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we need to get our gentle back
How did we, the friends of the friend of sinners get to this place? Jesus was known as the friend of sinners. He took a lot of guff for being the friend of sinners. These “sinners” were a social class, not simply a theological category. They were people on the outside of Israel’s accepted circle for a host of reasons. They were not mobsters or murderers or notorious offenders. (You notice that “tax collectors” and “prostitutes” were often given a distinct designation alongside “sinners” in the gospels.) Jesus so identified with “sinners” as to bring upon himself the judgment of the religiously self-righteous. He expects us to be the friend of sinners, which means our righteousness has to exceed that of the Pharisees; it has to be a righteousness of pure sermon-on-the-mount love, not a righteousness that depends on harsh condemnations and judgment of others–the “business as usual” approach to sinners. We need to get our gentle back.
“A bruised reed he will not break, and smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” Our master is like that. He is the master of gentleness, extreme gentleness.
And where is such gentleness especially called for? Remember the woman caught in adultery? The religious leaders full of zeal for righteousness nabbed her in the act and brought her to Jesus for a ruling. They were within their rights. She was wrong. They were right. Her deeds were an offense to God and the community and to them. They had Scripture to back it up.
But when they brought her to him, he knelt down and wrote in the sand. Doodled, maybe. He refused to look up at her or them. He refused to speak. He refused to engage them in their display of righteousness, because it wasn’t true enough for him.
In fact, in the whole account, he NEVER spoke to them about her, as though she were none of their business. He had something private to say to her. Presumably we only know if it because she told someone when she was ready. They were not privy to this. No doubt they went about declaiming how soft he was on sin, being a sinner himself.
In our culture-war mode we can afford to rail against this and that and the other.
Not pastors when it comes to the people who would be regarded as the sinners of our day–the people on the outs of conventional religion. And not evangelicals who seek to represent the friend of sinners.
Gentleness means not speaking before you know what you’re speaking about. It means holding your tongue often when you DO know what you’re speaking about. It means listening carefully to the experience of others with a view toward understanding their struggles. Can you see what they are facing from within their own experience, alongside your own outside view?
In my early days as a pastor, I was sometimes more concerned with being right than being gentle. And in my being right I was often most wrong because the righteousness I manifested was not good enough. Not pure love enough. It was ordinary religious righteousness.
Young Pastors Take Heed
Can you think of any group of people whom Jesus would long to engage through the church in extreme gentleness? Thirty years ago the church began to relate to divorced people seeking remarriage with this gentleness, even though many of them were divorced for the wrong reasons in the first place, making any remarriage a simple matter of adultery by any reading of Scripture. By the consensus of the church a hundred years ago, rare indeed was the divorce that could legitimately result in a remarriage. People divorced and remarried and quietly quit their religion.
Not too long ago, annulments in the Catholic church were very rare. Today they are common. Not too long ago, Protestant churches weren’t so hot at making room for divorced and remarried people. We forget that the great apologist, C.S. Lewis was married late in life to a divorced woman, Joy Davidman. There’s hardly a church in the United States that would blink at his marriage today, but in his day–not so long ago–it was outside the bounds of the Anglican church. Based on their best understanding of the Bible, mind you.
I had a nice tidy understanding of that issue–divorce and remarriage. I studied the Scripture on this issue more than any other pastor I know, actually. But human life is messier than the neat and tidy categories I derived from my study. But with experience, I wrestled with the Scripture touching on these questions from a different perch, based on a more informed understanding of what people go through when their marriages are messed up or when they are messed up within their marriages.
We’re not just accountable for our interpretation of any given text of the Bible. We’re also accountable for the perch we adopt when making our interpretation.
What Informs our Pastoral Approach to Divorce and Remarriage?
Do you think our approach to divorce and remarriage is just a simple matter of deciding what the texts mean? Or is our approach also affected by knowing people–and loving people–who are in bad marriages or married to bad people or are struggling with their own intractable human weaknesses? There isn’t an evangelical pastor in the United States who doesn’t know and love someone whose divorce and remarriage wouldn’t pass the Scripture test. Many of them are evangelical pastors, board members, prominent leaders. Is this good or bad? Perhaps it’s both, perhaps it’s mixed, perhaps it will be revealed by One who knows better than we do,
Is this fraught territory? It sure is. We want to uphold marriage and keep married people, especially those with children, from giving up on their covenant promises too soon or for the wrong reasons. But we’ve managed to find our way to a gentle approach to this issue and for good reason.
