Thoughts on Christian Ranting

A Christian ranting at the ways of the world is like someone being upset that a ship’s propeller stirs up the water.  It does what it does. 

It isn’t the rants of Christians that makes a difference, but the God of the Christian.  The world doesn’t need to see what we can do, but what God can do through us.  It is God and His ways that make a difference.  God is inviting those in the world far from Him to come.  Come without payment.  Come and have sins like scarlet made as white as snow.  God’s people revealing Him in the fruit of the Spirit with love and joy and patience and in their proclamations of His way in truth show a bright light.  It may be rejected but wherever it is lived all those nearby benefit from it.  And when they speak it is with the substance of the life of God lived in the real world.  It is not the rants of finger pointing moralists shouting from their lofty heights that really change people of the world.  No, it is the call of the one who called Himself humble and gentle at heart, the one who forgave the cruelest of His day from the cross He was nailed to, the one who says “Come, follow Me.”  If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation.  Those not in Christ are as they were, and no amount of ranting will change that.  The corruption that extended throughout the Roman world was not stopped by politicians, but people empowered by the Holy Spirit spoke God’s news of life-change possibilities in Jesus and people were changed.  One by one, family by family, group by group people were drawn to Jesus and His way of living and the life they once lived was changed into a greater one. 

The late Charles Colson who had seen power at the level of the White House realized there was greater power in Christ than in politics.  He described Christian leaders who came with their rants to meet the President and wilted as they came into the Oval Office.  We are to be righteous and to approve righteousness which may require raising our voices and taking action, but that differs from ranting which seems empowered by rage.  James approaches a better way of handling this in ourselves:  You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. James 1:19, 20 NLT   I submit that God’s people would rather produce the righteousness God desires.  Some may say, “But what if I am right and what I say is true?”  Then speak the truth in love.  The Apostle Paul I am sure wanted to rant on occasion, but chose another way.  He gives us a clue in 1 Corinthians 13:1-4:

¹If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. ³If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.  ⁴Love is patient and kind.

The world is indeed broken and injustices abound, let us live in such a way that the reality of God bursts forth from us.  Reaching out rather than ranting at the wrecked world seems to be a place to start.  Offering spiritually powerful solutions to a world in need of something better than what they have seems good.  (I hope this wasn’t too much of a rant.)