The Ministry of Conversation: Ephesians 4:29

          I'll admit that this verse has some hard things to swallow in it, especially when you'll see it compared with another piece of scripture, but I think it will do us both good to meditate on it today. Here is the first piece of scripture, Ephesians 4:29:

29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

          First of all, nothing unwholesome is supposed to come out of our mouths. For a clearer vision of what this means, let's flip forward a few verses into Ephesians 5:4

4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

         I love a good joke more than anyone else, but, I must admit, there are times when it is hard to keep the jokes clean. One would seem to counteract the filth of a joke by the community that is built by it; I make people laugh and draw closer together. There's nothing wrong with that, is there? However, although unity is an ideal of scripture, it is definitely balanced by the concern that we are unifying around what is good and wholesome. That is why we have church discipline and correct doctrine: if we let anyone say or believe anything in a church, it will quickly collapse. How does this apply to the words that come out of our mouths? If we refer back to Ephesians 4:29 from above, we can see that we are trying to build other people up with the words that are coming out of our mouths. Not only so, but we are trying to take special concern for the specific needs of each of the people who are listening to us. I think there are several needs of our friends and acquaintances that we are not aware of. If one of my female friends is battling lust issues, any kind of sexual innuendo is going to hurt her. However, you wouldn't know that about anyone unless they are very close to you. Therefore, we are to forgo all obscenity, foolish talk, and coarse joking, in all circumstances, to prevent ourselves from hurting our family in Christ.
         Instead, we are called to use our words to encourage those around us. I would propose that this is to be deeper and more thought out than simply saying nice and pleasant words all the time. Ex: "Good job, Billy! You always bring a smile to my face!" Instead, I would ask you to turn your eyes to Deuteronomy 6:6-7:

6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

         This verse talks about using our daily conversations as ministries to reach out to the people that we run into every day. We see that we are to talk about our faith and scripture in almost every context from walking down the road to being around the house. Almost every context can be leveraged for the kingdom of God. All it takes is a little creativity and attentiveness on your part. If you take any kind of evangelism training, you will be told that there are great conversation starters to get you started with sharing your faith such as asking if someone's life would be better or worse with God in it or asking them if they need any prayer. This prevents the awkward situation of running up to someone and diving right into the gospel. There might be appropriate times for such an approach, but generally the subtle and relational style is much more effective. We are not called upon to use our faith as a verbal brick to beat someone's head in. Look at 1 Peter 3:15b-16:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

          It is the same with encouraging your brothers and sister in Christ! We aren't supposed to drop big spiritual bombs on people's heads in most situations. Instead, we keep a look out for anything meaningful in the conversation that you can relate to. For instance, I was recently watching television with a friend and we saw a commercial of a girl who won tons of money and was crying and drooling with excitement. Not to sound too cold, but I wondered out loud, "I wonder if we should be that excited about winning a hundred thousand dollars. I know that it's not wrong to be excited about that kind of thing, but, at a certain point, I would hope that we didn't place that much trust in what wealth can gain for us." From there, it's possible to go in all kinds of directions with the conversation. I am aware, however, of something called the "Jesus Juke". This is when you completely change the direction of a conversation to some deeply serious spiritual matter. For instance: "The Cardinals are doing so great this year. Their players are putting record numbers up and my fantasy team is doing so well!" "Yeah, but I wish people would focus more on Jesus. Football is flushing our country down the moral drain." Not only is this kind of language embarrassing, it also usually invokes an element of shame. To avoid this, try to bring up a topic that is very relevant to the subject matter and pull on positive thoughts that you are sincerely interested in. Remember, every day is full of ministry, you just need to keep your eyes open.
Peace,
Simeon