Are there other groups of people we just don’t know? Or don’t care about?
Jesus wasn’t gentle with everyone though, was he? Sometimes he was quite ungentle with his own disciples, especially when they wanted to keep the circle small. He was extremely ungentle with the religious leaders of his day–but his assertive, sometimes scathing rebukes, were in the service of his strategy for dealing with sinners.
We need to get our gentle back.
How Do We Get Our Gentle Back?
How DO we get our gentle back? This doesn’t happen by figuring out how to think correctly about gentleness or the balance between gentleness and severity. It doesn’t happen by arriving at the correct view of whatever behaviors bother us. Oh there’s work to be done there, for sure–serious wrestling to be done. But that does not get our gentle back.
Gentleness happens by meditating on Scripture, by spending time in the Presence, by allowing the Presence proximity, by silence, by communion with God, by facing one’s own stuff in relationship with others. It happens as we step through the portal Jesus has opened for us into the love of Abba, Father.
The more we have anything to say on these issues, the more we must be pickled in this love. And I do mean pickled. Sitting in the love of the Abba, Father like cucumbers submerged in brine, soaking it in.
Advice to young pastors: get thee pickled in love. Praying isn’t enough. Study isn’t enough. Thinking clearly isn’t enough. You must be pickled in love. Wasn’t this what made Jesus gentle, without turning him into a wimp? Wasn’t this what drew the sinners to him like tweenage girls to the Jonas Brothers? Isn’t this the Jesus who has healed us whenever we’ve been healed?
We need to get our gentle back.
Tags: culture war, divorce, gentle, Jesus, judgment, pastor, remarriage, righteousness, sinners, suffering servant
June 19th, 2009 at 10:05 am
I’m bringin’ gentle back
Them other boys don’t know how to act
I think it’s special what’s behind your back
So turn around and I’ll pick up the slack
(Take ‘em to the bridge!)
Get your gentle on
(Go ‘head be gone with it)
You ready?
June 19th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Quoting Ken:
“Advice to young pastors: get thee pickled in love. Praying isn’t enough. Study isn’t enough. Thinking clearly isn’t enough. You must be pickled in love.”
Sorry, but my mechanical mind needs procedures.
How does one get pickled in love?
If praying, studying and thinking aren’t enough, what then?
Serving?
I’m stuck. I long for the results:
“Wasn’t this what made Jesus gentle, without turning him into a wimp? Wasn’t this what drew the sinners to him like tweenage girls to the Jonas Brothers? Isn’t this the Jesus who has healed us whenever we’ve been healed?”
But I don’t know how to start this process.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
joao, you’ve started by wanting it or rather Him and feeling a need. I just finished a book with some mechanical procedures–once I get through the copy edit phase later in July, I’ll see if I can get you an advance copy
June 19th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
To get our gentle back we need to get our humility back. I’m glad you came at this issue from another direction. This is very similar to love the sinner, hate the sin. I struggled with the earlier post because my experience is that every situation is different and I have given up trying to distill complcated situations into simple principles. How can we address anyone else’s sin without knowing the whole history of the individual. That is why we need to let Jesus be the redeemer and let Him lead the individual in dealing with their own sin. We can help people find the path, but our job is to listen to the Spirit to ask what part we are to play, if any. In my experience loving the person is usually what I feel lead to do. And I agree with Ken that it is hard to love this way if we haven’t experienced the Father’s love.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Oh, joao, I want to weep. Please expect Him. Please look for Him everywhere. Please ask Him to show himself to you. Please discover Him in your volunteer work with the old, the diseased, the poor, the prisoners. Please look into the eyes of each one you meet, and ask Him to make Himself known to you. Love Him. Ache for Him to enter your heart and reside there with you always. Lift the unfortunate up to Him and ask Him for healing for them. Do this in pictures. Imagine this. In your prayer, imagine Him with you. In the room with you. Ask Him questions. Anything. And He will respond with love. Always love. And if it isn’t love, it isn’t Him.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
It’s hard to disagree with a call for gentleness. And I don’t. But, with much of what Ken writes, it’s what he doesn’t say but you get the feeling he might want to say that concerns you.
Ken points out the change in most Christian’s views regarding divorce and remarriage and commends us all for adopting the more gentle approach. And then asks “Are there other groups of people we just don’t know?” I didn’t entirely understand that question, but I think he means something like “Are there other groups who need a gentle approach but haven’t received it” or something like that. Is that right, Ken?
