"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.—Jesus, in Matthew 7:13-14
Late last year, a chaplain for a major league baseball team lost his position and was publicly excoriated for nodding his head in answer to a question from a ball player. The question? Do people who don’t accept Jesus Christ end up in Hell?
He apparently nodded his head to affirm, and the firestorm began. The media reported it, the team owner suspended the chaplain and apologized profusely to the public; and major league baseball wrung its hands and pledged to re-visit the idea of chaplaincy in baseball.
How should the chaplain have answered that question?
How do we as workers talk about the most important tenet of our faith—the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ—in a workplace filled with people of other faiths, or no faith? Should we talk about our faith at work?
In both the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6:1-4) and the New Testament (Matthew 10:32), Scripture makes it clear that our faith is not a private matter. Unfortunately, this runs counter to both our culture and our own comfort zones.
What makes us Christian is Jesus Christ; not ethical behavior, not belief in a Higher Being, not the right stand on a moral issue. Being a Christian means accepting the words of Jesus that “no man comes to the Father except through Him.” (John 14:6) To hide that truth is to hide our faith. To deny that truth is to deny that faith.
In fact, many who call themselves Christians today are merely Deists, people who believe in God but don’t necessarily accept the claims of Jesus Christ. Identifying themselves as Christians is a cultural tag, not an identification of their beliefs.
That said, Christians must be careful to answer questions with Jesus’ words instead of their own, especially in a multi-faith setting like the workplace. A reporter of another faith once asked me why I felt it necessary to make the point that somebody must accept Jesus in order to go to heaven. It was said with a look of disappointment, and I thought I detected a note of hurt in the query. The last thing I wanted to do was be hurtful. Still, the question had to be answered.
“It isn’t what I think or say that matters,” I responded carefully. “It’s what Jesus thinks and says. It’s important to remember that these are Jesus’ words, not ours.” And then I pointed him to the words of Christ, not Randy.
I don’t think it made the claims any less offensive, but I suspect it made it less personal.
The joy of our faith is the release we’ve received as a result of our accepting the work of Jesus Christ. We should want that joy for everyone we care about; and it should be so important that we want to find ways to introduce it to them. We must do so carefully, though, in ways that reflect respect, and that demonstrate care and compassion, not righteous triumph.
There are not “many paths to God”. There is only one. We must find loving ways to explain that, but we must never surrender that truth.
--Randy Kilgore
rkilgore@marketplacenetwork.com
www.marketplacenetwork.com
see also:
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. –Jesus, in John 14:6
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.—Phil. 2:9-11
