June 22, 2015
Misnomer
K-9 police dogs are being
used in the Vermont manhunt for two escaped New York convicts. During one
television news segment a woman anchor remarked she was glad the dogs were on
the job and doing, “their due diligence.” Misnomers are often bestowed on
Christians too — sinless, judgmental, hypocritical, timid, intolerant.
Unfortunately many of us buy into such descriptions. To help with our identity
in Christ I think a good exercise would be to ask the Lord the same question
that He ask Peter, “[Jesus,] Who do you say I am? (Mark 8:29b NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Actually, many of us fit such descriptions, except the first. Being judgmental is easy because everyone is faulty. So it can be practiced continually. Hypocrisy is even easier because its recipe doesn’t call for doing the same sin as what’s being judged, any other sin will serve just as well. And amongst the major reasons everything detestable to God is becoming acceptable to our society is the timidity of Christians. There is a little understanding due here, though. Generally a human throwing off timidity dives into intolerance. The proper behavior between the two is just too narrow to be easily discovered.
-----But, if we who proclaim with Peter that Jesus is the Christ loose our saltiness, then what becomes of the earth? So, saltiness was important to avoid the earth rotting like we now see it. How thin is the line between warning against overindulgence of sin and being judgmental? Should the world’s cultures be left to rot just because the world’s fools accuse the warning watchman of being judgmental, hypocritical, and intolerant? These accusations cause Christians to yank their hands out of the fire with quick cowardice; they give up their seat at the free speech table, excusing themselves on the grounds that “Jesus never came for us to get involved in… (politics, cultural debates, etc., etc., take your pick)”. Excuse number two: “…we’re supposed to illustrate godliness to the world by silently dishing out gruel to the starving masses.” It’s timidity all alike.
-----I don’t advocate becoming attack dogs. I advocate speaking the truth in love. There is a tidy arrangement between these two. They can’t exist without one another. Which means there is yet a second way of being a hypocrite. To lay any claim to love without careful honor paid to the truth is as hypocritical as applying the truth without loving the one to whom it applies. Both are ingredients of intolerance, the first a philosophical one, the second a practical one. Attack dogs act swiftly to tear down by the truth their noses smell. The Lord’s saints were meant to act quickly to build up at the truth their noses smelled.
-----Often, before a truth can be built a deceit must be destroyed. Those who know not the Lord accuse His saints of being intolerant destroyers - judgmental hypocrites - for clearing ground to build truth. So, maybe the duties of salt do resemble attack dogs. But the tiny, giant difference between hatred’s destruction and love’s is that love constructs wonder wherever it destroys falsehood. Evil refuses to admit love’s construction while screaming of its destruction. And instead of taking the opportunity to expose another lie whenever evil screams, we tuck our tails and run to avoid being tarred and feathered as judgmental, intolerant hypocrites.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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