How I Became a Closet Christian
I am a closet hoarder of Christian T-shirts, literally and figuratively. I have tonnes of them, but the majority rarely see the light of day. The official reason for this is because they are not very stylish or flattering. This reason is proven inequitable, as the few that are really nice are also infrequently worn. This, I think, supports what a lot of other things about my lifestyle suggest: that when it comes to proclaiming Jesus’ death and resurrection, I’m not very bold.
Lately I have been quite aware of the propensity I have to be very excited about the gospel around Christians and forget that it exists around non-Christians. Being excited about the gospel is what the mark of a Christian should be, so I feel like a more authentic Christian around other Christians who encourage me to be passionate about the gospel. I think it is for this reason that I have found it so easy to spend most of my time at university hanging-out with Christians. There are some definite positives in doing this: Other Christians remind you that you belong to God’s family, they encourage you to stand firm, are a great antidote to the negative influences of spending lots of time with people who hold different values to you and they urge you to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is good. The obvious danger, though, is that because relationships with Christians are so great, and relating to non-Christians is so hard, you stop interacting with the world. Besides a few classes, some work mates and old school friends you rarely see, (that is, if you didn’t go to a Christian school like sheltered little me), the overwhelming majority of your emotional, physical and spiritual energy is poured into your fellow believers*. I reached a point where I realised that I was struggling to think of non-Christian friends to pray for, I had exhausted all my options for bring-along-a-friend-events, and although I wanted to show Christ’s love to those around me, I had fairly superficial friendships with workmates and classmates. I started trying to rectify the imbalance, all the while wondering how God wanted me to live as a follower of Jesus in this individualistic, fast-paced, consumerist, post-modern culture I found myself in.
The book of Acts is exciting: The believers are zealous; the Sadducees and Priests are annoyed; the Holy Spirit is doing his thing. As one typical verse reads, “Many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand” (Acts 4:4) The believers in Acts are passionate, active and influential within their community. People are seeing how they live and interact with each other, and it is a powerful witness. Our culture is vastly different today, so it’s pretty much impossible to emulate the community of believers in Acts. However, I do think that we should seek to have a similar impact on those around us through the way we live, and particularly at Uni as members of E.C.U. If the students on campus see us as a cliquey little club, they probably won’t be inclined to listen to what we have to say about Jesus. If they don’t know we exist, they won’t even have a chance to make that assumption.
Acts records a vision Peter receives from God. As a result Peter goes to a non-Jew’s house to share the gospel. The Jewish believers are shocked and criticize Peter. If you were a Jew, you didn’t go and stay with a Gentile in their house; it just wasn’t done. Which got me thinking, has it become uncustomary to hang out with non-Christians? Obviously we don’t criticize each other for doing what Peter did. In fact, we fill our days and nights hearing talks about evangelism and encouraging each other to do it, it’s just often we don’t leave ourselves time to develop genuine, authentic relationships with non-Christians. It takes time to love someone and passionately tell them about Jesus.
As I examine my life and the believers around me, a lot of what I see is vastly different from the believers in Acts: the massive number of conversions; imprisonments for preaching the gospel; a physically close and sharing Christian community. Some things haven’t changed, like the need to reach out to non-believers. Evangelism guru Paul wasn’t always on the go preaching, he took time to share the gospel and his life with others. Acts 18 is a great example:
After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla…And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade.
So let me encourage you to use your skills, trades, talents, hobbies, likes and loves to spend time with people; to love them and tell them about Jesus.
By Keren Moran
* I’m not sure where non-Christian family fit in here, this obviously depends on the relationship you have with them, but I want to acknowledge some Christians witness to non-Christians every day in an intimate, challenging and powerful way. They probably don’t need to read this article.
<< “Does Satan Throw Babies into Fire?” and other tricky moments | Return to the Index | I See Green... >>