“No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (vv. 15-16)

One caveat before I say anything else:

Our lives, lived in Christ, must be evangelistic. As in, there must be evangelism—the proclamation of the Good News by which we are saved. That is a words-dependent calling. There is no version of the Great Commission that ellipts speaking the Gospel.

That said…

…remember that your lived life is evangelistic, too.

Remember that the way you live and move and serve—the way you share and bless and welcome—is light in darkness. If you take everything you know, by grace through the Spirit, and merely keep it as knowledge, that dark is only dispelled in your own mind. It is the act of living it that shines.

So don’t cover up your lamp with endless theory! Uncover it, so that your rightly theological life might shed light on your neighbors. Radiate these specific callings—purity and mercy and generosity and integrity and love—so that the Message you bring will be thoroughly illuminated.

It can’t come down to just behavior. The Gospel is a message.

But let your light-shining life make the Message all the clearer.

— Tyler