Olamide and Bashir had eaten lunch together almost every working day for six years. They worked in the finance and operations departments of a logistics company in Apapa, and at one o’clock they would cross the road to the same buka, order the same things, and sit at the same plastic table under the same faded umbrella. She was a Christian, a worker in her church’s children’s department. He was a Muslim from Kano who prayed in the small room behind the stores at the hours of prayer and fasted every Ramadan without complaint. They argued about football, about the price of rice, about whose state made the better suya. She knew his children’s names. He had come to the hospital when her mother had surgery.
Faith had come up between them many times, usually lightly. He would tease her about her church’s three-hour services. She would tease him about the dawn prayers. But they had never gone very deep, and both seemed to prefer it that way.
Then, one Friday in the rainy season, with two younger colleagues at the table and the rain hammering on the umbrella, Bashir put down his spoon and said, “Olamide, you are my friend. So tell me honestly. Your religion says Jesus is the only way. Do you think I am lost?”
The table went quiet. The young intern beside her looked at his phone. Olamide felt the heat rise in her face. She had two easy answers ready. One was to laugh and say, “Who am I to judge?” and change the subject. The other was the answer she had heard preached many times, delivered in a tone she had never liked. Neither felt like love. Neither felt like truth.
She said, “Can I answer you properly on Monday? I want to think about how to say it.”
Bashir nodded. “Monday,” he said.
That weekend, Olamide wrestled with the question many believers face in one form or another. How do you love people fully, without pretending to agree with what you do not believe? How do you hold convictions that cannot be traded away, without becoming harsh, superior or closed? This teaching is an attempt to answer that question from Scripture.
Love begins by seeing the person
The first thing to say is that love requires us to recognise the actual person in front of us. It is easy to love people in general and still fail to see the particular human being at the lunch table. It is easy to argue against a religion, an ideology or a lifestyle and forget that we are speaking to someone with a mother, a fear, a history and a soul.
Jesus never made that mistake. When a rich young man came running to Him with a question about eternal life, Jesus told him the hardest possible truth: he needed to let go of the wealth that was holding his heart. But before Mark records the hard word, he records something else: “Then Jesus beholding him loved him” (Mark 10:21). He looked at him. He loved him. Then He told him the truth. The young man went away sorrowful, and Jesus let him go. He did not soften the word to keep him. But nobody could say He had not loved him.
Look at how Jesus approached a Samaritan woman at a well in the heat of the day:
There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
Everything about the situation was a barrier. She was a Samaritan, and “the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.” She was a woman, and rabbis did not usually speak with women in public. She had a complicated history, as the conversation would reveal. Jesus crossed every one of those lines. He began by asking her for something. “Give me to drink.” He let her help Him. He treated her as a person worth talking to.
And He did not hide His convictions. A few verses later He told her plainly, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). That is a clear disagreement about the most important thing in her life. Yet she did not walk away offended. She ran back into town and told everyone about the man who had told her everything she had ever done. His truth had been spoken from inside a relationship in which she had been seen.
That is where every gracious conversation begins. Before you decide what to say, ask whether you have actually seen the person. Do you know what they love, what they fear, what they have suffered? Have you let them give you a drink of water?
Love without a mask, holding on to what is good
Paul gives a portrait of Christian love in Romans 12 that holds warmth and conviction together in a remarkable way:
Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.
“Let love be without dissimulation.” The word Paul uses means without hypocrisy. In Greek drama the hupokritēs was an actor who spoke from behind a mask. Paul says Christian love must not wear a mask. It must be real affection for real people, not a performance of niceness that hides contempt, and not a professional friendliness that is really a technique for recruiting.
Then, in the very same breath: “Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.” Paul has placed genuine love and moral conviction side by side because they belong together. The word cleave means to be glued to something. Love that comes unglued from goodness slides into mere sentiment. Conviction that comes unglued from love hardens into harshness.
