This past Sunday night in our small group, we came upon the following verse from 2 Timothy 2:25:
Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth
It hit me pretty clearly that I have not been doing this in the past week in my blog articles about Donald Trump, immigration and refugees.
Whenever I see the poor, vulnerable and oppressed and I see Scripture that tells me to defend them, I can easily become over-emotional. I can relate with Peter when he cuts off the Roman guard’s ear during Jesus’s arrest (John 18:1-14). He’s probably just doing his best Elijah impersonation, thinking God will be pleased with his zeal. Instead he gets put in his place by Jesus, the revealed King of an upside-down kingdom.
While the zeal I have for the oppressed is truly rooted in Scripture and in compassion, it also gets mixed up with my own pride. Pride that I’m right. Pride that is impatient. Pride that is judgmental. Pride that reverts to name calling, quick fixes, and black-and-white, for-me-or-against-me thinking. Pride that is sin.
I will go to a conference or training on some element of caring for the oppressed and come home high as a kite on all my zeal. I’ll tell my wife all about it and my new enlightened wisdom (and essentially how she and the Church are failing). This upchucking of zeal isn’t helpful at all. It short-circuits the chance for anyone to learn and it short-changes the process God uses to teach us things. A slow, gradual, humble process.
With immigration reform, I got sucked in. I was reading some blog posts from Christian activists and started zealously typing myself. I wanted in on this. I wanted to be on the right side of history, with my name next to the oppressed, and I didn’t care who I had to fight to do it.
The thing is, Jesus never fought.
Fighting comes from pride. It also comes from thinking we are in control and have the power…again signs of pride.
In addition, we all have biases we bring to the text of Scripture. All of us; myself definitely included. We need to do our very best to objectively strip away these biases, but the only way to do that is with humility. And if we notice bias others are bringing with them, we must not act as if we ourselves are not encumbered with the same disability. We must speak the truth in love.
Which of course can only come be accomplished with humility.
I know I need to change how I talk and write about biblical justice issues in the future. And I know I will indeed continue talking and writing about these topics, I don’t really have a choice. To attempt not to would result in the same response Jeremiah had in Jeremiah 20:9,
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot.
I am going to do my best to slow things down. Frankly, I’ll take any advice those reading this can give me. To not make things so black-and-white, for-me-or-against-me, like there are only two options or two ways to apply or interpret a Scripture text. To give the benefit of the doubt. To show respect to how the other side came to its conclusions. To do my best to humbly, lovingly and gently lay out the factual or Scriptural items that took me from Point A to Point B so that people who are at Point A can receive it and see if the Lord is leading them to Point B as well. He might not be. Or it might not be this second. But that’s the beauty of the Lord being in control and the Lord using his words and education to grow us. We’re all wired differently and he’s going to work on us differently, with different timing and in different areas, in different ways.
To my brothers and sisters in Christ that I’ve offended with my zeal, to those who feel I’ve cut off their ears, I sincerely apologize. Please know my heart is rooted in Scripture and being faithful to every page of it. Pray for me as I learn what “faithful” means. Pray that faithful is mixed with grace and humility rather than the silent assassin of pride.
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Thanks for this. I must admit I am convicted as well. I have firm principles rooted in deep faith and personal experience in Muslim majority countries. The truth is neither side really has the answer, because SIN is the problem for all of humanity and we can’t tell the state of the heart. This makes any judgement a best guess about the character of a person who may or may not be deceiving us. In that light we must do the best we can in a world where we, just like everyone else, are fallen and have limits. Love you brother even when I debate with you. I know enough about your heart to know it’s genuine, as I hope you believe the same of mine..
Well said, thank you Dan. I really appreciate that. Thank God for his patience with us, me especially!
Thank you Dan for letting me know about this post.
Noah, I tried to call you. I wanted to apologize for the statements I made, or at least inferred that indicated that I thought less of you as a pastor/teacher than at some point previous. That is not so. I am sorry for my failure to respond in a proper Christlike fashion. Yes, I struggle with pride and my own sin on a daily basis. You and I have butted heads before on other issues less important than this one. I want you to know that I understand your heart and I believe that you really are doing the best you can to fulfill your calling as a pastor. Crossroads is a unique and really special place that reflects much that is missing in the church at large. Those things are the direct result of your zeal and passion for the Word. I know this.
I am truly sorry for the end to which we have come. I have experienced this repeatedly throughout my walk and as my wife is so fond of saying, “They can’t all be wrong and you be right all the time!”.
I told you before, I recognize that you are more knowledgeable of many things than I based upon your study of the Word, education and faithfulness to your calling. I have yet to figure out why the Lord bothered to save me in the first place or why He keeps me in spite of the obvious uselessness of this vessel. I do not expect you to do anything but that which you know the Lord directs you in.
