Only As Good As The Speakers

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 few years ago, after my return from the Christmas holidays, I went shopping!  My parents had given me money for Christmas, (just what I asked for) and now it was up to me to make a purchase.  Not wanting to disappoint mom and dad, I took myself to the mall and had a blast!  After all, it’s always easier to spend someone else’s money as opposed to spending your own!

I already had a few things in mind.  Some I needed, and the others I wanted and what I wanted soundly defeated what I needed.  I strolled through the mall, winding up at an electronics store looking at a small shelf stereo unit that caught had my eye back in September.  Clothes you buy on the cuff, stereos take more time and research, requiring several visits to the store just to make sure everything works the way it’s supposed to.

The research process was practically finished.  All I needed was to have one more look, plunk down the cash, box it up, take it home, and fill my study with wonderful sound.  I entered the store and spoke to one of the nice salesman who left me alone to “play” with the stereo for just a few minutes.  He knew, as did I, that the more I pushed the buttons and played with the remote, the faster I would buy the stereo! 

However, before I made my final decision, I wanted to have one more listen to the speakers.  Although the stereo looked good, the real test came from the quality of sound produced by the speakers.  After all, this should be the only criterion (well let’s not mention a petty thing like the cost) that determines the worth of a stereo system.

It isn’t a far jump to apply this to the Christian walk, is it?  The message we share doesn’t change and it’s not going to. What does change, however, is the quality of that message as it passes through different speakers!  Playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on an expensive system using cheap speakers does not have the effect on the listener that Beethoven intended. The speakers have the responsibility to reproduce the sound just as the composer intended.   

This is exactly the issue Malachi was addressing in his day.  In Malachi 2:7 we read the following words, "For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction-because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty.”   This is a solemn warning concerning all those who would share the truth of the Scriptures with others.  That means whenever we open our mouths to share the gospel, need to make sure that we faithfully reproduce the message just as God intended it to be.  Too much is at stake for us to water the message down or to put our own twist on it.  We need to be quality speakers, faithfully sharing God’s message in accordance with the truths found in his word.

The message of God’s word is timeless and unchanging, however, the way that message is delivered has everything to do with the way it is received.  Are we being faithful to share the truth of God’s word with those around us?  Are we faithfully communicating the message of salvation found in Jesus Christ?  How effective are we as speakers today?  Are we inviting people to listen to our message or are we turning them off to our message?  What kind of speakers are we today?