How can we be authentic to ourselves yet be helpful to others?
Let me start by sort of redefining the key word here, ‘authenticity’
People often think about authenticity as ‘I’m not going to do the thing that I don’t feel like’, so authenticity becomes expressing exactly how you feel. The bible will agree with this but will slant it with this question that it’s just saying the bible where it was slant it is, ‘who are you?’ because what many faithful men would not say is that they’ve been tempted before to sleep with people that are not their spouses and what many faithful women would not say is that they have been not been tempted too. Should they live out their temptation because they felt it? When they decided not to sleep with that person, were they being inauthentic?
Let me tell you, they were being absolutely authentic. Listen to what Paul says in Ephesians 4:20-22:
“That, however, is not the way of life you learned, when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires”
Here, Paul was talking about sensuality, he said this is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ, that is, the gospel, when you were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. Paul said you were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self. He is saying when you became born again, something real happened to you, there was a former self and now, you are meant to put that off. Now, here’s the point and this is the slight complication, that old self that he is saying you should put off, I thought the Bible says out old selves have died, the old self has died in terms of determining our destiny with God but it is still present, that’s why it’s telling you put it off and then, he says put on your new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. So, who are you really? The bible says, ‘you are your new self’. You can say, ‘but I still have these desires?’ but that’s not you. So, when a Christian decides to obey the commandments of God despite their feelings, they are being their true selves, when you decide to do what is right, even though you are feeling a particular way, you are actually being your true self.
So, in terms of how we speak, let us take for instance that you’re in a church or organization and you feel bad about something or believe something wrong is going on, God does not say you shouldn’t speak about it but that your true self will speak about it in a particular way. Listen to what he says in Ephesians 4:25, ‘therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbour’ and in verse 29, it says ‘Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen’
See, it is possible to tell the truth and tear people down. So some people will insist ‘We should be telling the truth and people don’t like me because I tell the truth’ No, they don’t like you, not because you tell the truth but because of the way you tell the truth, it doesn’t benefit anyone.
This is part of the Christian social and emotional intelligence at work. Emotional intelligence in theological terms is basically saying, who are you? Be who God has created you to be and put off what you were in the former way of life, when you want to speak the truth, speak the truth in love because that is who we really are but when he is talking about these commandments he is not trying to be unrealistic because we have not perfectly become who we are meant to be, he is saying those temptations we have; to flare up, to be deceitful, are going to be with us but it is not your true self.
According to the popular William Shakespeare quote, ‘To thine own self be true’, that is to the self that Christ has recreated, not to the one that he has crucified. This is how we can balance that we are being authentic, even when we don’t feel like doing what we are trying to do, and we can then say with full integrity that we are being authentic to ourselves because of what Christ has done.
*William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor
Answered by Femi Osunnuyi is lead pastor of City Church, a gospel-centred urban church in the city of Lagos. Because of his passion for church planting and leadership development he also serves on the Lead Team of Acts29 and the Advisory Team of City to City Africa. He is happily married to Tosin and is father to Tofunmi and Timilehin.