To be specific, I do not believe you are false in any facet of your walk or ministry. Where your understanding is less than perfect I know you will respond correctly when the Holy Spirit speaks to you.
I pray Father’s best blessing on you and the ministry of Crossroads and that the power of Jesus Christ’s blood be made manifest and known to all the congregation.
I’m sorry.
Thank you Ken. I really appreciate what you wrote and your apology and I forgive you brother. And love you. I pray God uses all of this to continue to draw you closer to him, which I know He will. I’ll try to connect with you next week sometime.
Hey Noah, I wasn’t going to post cause my credibilty’s kinda shot from awhile back but take the comments for anything worthwhile in them. With each day I can get really agitated over Trump and I’m still at a loss as to how so many brothers and sisters embrace a man who has no desire or affinity for truth. He seems to have this capacity to corrupt both friend and enemy. My sense is that in coming to power and representing the country, he is God’s judgment on America. I hope that I am wrong and praying for President Trump and our country.
Walking out this journey with the Lord, being agitated isn’t helpful for anyone including me. Only advice is what I’m trying to follow myself. Two things: first is that the measure of things is being like Jesus, in that he only said and did what he heard and saw from the Father. We’re meant to be a spiritual people in this world and being a person abiding in Christ receiving everything from God seems to be the point of this journey and the struggles and trials that make us genuine. The other thing is knowing the difference of what’s from me and what’s of the Spirit. For that I take comfort in knowing that the Word in the hands of the Spirit is living and has power to penetrate and divide what’s of spirit and what’s of soul, and discerns what’s in the heart. There’s more than that, like obeying what’s received, something I screw up at alot, but God’s grace is enough, Jesus is enough,and he’s done something real enough within to make Christ the only way forward.
Only be hard on yourself if convicted by the Spirit, zeal if it’s from the Lord and of the Spirit is good even when it may offend others. Zeal can encourage other believers pointing a way forward. When Jesus did the crazy thing of overturning tables, his disciples were reminded, “zeal for your house will consume me.” They weren’t thinking he’s crazy, they were thinking he’s holy. And when you’re convicted, apologies are humility and help reset the journey.
Still praying and looking forward to your book. Keep well Noah.
Hi Alan, welcome back! I think your 2nd paragraph is really spot on. I would not say, from your first paragraph, that Trump is God’s judgment on America. For one, I know if I wrote that, I’d get killed (figuratively) by a lot of Christians and Republicans, but more theologically, I don’t think we have that kind of authority to make statements like that. But also American is not like Israel in the Old Testament / old covenant when there were specific judgments for the sins of a nation, so just like those blessing verses don’t apply, neither do the curse ones. We certainly deserve judgment and God is involved in all things, but I want to maintain a humble profile–trying to work on that at least.
Thanks for the book encouragement, have had some very promising developments with that recently.
Glad to hear the book may be closer to being published. Read this earlier this week and was encouraged: “What matters is not first of all our activity. God is more concerned with what is done in us than what we do for Him.” Gotta believe that what happens with your book will make sense afterwards, and it will be something you’ll be thankful about.
After writing we should be more like Jesus in our speaking, I meant what I wrote about President Trump to be taken as an observation more than a criticism. With reports of 80% of evangelicals voting for him, I’m trying to understand not just Mr. Trump but church in America. In the church I’m part of, support for Mr. Trump was probably higher than that. I freely admit I may be wrong – again – but I’m having a hard time understanding what brothers and sisters see in him. Mr. Trump seems to be more a creature of policy than principle, with the overarching principle being what wins. Last summer, I wrote to a friend that if Mr. Trump wins, it will be the clearest sign yet that God has given us over to our desires. By God’s judgment, I’m not thinking OT curses, but more so of God leaving us to our own.
Theologically, I’m trying to make sense of having a leader who has no regard to truth. Most recently, to support his claim that terrorist attacks were intentionally not being covered by news media, he produced a list of events that included some of the most covered stories of the year. Truth matters. A few years ago, I noticed that the NT makes seven mentions of the character of the Holy Spirit: “Spirit of holiness”…”of life”…”of adoption”…”of wisdom and revelation”…”of grace”…”of glory.” They are mentioned only once and never by Jesus. When Jesus talks about the Spirit he says, “Spirit of truth” not just once but three times. When I meditate on that, I can’t escape the conclusion that Truth is vital, the foundation to all our dealings with God, that Truth matters. The question I’m left with is why it matters so little to a church that could support a Mr. Trump, regardless of his policies. It’s more a question about understanding church than it is any condemnation of Mr. Trump or society. What does it mean to be faithful in the church in America in an age of Trump?