ask questions about why we have changed (John 9) and have hope (1 Peter 3:15), and when they bring up questions about how to find eternal life or a relationship with God (John 3:1-8). In other words, prayer and practice make us not perfect, but certainly proficient when it comes to proclaiming to other people the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul, as such, gives us a wonderful manual for how to engage in evangelism in Colossians 4:2-6 and makes it very clear that evangelism is the call of all of Christians, not just a select few.
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