So here’s my question, on a topic where I’m sure Ken thinks many evangelicals have lacked gentleness. What does it look like to practice gentleness with, say, someone who is homosexual? Does gentleness love the person while calling them to leave a lifestyle the Bible consistently condemns? Or does gentleness require us to set aside the teaching of Scripture and affirm not only the person, but their lifestyle? Does Scripture or the individual get weighted most heavily?
As one who is well aware of his own struggle with sin, my questions are not motivated out of self-righteousness. I’d just like to know what everyone thinks gentleness looks like when applied to situations where the objects of our gentleness are involved in sin that they should turn away from?
June 19th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
In the kingdom of Israel there was a king and there were priests. The king executed judgment and the priests offered gifts and sacrifices. Jesus is now our King and High Priest. All judgment is reserved for the King to execute. Even God, the Father, has turned over responsibility of judgment to the Son (John 5).
We serve as a royal priesthood under our great High Priest (1 Pet 2). In Romans 12 Paul lays out a picture of our sacrificial offerings and gifts. We are to be living sacrifices, living a cruciform life, and exercise the gifts we’re given by the Holy Spirit, be they prophecy, serving, encouragement, giving, leading or any sundry and diverse way He chooses to empowers us.
Priests don’t judge. The King will judge, when He is good and ready. In the mean time the Gospels are full of His exhortations not to judge. Rather, we are to show mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2) even as Christ triumphed over the powers and authorities by the cross (Col 2).
Do we trust our King enough to gently extend mercy to those around us, even if it killsvus like of killed Him? And leave the judgment to Him?
June 20th, 2009 at 9:34 am
brian, I think this concern that I’ve raised applies to many groups of people–certainly those you mention, those who are conflicted over gender, those who accept evolutionary science as legitimate, those who hold views that run counter to deeply held convictions of the american evangelical scene (such those deeply troubled by the state of Israel’s treatment of palestinians–we have a palestinian woman in our church and the views of American evangelicals is SO alienating to her)….the list is quite long. And the starting posture to discern a pastoral approach is a truly Spirit enabled gentleness. Not an assumed gentleness (of course I want to be gentle, but….). I’m not talking about “pastoral niceness.”
Gentleness such as we see in the Isaiah text is a deep work of the Spirit because it is a messianic quality that was extremely costly to the messiah. He was gentle toward outsider groups in a way that we are not. He was willing to suffer the ire of others to be gentle. He was radically and scandalously gentle in a way that we as community of believers are not yet.
I don’t believe that the way forward on these matters is a question of thrashing out positions, especially not in a blog format, which leans toward “parry and thrust” [see conversation in last post]. I believe it’s only through a deep work of the Holy Spirit, especially in the heart of pastors. Yes, the Scriptural position-interpretation-application part is necessary, but it’s not independent of this deep heart issue: gentleness. Sobbing, wailing, weeping, encounter with Jesus in prayer….so that our hearts are really tender. We’re not there yet.
On the divorce-remarriage question, I find that many pastors have not studied it deeply. There are generally accepted approaches which have evolved over the last 20-30 years and a very practical approach. Because we’re over that issue in many ways. The divorce rate is through the roof, and our churches are filled with those who been through the pain of divorce and we know them as dear friends and this factors profoundly into the way we read Scripture on the matter. I don’t believe we’ve honestly faced that—and how much our friendships with people, our awareness of the messiness of marriage, our up close and personal engagement with this affects how we interpret and even more apply biblical truth in their situations.
As a result of not studying the issue, including the historical shifts, we’re naive about our wider evangelical community has handled this–how there has been a major shift over decades. A major, major shift among american catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelicals. [Yes, Catholics maintain a very strict teaching on what allows for remarriage--nothing but death of the spouse or an illegitimate marriage in the first place; but in their APPLICATION of that strict teaching they are very loose. They give annulments to aabout half the people who apply for them and their criteria is nothing like what it used to be. In effect, it's fairly easy divorce.]
But then I find that when we come to other groups of people who have generally steered clear of evangelical churches, there’s nothing like that level of personal engagement that leads to a sympathetic understanding. Instead we’ve got this culture of intellectual debate about Scripture on homosexuality or intelligent design, or whatever “the issue” happens to be. On top of that, we have a culture-war political social engagement led by people who are NOT pastors, who are often more political than Christians and the whole setting that we operate in gets supercharged. It’s part of our wrangling as a community. We major in that and minor on the kind of deeply personal love that Jesus has for PEOPLE who are outside our comfort zone.
