1 Peter 2:21
21 For you have been called for
this purpose, since Christ also
suffered for you, leaving you an
example for you to follow in His steps,
21 For you have been called for
this purpose, since Christ also
suffered for you, leaving you an
example for you to follow in His steps,
Modern western society has thrown wide its arms to hyper-subjectivity, to making the individual the Final Arbiter of moral Right and Wrong, of what is and isn't true, forming from their own personality and preferences whatever identity they feel in the moment suits them, however divergent from Reality it may be. Over the last two decades, in particular, this current in western cultures has deepened and accelerated, catching up the Church in its mad rush into darkness and delusion.
One particular consequence of worldly philosophies and ideologies penetrating deeply into the Church is that many Christians have ceased to adhere to - or even to frame - clear, objective, authoritative and universal definitions of terms like "compassion," "love," "kindness," "gentleness," and so on. Instead, as western culture has feminized and the Church along with it, these terms have been increasingly determined in a very ad hoc manner, the person (a woman, typically, in my experience) most vocal and aggressive about what does and doesn't constitute "compassion," or "tolerance," or "kindness" setting the standard - usually from a mixture of one part loosely-handled Scripture and nine parts personal preference and personality.
"Be you kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another... ." "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness... ." "The wisdom that is from above is first pure, the peaceable, gentle and easy to be intreated... ." And so on. These are the verses, and others like them, that are offered along with the criticism that a believer hasn't been "loving enough," or properly "kind." But rather than looking to Scripture for a clear definition of what it is to be "loving," or "gentle," or "peaceable," the one demanding that their fellow believers be more of these things, simply assumes that their desire that greater gentleness, or love, or kindness be shown qualifies them to assert their demand.
In other words, if Sally wants more tenderness, more gentleness, more encouragement from Bob when he's talking with Ruth, then by virtue of the fact that she wants a greater measure of these things than Bob evidently does, she's more loving, more gentle, more kind than Bob and so has the right to demand that he conform to her definition of what these things are, and how they ought to be expressed. This all rests on the assumption that, if Sally is more eager for gentleness, kindness and tenderness than Bob in a given circumstance, she's more like Jesus than Bob is. This "qualifies" her to condemn Bob and dictate to him how he ought to behave.
Is this assumption warranted? Does Scripture bear out that it is always better in every circumstance to be gentle, tender and kind? Is Sally more Christlike than Bob because this is her belief? Not at all.
Though Jesus embraced little children, and wept over the grief of his friends, and healed the desperate (Mark 10:14-15; John 11:33-35; Mark 10:46-52), he also called the Pharisees "sons of hell," and the "brood of vipers," and "whitewashed tombs full of corpses" (Matthew 23). Fashioning a whip of cords, twice he chased the money-changers out of the temple in Jerusalem, throwing over their tables in violent reaction to their avaricious corruption of the temple (John 2:13-17; Matthew 21:12-13). A Canaanite woman seeking help for her demon-possessed daughter, Jesus called a "dog" (Matthew 15:21-26). He told Simon the Pharisee that a repentant prostitute showed greater, better love than Simon did (Luke 7:36-50).
Gentle, tender, loving Sally would have had a fit had she been present when Jesus had said and done such things! She'd have had to do with Jesus what she's done with Bob, directing Jesus to a kinder, more compassionate treatment of others, scolding him for his violence and severity.
Jesus isn't the only one "nice" Sally would have scolded, however. The apostle Peter, too, seems not to have understood Christian conduct as she does. He said some people were like washed pigs returning to wallowing in the filth of the pigpen, or like dogs eating their own vomit (2 Peter 2)! Kind and gentle Sally is horrified! She is nauseated, in fact. What horrid statements to issue from the mouth of a Christian! If only tender, compassionate Sally had been around to instruct Peter on proper Christian speech.
And don't get Sally started on the apostle Paul. The things he said in his first letter to the Corinthians were just...horrible! So unloving, so hurtful! He even demanded that some fellow be kicked out of the church (1 Corinthians 5)! He called the Corinthian Christians "babies" (1 Corinthians 3:1) and wrote that some of them had died because they had been doing sinful things (1 Corinthians 11:27-30). Sally's soft heart was so wounded reading Paul's nastiness.
Can you begin to see the problem with subjectivizing what it is to be Christlike, what it is to be properly gentle, compassionate, kind and tenderhearted? Can you see why the thinking that such things must always in every circumstance be expressed in the fullest degree (according to Sally's preference/personality) is unbiblical?
To demonstrate further the problems with making someone like Sally rather than Christ our guide, consider what sharing the Gospel would be like under the demands of oh-so-gentle Sally. Is it nice to tell someone that they're a rebellious sinner on their way to eternal hell (Romans 2:4-10; John 3:36; Matthew 25:41-46)? Obviously not. Who would ever want to hear such a condemning and threatening thing? Who would be gladdened or encouraged by someone telling them that this so? No one. Who would be delighted to know that their self-centered, God-defying living is so hated by God that He will forever separate them from Himself who die unrepentant in such living? What self-interested sinner wants to be told that they exist for God's purposes, not their own, that He's the Boss, not them? Such truths would not pass muster with the tender, compassionate Sally. They are too confrontive, and disturbing, and hard, even if they are true.
Imagine a family sitting in the living room of their home, oblivious to the fact that the roof of their home is a blazing inferno. You can see through the large living room window the family watching t.v. together, laughing, and comfortable, and utterly at ease. But it will only be moments before the flaming roof above them collapses onto them and burns them all to death. What do you do? Do you remind yourself to be, above all, tender and gentle? Or do you run screaming up to their door and pound on it like a madman, shouting at the family to get out of their house? Before you act to warn the family, do you meditate carefully on what language will make the family feel the most safe and affirmed as you tell about the roaring death above them? Or, in view of the family's terrible jeopardy, do you bash in the front door and grab the nearest person, yelling at the rest to flee the house? Do you consider how best to establish good relations with the family before you say anything about the fatal blaze about to crush them, perhaps baking a pie for them first, or mowing their lawn? Or do you understand that, in this instance, true love, true compassion, true kindness is best shown in very strong, direct, even aggressive, words and actions that have nothing gentle, or sensitive, or nice about them?
It is under no less terrible jeopardy - far, far more terrible, actually - under which every lost person lives. Every moment they remain lost in their sin, they risk eternity in hell. But the tender Sallys in the Church want their fellows to approach those standing under the danger of the flames of eternal damnation, not with concerned shouts of warning, and plain declarations of the way of escape, but only, ever with friendship-building, and soft words, and soothing niceness.
The perversity and utterly false love in this sickens me. Tender, kindness-obsessed Sally is not Christlike but at all but an opponent of Truth, actually, cloaking her enmity to it in "Christian compassion." God says sin destroys (Romans 6:23; James 1:14-16), but Sally says never to say so. God says false doctrine corrupts and damages people (2 Peter 2, Jude 1:4-16) but Sally says to affirm and tolerate "differing perspectives." God says their is no real love that is not bounded and shaped by Truth and holiness (1 John 3:18; Ephesians 1:4; 1 Corinthians 13:4-8), but Sally says love is all-accepting and must never challenge or condemn. Clearly, one cannot follow God and make concession to Sally, too.
So, beware, then, fellow Christians who tell you that you aren't kind enough, or gentle enough, or nice enough. Ask them, "According to what standard?" and "according to whose example and definition?"
Not Sally's.
Christ's.
Proverbs 27:5-6
5 Better is open rebuke Than love that is concealed.
6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
5 Better is open rebuke Than love that is concealed.
6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
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