"...declare it boldly, as I ought to speak."

In my devotions today I read the sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Towards the very end of the letter, Paul closes it like this.

To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. Ephesians 6:18-20

D.A. Carson, in his For The Love of God, Volume 1, writes this comment about Paul’s request to declare the gospel boldly, as he ought to speak it.

Surely it is encouraging that Paul should feel the need for such prayer. We sometimes place the apostle on such a high pedestal that we forget he was an ordinary mortal faced with the same temptations that confront us. He was very well aware of how easy it is to skew the Gospel, to trim it a little, to get around the bits we thing our hearers will find awkward or offensive. So he knew that to preach the Gospel faithfully, he would have to preach it fearlessly. This does not reflect an “in your face” style. It means, rather, that Paul wanted to speak without fearing what his hearers would think or say about him, or what they might do to him, lest he compromises the Gospel he came to announce. –October 6th

Carson goes on to say,

It does not take much imagination to detect ways in which today’s preachers in the Western world stand in need of much prayer in this regard. Suppose you are preaching to university undergraduates at a pagan university, or to bright businesspeople in their 20s or 30s in say, New York. When you expound Romans, exactly how will you handle homosexuality in chapter 1 and election in chapter 9? How will you talk about hell in the many passages where Jesus himself deploys the most horrific images? How might you be tempted to flinch when you must deal with the sheer exclusiveness of the Gospel or when you talk about money to rich people? -October 6th

It only makes me think, how do we compromise the Gospel when talking to people we know? How do we talk about homosexuality? How do we talk about pre-marital sex? How do we talk about abortion? How do we talk about the reliability of the Bible? How do we talk about the exclusive claims of Christ? Where do we need prayer to declare the gospel boldly, as we ought to declare it.

Pray for Boldness

Yes, pray for your pastors. Pray that we declare the gospel boldly, as we ought to declare it. But pray also for yourselves, and one-another, that we would not shrink from declaring the truth of the gospel. Pray that words may be given to us in opening our mouths boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.