That’s just not good enough. Before we can engage this in the Spirit, we need to get our gentle back.
June 20th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Nice eloquence Ken, but wrong on SO many levels.
Pop Quiz….
Who called a woman a DOG because she was part of an “outsider group”?
Who told people that following him would DIVIDE them from their close family members?
Who called certain leaders of outsider groups VIPERS and a LOT worse?
Who called a man a DEVIL (apparently to his face!)
I guess that’s even worse than the time he told a whole GROUP of people that they belonged to their father, the DEVIL.
Who told a woman to NEVER sin again! (Hmmm…if I told a gay woman that, I’m sure you wouldn’t consider that very gentle. haha)
In fact, who spoke to women so rarely to begin with that his closest friends were surprised to find him actually speaking with a woman?
Wow! Pretty strong. I guess whoever said these things didn’t do enough Sobbing, wailing or weeping, huh?
Face it – You’re preaching a Jesus that NEVER existed out of a Bible containing passages you probably wish it never did…
BD
June 20th, 2009 at 11:48 am
So is it possible to be gentle, pastoral AND stand for biblical truth?
By the way, Ken you said:
“Yes, the Scriptural position-interpretation-application part is necessary, but it’s not independent of this deep heart issue: gentleness. Sobbing, wailing, weeping, encounter with Jesus in prayer….so that our hearts are really tender. We’re not there yet.”
I’ve spent the last 15 years of ministry weeping with those who are broken in spirit concerning their sexuality. I have not only wept WITH them, I have wept in the secret place with my Father. I have watched dear people and friends die horrible deaths. I have watched marriages and families fall apart. And I have wept with them and for them.
I have loved those who were conflicted regardless of the decisions they ultimately made. And yet, they are still my friends.
I have hosted some of the top gay activists in our nation at my home for weekend visits with my family. We have had intense dialogue over the issue of homosexuality and the bible. Yet, many of them are my dear friends.
I have wept, prayed, made life-long friendships, yet I have never moved from my belief that homosexuality is not God’s intent for our lives. We truly can love and be gentle and stand for the truth of God’s word at the same time.
Jesus did it. “Go and sin no more”. “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”
Gentle-hearted Jesus was a friend of sinners. He was also direct about the sin in their lives. We can’t love the one part of Jesus without seeing the other.
June 20th, 2009 at 11:55 am
BD, I don’t think you understand me
1. You may call anyone a dog so long as you heal their daughter. I don’t see the disciples making that a habit–the calling of people dogs. I think that might be the wrong lesson to draw from that text. And of course, in context that text is more subtle than simply Jesus insulting the woman.
2. I do believe that following Jesus involves suffering loss, including relationship with people we are close to and don’t mind saying so.
3. If you define pharisees and temple authorities as “outsider groups” you are using the term differently than I did in the post.
4. Similarly, Jesus did not call the “common sinners” devils–he reserved that language for the leadership.
5. And my point about the woman caught in adultery wasn’t that Jesus told her privately not to sin, but that he didn’t engage the “issue” like an “issue”–he spoke in love privately to a person who had come to trust him because he DEFENDED her dignity in the face of hostility presented in the guise of religion. Until we do that, we don’t have the right to speak into people’s tender places, do we?
6. And yes, I believe that Jesus was a “man of his time” as well as ahead of his time and that it probably wasn’t his common practice to speak alone with women.
So, in short, I think your assessment is inadequate.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
happylad, I think maybe I know who you are….and certainly that part of my post wasn’t “aimed” at you. I believe everything you say about your love and respect you for it. We need more of the love you have experienced.
June 20th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
B.D. – I think we probably agree more than we disagree, but your argument concerning Jesus and women doesn’t fly.
The time and culture in which Jesus came to us was one of the most misogynistic cultures (comparable to radical Islamic views of women today). Women were treated as property. There was a common Jewish prayer prayed by men at the the time time of Christ. “Lord, I thank you that I am not a dog, a Samaritan, or a women”. In that order! Women had NO value.
Jesus blew away all of those cultural mindsets. The fact that he was a Jewish man and talking to a Samaritan AND a woman was mind-blowing. Jesus counted women in his company of followers. He treated women with honor and integrity.
