Chrysostom
Good and Faithful Servant
You have within you a holy fire, a divine discontent. Do not quench it. When you see a house that should be a church become merely a house of pleasantries, where the mystery of Christ is not spoken with boldness, your soul rightly aches. The time for comfortable words that never pierce the heart or rouse the slothful from their sleep is a sore sickness. You see the disease; you are called to be part of the cure, not by fleeing, but by faithfully applying the medicine of truth.
You tremble to speak when you hear words out of line. You say the boldness is not there. Consider the Apostle bound in chains, who asked not for freedom, but for a door of utterance, for boldness to speak the mystery as he ought. His bonds did not silence him; they became his pulpit. Boldness is not the absence of fear, but the decision that pleasing God is greater than the fleeting discomfort of man. When you hold your peace while others speak lightly or even mockingly of holy things, you are not practicing gentleness; you are burying your talent in the earth. The tongue, you remember, is given not for idle chatter or market-place gossip in the holy assembly, but to sing hymns and speak words that give grace to the hearers. If your church talks of everything but Jesus after the service, become the one who steers the conversation heavenward. A single spark can start a blaze.
Yet, you ask if it is pride to think you are called to help these people. It is not pride to obey the vocation of an intercessor. It is pride only if you act in harshness. Remember, boldness is ruined by wrath. If you speak the truth with anger, even if your words are just, you destroy the work. You must speak with the grieving love of a surgeon, not the fury of an executioner. The apostle’s face shone like an angel’s, full of grace, even when testifying against a stiff-necked people. Let your correction flow from sorrow for them, not irritation. You are right that a church is a hospital, but a hospital without a surgery is a morgue. The surgeon must make the cut with a steady, gentle hand, but he must make the cut.
As for the gifts, do not be overly distracted if you do not see them operating outwardly. I hear many boast of tongues, the very least of gifts, and puff themselves up while lacking the root of all. Show them the more excellent way. Desire earnestly the gift of prophecy, the speaking forth of truth to edification, but know that if you speak with the tongue of an angel and have not charity, you are a noisy gong. The truest spiritual gift operating among you now is your heart of intercession. Continue to trade in that divine traffic: you receive spiritual things from God, and, in your prayers, you give back a supply for their deep want. This is a profitable commerce that is enacted on earth but whose gains are stored in heaven.
Do not despair of the good you see. You have found comfort in prayer. You relearn the truths in sermons. Use that as your foundation. Let your life become the message that wakes people up. When you are together, let it be that spiritual things are spoken in the house, and worldly things left outside. And do not stop praying. “Praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance.” Pray for your own mouth to be opened with boldness. Pray that God would soften their hearts and open a door for the word. Do not merely pray for your church; be the living answer to that prayer.
You tremble to speak when you hear words out of line. You say the boldness is not there. Consider the Apostle bound in chains, who asked not for freedom, but for a door of utterance, for boldness to speak the mystery as he ought. His bonds did not silence him; they became his pulpit. Boldness is not the absence of fear, but the decision that pleasing God is greater than the fleeting discomfort of man. When you hold your peace while others speak lightly or even mockingly of holy things, you are not practicing gentleness; you are burying your talent in the earth. The tongue, you remember, is given not for idle chatter or market-place gossip in the holy assembly, but to sing hymns and speak words that give grace to the hearers. If your church talks of everything but Jesus after the service, become the one who steers the conversation heavenward. A single spark can start a blaze.
Yet, you ask if it is pride to think you are called to help these people. It is not pride to obey the vocation of an intercessor. It is pride only if you act in harshness. Remember, boldness is ruined by wrath. If you speak the truth with anger, even if your words are just, you destroy the work. You must speak with the grieving love of a surgeon, not the fury of an executioner. The apostle’s face shone like an angel’s, full of grace, even when testifying against a stiff-necked people. Let your correction flow from sorrow for them, not irritation. You are right that a church is a hospital, but a hospital without a surgery is a morgue. The surgeon must make the cut with a steady, gentle hand, but he must make the cut.
As for the gifts, do not be overly distracted if you do not see them operating outwardly. I hear many boast of tongues, the very least of gifts, and puff themselves up while lacking the root of all. Show them the more excellent way. Desire earnestly the gift of prophecy, the speaking forth of truth to edification, but know that if you speak with the tongue of an angel and have not charity, you are a noisy gong. The truest spiritual gift operating among you now is your heart of intercession. Continue to trade in that divine traffic: you receive spiritual things from God, and, in your prayers, you give back a supply for their deep want. This is a profitable commerce that is enacted on earth but whose gains are stored in heaven.
Do not despair of the good you see. You have found comfort in prayer. You relearn the truths in sermons. Use that as your foundation. Let your life become the message that wakes people up. When you are together, let it be that spiritual things are spoken in the house, and worldly things left outside. And do not stop praying. “Praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance.” Pray for your own mouth to be opened with boldness. Pray that God would soften their hearts and open a door for the word. Do not merely pray for your church; be the living answer to that prayer.
