Sunday: We Cannot but Speak
WEEK 38
SUNDAY
WE CANNOT BUT SPEAK
Acts 14:1-7
We continue this week to look at the mastery over ingrownness by the outgoing spirit of sharing. The whole of the Acts is one recital after another of this redemptive pressure on individuals, cities, and civilizations. If God had redemptively invaded the world in Christ, then the people, touched by this invasion, began to invade redemptively the situations around them. Freely they had received, so freely did they give. Like was producing like. Love begat love.
If the last spoken word in the Acts is “They will listen!” (Acts 28:28), then the last recorded act is: “Paul lived in his own rented quarters for two full years and welcomed everyone who came to see him. Unhindered and with complete confidence, he continued to preach God’s kingdom and to teach about the Lord Jesus Christ” (vv. 30-31). The Acts are acts of evangelism from first to last. Here are men and women on fire. The pages are ablaze with a consuming passion to share.
Wherever the authentic Christian spirit is found, there is the same passion to share. John Richardson, an Indian Christian on the Nicobar Islands, located between India and Burma, was put in jail by the Japanese when they captured the islands during the war, because he wouldn’t side with the Japanese. His son was taken out and shot, and they set the date on which he was to be shot. But he refused to knuckle. On the day appointed for his execution, he heard the footfalls of his executioners. But the Japanese said instead, “Japan yesterday made peace, so you are free.” His courage and steadfastness so impressed the islanders that about ten thousand of them became Christians, nearly the whole population. Then the man who had offered his head for his convictions was ordained bishop of the islands.* The words martyr and witness are the same. The early Christians and authentic Christians of today witness even though it means martyrdom—literal or social or economic or political martyrdom. “We can’t help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20), is the divine compulsion within people. If we hold our peace, the stones—the hard, bare facts of life—will cry out; for people need conversion and need it everywhere.
O Holy Spirit, if I hold my peace, uneasiness seizes me. If I declare the good news, I feel a sense of well-being and joy. This is what I am made for. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: This divine compulsion will impel me to share what has been shared with me.
*The details of this story have not been verified, but see M. D. Srinivasan, Sons of the Light (Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1962).