June 20th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Ken,
I appreciate the length of your reply to me and I’m not trying to be difficult (really), but I feel as though you really haven’t answered my question. What does gentleness look like when practiced toward people who are involved in sin that they need to turn away from? With your example about the church’s change as it relates to remarriage, because we know the people involved and our beliefs are tempered by our love for them, it seems you might be suggesting similar movement needs to be made on other issues. Is that what you’re saying? And if so, what does that look like? Simply applying to the issues you listed would be helpful. Do we have to embrace evolution, even if we don’t believe it? Do we have to accept homosexual practice, in the name of love and gentleness?
Anyway, not trying to test your patience. I just honestly don’t feel like you really answered my question. Although, what you did answer was, as always, very well written and thoughtful.
June 20th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
“In short, I think your assessment is inadequate.”
Now THAT is a GRACIOUS response!
BD
Credit given when Credit’s Due…
June 20th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Whew!
I thought you said We need to get our GENTILE back.
Your friend,
Yeshua
June 20th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Early in my walk with Jesus, I was attending a fundamentalist church because that’s where my family of origin attended. I had just gotten out of the Marine Corps, had a revelation of Jesus and “something” changed me. I started checking up on some old friends. A friend from the old days had just gotten out of a halfway house and I went to visit him. I shared with him my experience with Jesus and we talked for a while. Just as I was getting ready to leave he began to weep and my “new” natural impulse was to hug him and weep with him. I found out that while I was in Marine Corps, he got busted for dope, was put into some mandatory counseling by the courts, and was raped by the male counselor. This made national news in the early eighties.
I asked some of the people at church to pray for him and somehow the pastor found out I had been visiting my friend. The pastor, with good intentions, confronted me and told me to stay away from this young man because he was trouble. Inside, my spirit recoiled. I have never forgotten that feeling. I believe I sensed the Holy Spirit reacting to the pastor’s comment. I continued to visit my friend. He never recovered and died in his early thirties. I hope to see him someday.
Why do I tell the story? Only Jesus softened my heart. I was a hard core Marine full of sins. “Something” happened to me. Many of those who have been touched by Jesus don’t even get noticed in most churches. I struggle to this day with the sins that so easily attack my soul. But the forgiveness and gentleness that Jesus gave, has never left me. It has been people like Happylad that have given me hope over the years. Without them, I wouldn’t be here.
Gentleness starts with forgiveness. How can you possibly love someone if you don’t have a forgiving heart? What does this look like? It is actually loving a homosexual, while they are homosexual, and not thinking in your heart that it is God’s job to forgive and love them if they repent. Who can say, and I include you pastors, that we came to Christ any other way.
Those that are forgiven much, love much. Not too much love around here…
June 20th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Gentle = Heresy
June 21st, 2009 at 12:02 am
Gem,
I agree with everything you wrote (#17). But will you concede that true love might compel us to help someone escape destructive habits (sin)? Is leaving someone alone as they engage in God dishonoring sin real love? I don’t see how it is the loving thing to not try to help someone escape (name the sin: adultery, alcoholism, pornography, homosexuality, dishonesty, etc, etc).
If we have something to offer in assisting people to find freedom from destructive habits, what does that look like in the context of gentleness, love, etc? It seems many on here want the answer to everything to be love, but without defining it. Many times real love involves challenge. Real love sometimes calls for intervention. Sometimes the most lovely thing to do is tell someone the truth. Sometimes affirming someone in their destructive choices is very unloving.
June 21st, 2009 at 2:05 am
I would imagine in Jesus time on His mission, He probably would liked to have exploded on some people but He maintained the gentlemess to get a point across. The only exception would have been in the temple when the coin changers and sacrifices sellers were rousted out of the temple.
Ok. The bible says you are a sinner if you are a prostitute. you are a sinner if you are a homosexual, you are a sinner if you divorce and remarry. Now if these sinners repent and pray for forgiveness then they are saved. Of course they do have to make an effort to refrain from such practices.
I have seen some churches that allow a homosexual come to worship although he continues in his practices. Gentleness dictates we accept this like we accept the prostitute and the divorcee worshiping?
I really don’t think even though they have good intentions by coming to faith, they continue living the life style of sin; they are still sinners. I would imagine by praying with them and assisting them to see the light they may or may not change. Ironically, it is not up to us to judge them, isn’t it?