Many of us have been taught, without realising it, that we must choose. Either you are a loving person who keeps your convictions to yourself, or you are a person of conviction who does not worry too much about being kind. Paul refuses that choice. The same Christian is to have unmasked affection for people and an unbending attachment to what is good.
The verses that follow show what this looks like toward people who are outside the church, and even toward those who oppose us. “Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not” (Romans 12:14). “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep” (Romans 12:15). That means turning up for your Muslim colleague’s daughter’s wedding with a gift and a smile, and turning up at your unbelieving neighbour’s father’s burial with a hand on his shoulder. Shared joy and shared grief are the ordinary currency of love. “Be not wise in your own conceits” (Romans 12:16) keeps us from turning every encounter into a lecture. “Provide things honest in the sight of all men” (Romans 12:17) reminds us that people outside the church are watching, and that integrity at work speaks before our words do.
Then Paul gives one of the most realistic verses in the New Testament: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18). If it be possible. Paul knows it will not always be possible. Some people will not be at peace with you whatever you do. As much as lieth in you. Your part is your part. You cannot control how others respond to your convictions. You can control whether you have been peaceable, honest and kind.
Speech seasoned with salt
Paul gives the Colossians a short instruction about how to speak to those outside the faith:
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.
“Walk in wisdom toward them that are without.” Paul assumes that believers will be in daily contact with unbelievers, at work, in the market and in the neighbourhood. He does not tell them to withdraw. He tells them to be wise. Wisdom includes timing: “redeeming the time” means buying up the opportunity, recognising the moment when a real conversation is possible and taking it.
“Let your speech be alway with grace.” Alway. Not only when we are in a good mood or talking to people we like. Grace in speech means kindness, courtesy and generosity. It means assuming the best about the other person’s motives. It means listening long enough to understand what they actually believe, rather than what we assume they believe. It means you are never sarcastic about the faith of the person in front of you.
“Seasoned with salt.” Salt in the ancient world did two things. It gave flavour and it preserved. Speech seasoned with salt is not bland. It has substance. It says something true. A Christian who only ever agrees, who never lets her convictions be seen, has lost her salt. Jesus warned that salt which has lost its savour is good for nothing. Grace without salt becomes empty politeness.
PunchlineBut salt is meant to be added in the right amount. Too much and the food is ruined. Some believers speak as though they were emptying the whole packet into every conversation. Every lunch becomes a debate. Every disagreement becomes a sermon. The meal becomes inedible.
“That ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” Notice every man. Each person is different. The answer you give to a curious colleague is not the answer you give to a hostile one. The way you talk to a grieving neighbour is not the way you talk to a friend who has asked you a direct question over lunch. Paul expects us to learn how to answer each person, which means paying attention to them as individuals.
Ready to give an answer
Peter writes to believers who were facing suspicion and hostility from their neighbours, and he tells them how to speak about their faith:
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.” The preparation for a good answer is inward before it is verbal. To sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart means to settle, deep within, that He is the One you ultimately answer to. When that is settled, you are free. You do not need the other person’s approval. You are not afraid of their disagreement. You do not need to win the argument to feel secure. You can speak calmly because your confidence rests on Christ, not on how the conversation goes.
“And be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.” The word translated answer is apologia, a reasoned defence, the kind of explanation you would give in a courtroom. Peter expects believers to be able to explain why they hope in Christ. Notice also that the answer is given to someone who asks. There is a time to initiate conversations about faith, and Scripture is full of bold proclamation. But much of our witness among friends happens in response to questions, and those questions usually come when a life has made someone curious.
“With meekness and fear.” Meekness is gentleness, strength under control. Fear here is reverence, a sober awareness that God is listening and that the person in front of us is precious to Him. Our answer should not be aggressive, mocking or proud. A believer who wins an argument and humiliates a friend has failed the test Peter sets.
“Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.” Conversation in the King James means your whole way of life. Peter is realistic: people will speak against you. But if your life has been honest and kind, their accusations will not stick. Daniel’s enemies in Babylon found this out. They searched his record for a fault and concluded, “We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God” (Daniel 6:5). The only thing they could fault him for was his faith. That is a good reputation to have.
