Silence Can Be Golden

The three men took turns at a congregational meeting, holding a wireless microphone, lambasting me before the congregation for my “weak” leadership that I displayed in asking a paid youth pastor to step down. They felt I had yielded to the complaints of a few, when I felt I had judged the situation rightly in asking him to step down.

It was a very painful meeting. I sat in the front row of the sanctuary taking it all in; being punched and pummeled by their words would be a more accurate description. I chose, by the grace of God, to remain essentially silent, resisting the temptation to defend myself.

The three men and their wives left the church. The storm passed and within a couple of years two of the couples returned to the church. The one man told me, “When I was speaking in front of the congregation at the meeting, I could see it in their eyes that I had lost them.” For the remaining time of my ministry at the church this man would often pray for me before a service, particularly before the Christmas or Easter services, sensing my anxiety at trying to deliver God’s message on such crucial occasions. I can also say, thanks be to God, that I retired from the church on good terms with the other two men as well.

We can do no better than to follow Jesus’ example after His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. “And the high priest stood up and said, ‘Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?’ But Jesus remained silent” (Matthew 26:62-63a). “When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer” (Luke 23:8-9). “And Pilate again asked him, ‘Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.’But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed” (Mark 15:4-5).

Before the high priest, King Herod, and Pontius Pilate, before all three, Jesus remained silent, fulfilling the prophecy of Him in Isaiah 53:7, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”

As pastors, if we are seeking to do the Lord’s will, we can count on Him to defend us when we are falsely accused. We don’t have to defend ourselves. He has our back!

C.H. Spurgeon says in Morning by Morning: Daily Devotional Reading, the April 2 devotional, “The ambiguous and the false, the unworthy and the scornful, will before long overthrow and discredit themselves, and therefore those who are true can afford to be quiet, finding silence to be their wisdom.”

Yes, there are times when we should respond. At such times a reminder from the book of Proverbs is often in order. “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). But more often than we think, silence is golden.

All Scripture references are from the English Standard Version