by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
If you know you are speaking the truth in love, and you know God approves your message because you learned the principles you speak from God’s word, then don’t fear that people won’t approve or like you. Human approval is not the goal. God’s approval and helping broadcast His light in a dark and lost world is the goal.<\/p>\n
Jesus was perfect, but people hated Him, who did nothing wrong and said nothing wrong. You cannot please everyone. So, don’t speak to please people. We don’t set out to offend people, but truth offends without trying to. Some people will criticize even if you were Jesus Himself.<\/p>\n
Don’t be intimidated by the prospect of human disapproval. Think what the world would be like if Peter continued to say nothing, letting people continue to intimidate him. On the morning of Jesus’ kangaroo court trials, Peter was too intimidated to speak up for Jesus. On Pentecost (50 days later), he was through being intimidated. He spoke the needed truth. 3000 were saved.<\/p>\n
Respecting God over human intimidation and a desire to save souls moved Peter to speak the truth in love, with the help of the Holy Spirit. The world needed him to speak up more than it needed him to keep silent. He was still not personally approved by everyone, but God was pleased, and light was now shining where there had been only darkness.<\/p>\n
The world can sure use your light! Don’t let people intimidate you into silence! (II Timothy 1:7).<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Terry Wane Benton If you know you are speaking the truth in love, and you know God approves your message because you learned the principles you speak from God’s word, then don’t fear that people won’t approve or like you. Human approval is not the goal. God’s approval and helping broadcast His light in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[572],"class_list":["post-95924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-persecution"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15198,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-do-you-do-when-people-say-it-is-wrong-to-speak-out-against-homosexuality\/","url_meta":{"origin":95924,"position":0},"title":"What do you do when people say it is wrong to speak out against homosexuality?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Here lately the whole country seems to be quite preoccupied with the lifestyle of being a homosexual. It is all over the Internet, TV, everywhere it seems. And amazingly churches everywhere are 'jumping on the bandwagon,' so to say. So-called priests and other 'leaders' are actually embracing this lifestyle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67233,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/four-challenges-of-evangelism\/","url_meta":{"origin":95924,"position":1},"title":"Four Challenges of Evangelism","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Andy Cantrell There are countless reasons why Christians struggle with evangelism, but I believe the following four categories cover most, if not all, of those reasons. They are Care, Consciousness, Courage, and Craft. Most of the excuses we are willing to vocalize come from the last three areas. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":84225,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/handling-rejection\/","url_meta":{"origin":95924,"position":2},"title":"Handling Rejection","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 8, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton I suppose that we all feel rejection in one form or another. Even Jesus, the only perfect individual to ever live, was rejected. So, we have to expect it to handle it. It is sometimes very painful, especially when it makes no sense, and you know\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36645,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-everything-i-do-be-done-in-plain-sight\/","url_meta":{"origin":95924,"position":3},"title":"Should everything I do be done in plain sight?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I read through John recently, and John 3:20-21 stood out to me. I can't quite make sense of how to apply it. My understanding is that I should do everything in plain sight so that everyone can observe that I'm doing nothing wrong. But I'm unsure of how far\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37980,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/false-teachers-and-lying-prophets\/","url_meta":{"origin":95924,"position":4},"title":"False Teachers and Lying Prophets","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As long as God has had teachers and prophets in the world there have been those who taught falsely. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jeremiah complained about the false prophets - Jeremiah 5:30-31 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Paul had problems with teachers binding the Old Law - Acts 15:1-2 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0C.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Paul warned the Ephesian elders\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":86006,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/ezekiel-and-preaching-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":95924,"position":5},"title":"Ezekiel and Preaching Truth","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 24, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Ezekiel had a most challenging job, preaching the truth to people who were not ready to appreciate it. God gave Ezekiel the vision of God's awesome greatness, and when a preacher preaches because he has a great concept of God, he can preach the hard truths\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}