Can a spade ever be anything but a spade?

Last night I was listening to someone from The Barnabas Fund sharing about the work they are involved in with the persecuted church across the globe, though predominantly in Muslim Countries. There were lots of stories of faith in action in terrifying situations, of murders, attacks and imprisonment of believers for their faith.

But I think what struck me most was the concerns of the speaker about the naivety of Christians in Britain. We should champion equal rights for other religions in Britain, we do not want to move to a society where anything but Christianity is oppressed, but we do need to wise up in our thinking.

Christianity is exclusive, it always has been as Jesus claimed; "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." The danger is that whilst we nod assent to this verse we moderate with the tolerance culture we live in. Any other way of approaching God apart from through Jesus Christ will not work because it doesn't deal with our biggest problem - sin.

That's why Paul, in Acts 17, starts off with the idols in Athens but then proclaims the true way to God, he doesn't say your idols are good enough, or another equally valid way to God, or even a way to God. He says "in the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead."

The command is to repent of anything that isn't true worship of God in Jesus Christ. I must seek to take the same message to my Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist friends as to my atheist friends, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Any other means of trying to approach God is flawed because it does not deal with our sin.

It may be not a popular message in our "tolerant" society, even with some Christians, but better to speak the truth and be rejected than to peddle a lie. The gospel is an offense, we are not meant to try to make it offensive by our behaviour or manner of delivery, but the message itself will be offensive to many because they will refuse to recognise what God says about them. But Jesus told us to expect exactly that "They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the hour is coming when those who kill you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me."