No One Will Ever Know?

I started a new book this week titled Christianish, by Mark Steele. The beginning of the book talks about the effects of calling yourself a Christian but living opposite of what we say we are.

“even a singular one who calls himself little Jesus, and yet lives the opposite, damages the whole caboodle—and in effect damns the whole world that is watching.” --Mark Steele

Do your actions turn people away from Jesus? Do your actions go against what you preach? I feel pretty safe saying that at some time in the future all of us will have to say yes to those questions. Here is the reason that I am bringing this up. Jared Wilson posted the other day about our private lives giving public witness. He gave some info that got me thinking. The info came from a study that said that the rate of in room porn rentals in hotels seemed to rise when the hotels were filled with people attending a Christian conference in the town. The statement that was a little striking was “They will know we are Christians by our porn consumption.”

I feel certain that when those people sat down in their hotels at night and rented their movie of choice they never thought anyone would know. And they went back to their lives when they left town and back to their spouses in many cases, and didn’t think anything about it. The only problem is that their private actions had a paper trail that tainted Christ. Hotel managers and workers who found out about this might have been left with a bitter taste in their mouths. All of the good mornings and smiles and pleasant behavior given by all of those people carrying their bibles out in the mornings don’t seem to matter as much any more. It all seemed like fake kindness to cover up a behavior that is wrong.

Now I am not writing this post to harp on those terrible porn watchers and how they have been a terrible witness for Christ(even though they have.) Really what Wilson’s post and the quote from Steele that I wrote at the top of this post made me ask myself is “What am I doing whether in public or private that could cause an outsider to have second thoughts about Jesus?” It should concern us that even our private lives bear a witness for Jesus. In one of Patrick Mead’s lectures that I listened to recently he talked about going on vacation and being recognized wherever he goes. He said he likes that because he is always being held accountable for his actions. If he acts in an inappropriate way, there is a good chance someone will recognize who he is because of him being a well known preacher.

Maybe we should try to live assuming that everywhere we go, people know we are Christians and they are watching to see what we do.