15 You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.
—The words of Ananias recorded in Acts 22:15
The words of the Scripture passage at the beginning of this blog post were spoken by Ananias to Saul of Tarsus immediately following the restoration of Saul’s sight following his meeting with the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ on the Damascus Road. They powerfully predict what would happen to this former persecutor of Christians. God would not only change his name from “Saul” to “Paul,” He would change him utterly—inside and out.
Each of us who have come to acknowledge God’s gift of salvation through the blood of His Son have also had such words spoken to us through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Every moment of our lives, God gives us opportunity to serve as witnesses to a needy world of His amazing grace.
An example of the special ways that God chooses to use us came to mind when I read an article posted in the on-line version of Christianity Today magazine about a new game show, The American Bible Challenge, and it’s host, Jeff Foxworthy. Here’s an excerpt:
Comedy fans know Jeff Foxworthy for his particular brand of Southern-fried humor, with many of his best one-liners beginning, “You might be a redneck if ... ” In more recent years, he’s become better known as the host of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, which enjoyed a popular four-year run on Fox TV before being cancelled last year.
Now Foxworthy is gearing up for his next TV gig as host of The American Bible Challenge, a one-hour show premiering Thursday night
[That’s tonight! August 23rd] (8/7c) on the Game Show Network (GSN).Please click here to watch this preview.
Foxworthy, 53, looks forward to hosting the show that will test contestants' knowledge of Scripture; teams will play to win money for charities.
Foxworthy spoke to CT about his new job, his faith, his sense of humor, and his desire to make the Bible more accessible to millions of viewers.
How did you end up with this gig?
Fifth Grader didn’t get renewed last year, which I really enjoyed doing. I never thought I would do a game show, but now I guess I’m now officially in that genre. So the people behind Bible Challenge asked me if I’d be interested. I had to think about it, because it’s a tricky area: Part of me was like, Do you do a game show about the Bible? But I thought, Okay, God, you know I’m an idiot, so you've got to make this clear if you want me to do this or not.
“What!?” you might respond. “Jeff’s a Christian?” Yes, he is. And, he sees his role as a witness for Christ as something that fully integrates with the normal flow of activities in his life.
I think today that many evangelical Christians have constructed a sorting box for their lives like the ones that the U.S. Postal Service uses to sort the mail. One of the pigeon holes is labeled: “What I do for Jesus.” The fact that it is separate from other pigeon holes explains why it simply doesn’t work. We cannot be witnesses for Jesus if we live our lives within the compartmentalized boundaries of self-designed pigeon holes.
Here’s more from the interview:
We’re living in a day with a lot of harsh rhetoric, culture wars, and us versus them. A lot of people are shouting at each other, including Christians. It seems that comedy and laughter are desperately needed. What’s your take on that?
I totally agree with you. We go to North Point, Andy Stanley’s church [in the Atlanta suburbs]. Andy just finished a whole series on that point. It’s like, you can call yourself a Christian and you can be a Democrat; you can be a Republican; you can be a white supremacist. Any group can make the skin still fit within that. But Andy finished by talking about Jesus at the Last Supper where he’s like, “Okay, we’ve talked about a lot of stuff in the last three years, but if you don’t do anything else, love one another as I have loved you.” Andy did an eight-part series on that, and I just loved it.
You know what? We’re all screwed up. And the way Christians mess things up is we act like we’ve got it going on. And if we would just stay in that place of, hey, we’re all screwed up and but for the grace of God none of us have a shot here. We need to have a sense of humor about it; that’s kind of the way I’ve always faced my comedy.
We need to take a lesson from Jeff Foxworthy. We need to fundamentally transform the compartmentalization of our pigeon-holed lives into one blended life dedicated to serving Christ and His Kingdom. We need to be His witnesses throughout every aspect of our daily lives. If we do that, really do that, we will become genuine partners with the Holy Spirit in sharing the Good News of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Will you pray with me?
Thank You, God, for loving us. Thank You for sending Jesus to be our Savior. Thank You for sending us Your Holy Spirit to dwell within us.
Our heart’s desire, dearest Father, is to be witnesses of Your great love and grace to everyone who crosses our pathway. Help us to rededicate ourselves to such a task.
Help us to do away with compartmentalized lives that keep the various aspects of who we are separate from each other. Instead, guide us to become people who lead genuine lives where every aspect blends together into the real person you want us to be.
Thank you for Your Holy Spirit who continually works within us to mold us into people who represent You well. And, thank You for hearing our prayer in and through the precious Name of Your Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
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