Have you ever been tempted to toss your pearls before swine? Even if we take this command to mean: "Don't share the pearls of the gospel with the swine-eating Gentiles," it still doesn't seem the Jewish Christians had trouble restraining themselves from evangelizing the Gentiles. In fact, the Lord called the Jewish Christians to evangelize the Gentiles, but only after the Jewish Christians had devoted themselves to evangelizing the Jews.

Are we saying that God both commands us to toss our pearls before swine and not to toss our pearls before swine? The point is not the pearls or the swine but the timing. Could it be that you're working at the church when you should be working at home? Maybe you're sharing the gospel with strangers but not with your wife.

What if you're not tossing the pearls of the gospel before swine? What if your timing's off because you're not obeying God? We should be evangelizing whether we want to or not. We should be evangelizing first those closest to us and often the hardest to talk to. We should be evangelizing those that the Lord assigns to us and not those we have chosen. We toss our pearls before swine when we do the "right" thing at the wrong time, to the wrong people, or in the wrong place.

Rescript:  †Reverend Joseph R. Binzer, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, January 5, 2009

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