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“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders: make the most of every opportunity.” Colossians 4:5

In my junior year at my Christian high school, I made friends with the Japanese exchange student in our class. She was sweet and soft-spoken, and we enjoyed getting to know each other despite a very difficult language barrier. Fortunately, she had a digital pocket translator. One time, someone was sharing who they had a crush on in our class with her and she started laughing as she searched for the right word to describe that person. When she typed the word from her language into that little device and showed us what it said in English, it read, “praying mantis.” I still haven’t stopped laughing about that. I didn’t even know they had praying mantises in Japan!

Traditionally, the Junior class made t-shirts with the school’s theme every year as a fundraiser for our senior trip. Our class asked this friend to translate the verse for the year into her language on the front of the shirt: “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise.” (Ephesians 5:15, NKJV) The key phrase she translated was “walk circumspectly.” In order to find the characters she could understand in her language, she had to use her pocket translator. My friend did not know the Lord, but she was in an atmosphere where the students around her had a tremendous opportunity to show Him to her.

Walking in wisdom towards outsiders and making the most of every opportunity has everything to do with walking circumspectly like that parallel verse from Ephesians 5:15 says. But what does it mean to walk circumspectly? Webster defines it like this: “careful to consider all circumstances and outcomes, prudent.” There’s a level of diplomacy even involved in walking circumspectly. Scripture teaches us that we are Christ’s ambassadors to the world (2 Corinthians 5:20). We are cautioned, certainly, in Psalm 1 not to “walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of sinners,” but here in Colossians 4:5, we are also reminded to “be wise in the way we act toward outsiders” and “make the most of every opportunity.”

Jesus made the most of every opportunity by inviting sinners to follow Him into abundant, everlasting life. Like a much better version of that pocket translator my Japanese friend held, Jesus translated His message into a language outsiders could understand. Rowdy fishermen, thieving tax collectors, prostitutes, hypocrites, and highly contagious sick people are just SOME of the outsiders Jesus welcomed inside by translating His message of repentance and hope into a language they could understand.

How are we walking in wisdom with people outside of God’s Kingdom? Are we shouting at them in a language they can’t possibly understand? Or are we asking God to give us wisdom on how to translate His message into a language they can understand without losing its meaning and integrity?

Let’s walk in wisdom with outsiders, asking God to help us translate His message into a language they can understand. He’s done it before, and He can do it now.

“Lord, help us to walk in wisdom with outsiders. Use us as living letters to translate Your message into a language those we interact with can understand.”

 For His Glory,

Emily P. Meyer (www.emilypmeyer.com)
TRBC Women’s Life