Colossians 4:5-6
Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
These last 2 verses of instruction left to the Colossians are the fruit of the whole epistle. That is, a right view of God and the enemy and ourselves is not just to swell our heads with knowledge but it will transform us inwardly and outwardly. Our public testimony is the subject and he says it is to be marked by wisdom. Wisdom is to Knowledge as Charity is to love, or as obedience is to faith. Charity is love in action, Obedience is faith in action and wisdom is knowledge in action. So let's put all that he has taught us in this epistle into action! “Faith without works is dead.
The two areas of our public life addressed are our walk and our speech. A Walk marked by wisdom and speech marked by grace. I am reminded of Jesus’s title in the book of John “The Word was made flesh.” Jesus came and represented God to us, He was the “The Image of the invisible God.”[Col 1:15] When Phillip desired to see the Father Jesus asked him, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”[Jhn 14:9] The world had never seen God but Jesus was a perfect representative sent to earth, so perfect that if you want to know anything about God you can look to Jesus, he is the express image of God. In his life, we see the holiness of God, the justice of God, the love of God, and every attribute perfectly represented. Jesus was our ambassador and came to reconcile us to God, to show us the God we had never seen. Those who love God loved him, and those who despised God despised him. So it should be with our walk and talk. This world has never seen Jesus, all they see are his ambassadors. [2 Cor 5:19-20 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.] Do we walk in wisdom? Is our speech gracious yet salty? How much of Jesus has the world seen through us? Could we say “God did beseech you by us?” Jesus Came and besought us to be reconciled to God, those who are his ambassadors have had that same ministry of reconciliation given to us, to beseech men and women to be reconciled to God, and The Gospel is hard to ignore when it is lived by those who preach it.
He says we should be redeeming the time. Time is the most limited resource on this earth. So this issue of being an ambassador of Christ is not a work for tomorrow but today. Are there neighbors around you who have yet to see Christ in you? We don’t know when they will leave this world or when we will. So at the market, at the job, at school or wherever our feet may take us today be sure to “Walk in wisdom.” Speaking to the clerk at the shop, the man on the street, or whomever we may meet today be sure that our speech is “Alway with grace” and “Seasoned with salt.” Have you ever had to eat your words? They were bitter when you spoke them and tenfold bitter when you had to eat them. So let them be gracious and seasoned with salt, they will be easy to stand by and swallow again if need be.
Then he says, “That ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” Notice he say how ye ought. There are things we ought to say that may not be very pleasant but while they aren’t pleasant they can be gracious and salted with righteousness, which is irritable to wickedness. I worked with men who would use some of the most awful language you have ever heard, it was not pleasant to tell them that their language was fowl and that I did not appreciate it but there was a gracious way to apply salt to those fowl words and 9 times out of 10 they would at least stop around me. It may be that you have to be controversial at times when lies are being told, gossip is being spread or fowls jokes are being told, don’t hesitate to speak against evil things, we “Ought” to, but if we do it in a very ungracious way it will not be near as effective as if we have graciously seasoned our words. It is our walk and our talk that opens the door for us to give an answer to men as we ought, They see we walk differently and speak differently and they many times want to know why, Be ready to share with them the Jesus you have been showing them. “Not I but Christ that liveth In me.”
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