Convictions that cannot be traded
If we are to hold our convictions without compromise, we need to know which convictions are actually non-negotiable. Many conflicts between believers and the people around them are about things that do not deserve that level of firmness.
At the centre are the convictions of the gospel itself. That Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, crucified for our sins and raised bodily from the dead. That salvation is a gift of grace received by faith in Him. That “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Jesus Himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). A believer cannot trade these away to keep a friendship comfortable. To do so would be to tell our friends that the most important thing we know is not true.
Then there are the clear moral teachings of Scripture: honesty, faithfulness in marriage, care for the poor, the dignity of every human life, the refusal to take part in the worship of other gods. These, too, are convictions we hold firmly, though we hold them for ourselves first and do not expect people who do not share our faith to live by them already.
Around these there is a much wider area of things on which sincere believers differ: styles of worship, particular days and diets, many questions of dress, entertainment and culture, details of church practice. Paul writes about some of these in Romans 14 and says, “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” (Romans 14:5). We should not treat our preferences as though they were the gospel. If a believer fights as hard about the length of a choir robe as about the resurrection, people will reasonably conclude that we do not know what matters.
NuggetKnowing the difference is freeing. It lets you be relaxed and generous across a wide range of differences, which makes your firmness on the central things far more credible.
Principled participation
How far can a believer join in the life of people who do not share her faith? Paul describes his own approach:
For though I be free from all men , yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men , that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you .
“I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” Paul adapted himself to the people he was trying to reach. Among Jews he kept Jewish customs. Among Gentiles he did not impose them. He ate what they ate. He met them on their ground. He was willing to lay down his own rights and preferences for the sake of the gospel.
But notice the bracket in verse 21: “being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ.” Paul’s flexibility had a limit. He would adjust his customs. He would not abandon Christ. He would eat at a pagan’s table, but he would not bow at a pagan’s altar. Elsewhere he told the Corinthians, “If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake” (1 Corinthians 10:27). Accept the invitation. Eat the food. Enjoy the company. But in the same chapter he insists that believers must have nothing to do with the worship of idols.
We see the same pattern in Athens:
Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
Paul had walked through the city and been troubled by its idols. But when he spoke, he began with respect. He had looked carefully at their devotions. He noticed an altar to an unknown god and used it as a bridge. He quoted their own poets. He did not mock them. And then he proclaimed Christ, calling them to repentance and announcing that God had raised Jesus from the dead. Some mocked, some wanted to hear more, and some believed. Paul’s respect did not dilute his message. It gave his message a hearing.
Principled participation, then, looks something like this. You attend your neighbour’s wedding, celebrate with them, give a generous gift and dance at the reception. You stand respectfully during ceremonies that belong to another faith without joining in prayers addressed to other gods. You join the office end-of-year party and leave before it turns into something you cannot be part of. You go to the funeral, sit with the family, bring food and say what you can honestly say. You join your colleagues in community projects that serve the poor. You decline, politely and without drama, to falsify a document, laugh at a cruel joke, or take part in worship that is not offered to Christ. Where you are unsure, pray, ask wise believers, and follow your conscience.
When love is mistaken for approval
One of the pressures believers face today is the idea that to disagree with someone is to hate them. In many places it has become difficult to say “I love you” and “I believe this is wrong” in the same conversation without being accused of contradiction. Some Christians respond by going silent about their convictions. Others respond by becoming defensive and harsh, as though they had to prove they were not compromising.
Jesus shows another way. When a woman caught in adultery was dragged before Him, He refused to join the crowd that wanted to stone her. He shamed her accusers into leaving. Then He said to her, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). He did not condemn her. He did not approve of what she had done. Both were true in the same moment, and both were love.
John describes Jesus as “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Not half of each. Full of both. That is the goal for every believer: to be so full of grace that people feel received, and so full of truth that they know where we stand. “Speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) describes the way Jesus lived.
