Have you ever heard of the Turing Test?
Alan Turing, whom the 2014 movie The Imitation Game was made about (I think it was Eddie Redmayne playing him), was a genius mathematician, a genius cryptologist, and a prescient in the field of artificial intelligence, far ahead of his time.
He predicted that one day we would develop a machine that could think like a human, and he proposed the Turing Test as a means for determining whether a machine had reached that point or not. Essentially, the test is that you have a human and the machine each behind a barrier, and a third person has five minutes or so to ask either "being" any questions they can think of, with the goal being the determination of which one is the machine and which is the human being. The answers are all provided in written form, so you can't use vocal inflections as a gauge, but otherwise that's the deal. Every test that has appeared to be successful so far has always proved to be a fake.
In my latest book, Day 0001: The Singularity and the Six-Day War, I set the scenario in the future twenty years, to the year 2037, the seventieth anniversary of the Six-Day War, and I've replaced the Turing Test with what I call the Medvedev Exam, a series of 23 tests that encompass intelligent behavior outside of the realm of humans (the premise is that dolphins and aliens should also be able to pass, where they probably wouldn't pass the Turing Test). But the concept of the test is now ingrained in our society with respect to AI, or artificial intelligence, since Turing's method of evaluation arrived sixty years ago.
As Christians, we should fail our version of the "Turing Test". Call ours the "Cross Examination", if you will.
When someone meets you for the first time, they should be able to tell that you're a Christian, without hearing you specifically extol the virtues of Jesus Christ. If they can't tell that there's something about you that's different from the average 'heathen' on the street? Maybe there ISN'T anything different. Maybe you're not much of a Christian after all.
Try it for yourself. Test your friends and neighbors. Without telling them what you're looking for, engage them in a conversation. Make it natural, about whatever you might discuss on any normal day. Do they demonstrate their Christianity in their manner, in their speech, and in their behavior? Do you notice they say or behave differently than a "normal" person might? Before the "God bless you, friend!" comes up in conversation, were you able to tell that they were a disciple of the living Christ?
And then, test yourself. When YOU greet people, is there something significantly different about YOU? Hard to tell from the inside, I know...but just the mere act of trying to behave that way, being conscious of the fact that you carry the Lord of the Universe around within your soul everywhere you walk, should help you pass the "Cross Examination" among both acquaintances and strangers.
And THAT'S THE POINT! We are to be lights on a table, the city on the hill, the salt of the earth. Jesus specifically ordered us to be different from the world, so that the lost souls looking for the answer would see the joy that is within us, and ask what we have that gives us that joy. And THAT is our cue to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You don't have to throw it against every wall you see and pray that it sticks - if you're faithful, and you're faith-filled, God will give you the opportunities to spread His message of love and acceptance.
I've watched Him giving me more opportunities of late - as I've tried to dive into becoming more completely His doulos, His "slave", He has been providing me chances to show my Christianity, to provide help for folks with car trouble, to give alms to the needy, to serve as Jesus served. And I highly suspect that the more faithful I am to Him in this, the more opportunities He will bless me with, and the more He will bless my life in general.
I'm trying to pass the Cross-Examination. And you should, too.
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