Tell the Truth: John 9:17

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

You may feel some anxiety from time to time when you encounter people who don’t believe in Jesus Christ. Even if you yourself follow Jesus Christ, if you believe the Bible’s good news about him, that he died to take the responsibility and guilt of your sins so that you could be exonerated before God—if you believe in Jesus for that, you still might get anxious when others do not.

Too often, that anxiety leads to fight or flight. On the one hand it can lead to smugness, anger, and quarreling (fight), or on the other hand, to fear, trepidation, secrecy, intimidation (flight). But there is a third way:

As Will Metzger titled his book on this topic: Simply tell the truth.

In John 9, there is an amusing account of a man who was born blind. He was healed by Jesus Christ. People that knew this man were surprised that he could now see and asked him to explain. When he pointed to Jesus, those who were in denial about Jesus became frustrated with this man. They wanted him to out himself, literally. Basically: “Tell us what happened! And if you say the wrong thing, you are kicked out of our society.” They demanded an explanation from his parents, and the parents feared exactly this sort of excommunication, so they said, “He’s a grown man, why don’t you ask him” (v23).

The first time Jesus’ opponents asked the healed man about Jesus, they said to him, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” And the man said, “He is a prophet.” (v17.). And when he was asked again, because his first statement wasn’t satisfactory, being inconvenient to their worldview, the man said, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (v25).

As a Christian, you must be gracious, gentle, courteous. You must treat others with dignity no matter what they believe and think of yourself humbly (see 2 Timothy 2:24-26). To help with that, remember this: the truth of what God has done inside you is irrefutable. While you can’t do anything about another person’s resistance, they can’t do anything to change the truth about God’s reconstruction of your heart. Refuse to allow this to lead you to smugness or intimidation. Instead, let it lead you to confidence, patience, kindness, a willingness to answer not once but twice, three times, four, as many as necessary. Fight is stupid. Flight is disappointing. But the third way is Christ-honoring: just tell the truth.