This means you can say to a friend, sincerely and in the same breath, “I care about you deeply, and I do not share your view on this.” Mature people can hold that. Many of your friends will respect you more for it, not less. They know you are not pretending.
It also means you do not need to say everything you believe in every conversation. Love is patient. “By long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone” (Proverbs 25:15). Some convictions are best expressed over years of faithful friendship rather than in a single confrontation. You do not have to make your friend agree with you before Friday.
When your convictions cost you
It would be dishonest to suggest that if you are kind enough, nobody will ever be offended by your convictions. Jesus was the kindest person who ever lived, and He was crucified. Peter wrote to believers who were being spoken against even though they were doing good. Some relationships will cool when your convictions become clear. Some people will decide you are judgemental however gently you speak. Some opportunities at work may close.
That is painful, and you are allowed to grieve it. But it is not a sign that you have failed. “As much as lieth in you” means there is a point beyond which the outcome is not your responsibility. If you have been honest, gentle and respectful, and the other person still walks away, you can let them go with blessing and keep praying for them.
Sometimes, too, you will get it wrong. You will say something true in a harsh way, or stay silent when you should have spoken, or speak when you should have listened. When that happens, apologise. Apologise for your tone without withdrawing the truth. “I am sorry for the way I said that. I still believe it, but I should have said it with more care.” That kind of humility often opens a door that the original conversation closed.
And remember who carries the outcome. Paul tells Timothy to instruct opponents “in meekness,” and then adds, “if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:25). Changing a heart is God’s work. Your job is to be faithful, truthful and kind. You are a witness. You are not the judge, and you are not the Saviour.
PunchlineOn Monday, at one o’clock, Olamide crossed the road to the buka. Bashir was already at the table. The two younger colleagues had found reasons to eat elsewhere.
She told him what she had prayed about all weekend. “Bashir, I believe what Jesus said, that He is the way to the Father and no one comes except through Him. I believe it for me, and because I believe it, I believe it for you too. I can’t pretend otherwise and still be honest with you. But I want you to know something else. I have prayed for you by name every week since your son was in the hospital. If I thought you didn’t matter, I wouldn’t have bothered to tell you the truth.”
Bashir was quiet for a long moment. Then he smiled slightly and said, “Then we have both been praying for each other. I pray for you too.” They talked for almost an hour about what each of them believed about God, about mercy, about Jesus. Neither changed the other’s mind that day. When they walked back across the road, the conversation turned to the price of rice.
Five years later, when Olamide’s father died, Bashir drove to Abeokuta for the burial service and stood at the back of the church through the entire sermon. Afterwards he told her, “You are the only Christian who has ever told me what you really believe and still eaten with me every day.” He has not become a Christian. She still prays for him by name.
That is what it looks like to love people without losing your convictions. You see the person. You speak the truth with grace. You keep showing up. And you leave the rest to God.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Think of someone you disagree with deeply. What do you actually know about their life, their fears and their hopes? How could you see them more clearly?
- Which tends to be your weakness: grace without salt, or salt without grace? What would a better balance look like?
- If a friend asked you today for “a reason of the hope that is in you,” what would you say?
- Which of your convictions are truly non-negotiable gospel convictions, and which are preferences you may have held too tightly?
- Is there a relationship where you need to apologise for your tone without withdrawing the truth?
This Week
Choose one person in your life who does not share your faith and whom you have tended to keep at a distance. This week, ask them a genuine question about their life and listen fully to the answer. Pray for them by name every day. Then, before the week ends, write out in a few sentences how you would explain your hope in Christ to them, gently and honestly, so that you are ready if they ever ask.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, You were full of grace and truth, and You loved people while telling them the truth. Teach me to see the person in front of me as You see them. Let my love be without a mask, and let me cleave to what is good. Season my speech with grace and salt, and give me wisdom to know how to answer each person. Settle You as Lord in my heart, so that I can speak without fear and listen without defensiveness. Where my convictions cost me, keep me gentle and keep me faithful. Use my life to point my friends to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.