It's not the waiter's fault if the diner complains.

I recently read an interesting illustration that I would like to share with readers and it runs as follows:

A chef prepares a meal, in a restaurant, and the waiter serves it to the customer.  There is nothing wrong with the meal; indeed, it is perfect, but the diner is one of those "glass half-empty" people who will find fault with anything.  He duly calls the waiter over to him and berates him for the alleged poor quality of the food, it's not to his satisfaction etc etc.  The waiter gets a bit fed up with this and asks the diner if he would like to take up the matter with the chef. After all, the waiter simply served up the meal, it was the chef who prepared it.

As one reflects upon this it becomes apparent that there is a parallel with the Christian telling people what the Bible teaches.  There is nothing wrong with the Bible, it is, in fact, infallible, but it teaches a number of unpalatable truths that make for uncomfortable reading.  It teaches us that God is Holy and we are sinful; it teaches that we deserve judgement for our sin and no amount of good deeds will put that right.  It teaches that there is only one way to get right with God and that is through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as our Lord and Saviour.

It also teaches that there are certain practises which, though they are regarded as fine by the majority of people, are deemed to be sinful in the sight of this Holy God.

When Christians are faithful to declare the truth of the Bible they will often be met with hostility, harassment and persecution. Indeed, we may even find ourselves falling foul of the "thought Police" who seem to regulate what one may or may not believe, with the same level of zeal as the old East German Stasi.

What should be our response when facing  such abuse? 

Coming back to our illustration I would suggest the following answer; just as the waiter simply challenged the diner to take up the matter with the chef, so we can simply point out that God has written His word, it has been carefully prepared (and preserved) and all we need to do is to "serve it up".  If people don't like its teachings the answer should be straightforward viz. take up the matter with God, it is His word, not mine.

There is no need for us to be cowed into silence by the "liberal fascists" who insist on telling us that we are bigots because we believe things they don't like.  Our responsibility is to boldly lay out before people what God's word says, and then trust Him to work on people as it pleases Him to do so.

The Bible clearly teaches (in Romans 10 v 17) that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God; therefore let us re-double our efforts to spread its teachings and leave the consequences to Him.