June 21st, 2009 at 10:50 am
I am with Gem (#17) a 100%. I had a very similiar experience that brought me to a place where I felt what I think Gem felt when she wrote “But the forgiveness and gentleness that Jesus gave, has never left me.” The only difference being that I was in the position of the person with the addiction, the arrest, and the burden of living with some pretty serious trauma. Someone came along side me with gentleness, love, and forgiveness. They loved me where I was, hurting. It changed my life. And eventually I did leave those particular issues behind me, but it was a gradual process, and it was the Holy Spirit that brought about that process NOT any person. (During this time in my life I also had several people determined to help me turn from my sinful ways come hell or high water. That was not helpful).
Also important to note: my friend never once implied that my lifestyle was healthy. But also never condemned me. Never assumed to know the whole story. Never told me that I couldn’t follow God if I kept it up. Just continued to love me.
So in regards to Brian: I can completely relate to your side of this issue as I have wrestled with it a lot myself. I don’t in any way believe that it is love to ignore destructive behaviour in someone’s life, but I also know from my own experience that trying to ‘assist someone in finding freedom’ without them asking for assistance, is often harmful, not helpful.
I think Ken hit on something important when he said ‘(Jesus) spoke in love privately to a person who had come to trust him’. I believe how well you know a person, and how much they trust and respect you is an important factor in whether or not it is your place to bring it up. Then I think it’s important to remember that no matter how well meaning we are, or how much ‘help’ we can provide, it is ultimately God who changes people. It is God who heals people. It is God who handles Sin.
The question I frequently ask in prayer is ‘is my way of helping leading my friend closer to, or farther from you God?’ (And I personally have often been surprised when God gives me the answer).
Anywho, please don’t take my comment as anything more than my personal experience. I don’t think there is any one answer. It seems like God uses different methods with different people. That’s the cool thing about the Holy Spirit, no matter how far off the mark I am, he seems to be able to use me anyway. (What’s that story about a talking donkey?)…
June 21st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
We are all still sinners & ragamuffins, only saved because of God’s love and not our own “righteousness”. So who are we to say who else will be let in, or on what terms, or what work God will choose to do in them first?
I think this whole conversation arises maybe because once we’re “in” and we get cleaned up by God just a little, we think we made it and then judge others and get mad when the same grace is extended to them that only a little time ago we were dying of gratitude for. Like the parable of the vineyard workers, we sometimes want others to not get the same deal as we had, as we decide that was just too much mercy for them! Thank God for that mercy and please let me show it to everyone who comes in a mile of the church.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Brian, thanks for your gentle response.
Yes, I would concede that true love compels us to do many things, including confronting someone that is causing others to sin, and also helping others to resist sin. But, who of us has the capacity to see how that sin is intertwined into the soul of another? I believe true love says we gently work with those burdened by sin. What does that confrontation look like?
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” Jesus has dealt with the sin issue. How do we get someone to stop sinning? Only Jesus can see the heart and work to remove the sin. When Jesus says go and sin no more, he has covered us with love, forgiveness and compassion. His love compels us to sin no more.
Tough Love. If by this we mean, tough with respect to the person giving the love, I would agree. What is mostly practiced for tough love, is tough on the sin. Jesus was ALWAYS gentle on the sin, except for those who put burdens on others, and he was tough in exhibiting his love for us. I think “tough love” is the step brother to loving the sinner and hating the sin, it just doesn’t work with us fallen humans. What is difficult though, is being gentle on the sin, and loving the person.
I know a woman who packed up the kids and left her husband because she couldn’t stand living with an angry, indifferent husband. Now that was tough on her and the kids, and also a wakeup call for her husband. But when the smoke cleared, her husband never questioned her love. When the love is associated with sacrifice by the person sharing it, then I agree that love is tough sometimes. I know; I was the husband.
June 21st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Brian,
I’m not sure I see the basis for your statement: “It seems many on here want the answer to everything to be love, but without defining it.” I’ve certainly never known Ken to promote a nebulous concept of love.
To answer your question directly, though, I would proffer that to gently deal with a homosexual would look like the way we deal with anyone outside the kingdom. We treat them with dignity and respect as human beings created in God’s image. We are patient with them and kind. We persevere in our relationship with them always hoping that our connection with them might serve as conduit for healing and salvation. We would not focus primarily on their sins, but on calling them to encounter the King. He’ll deal with their sins.
I’m curious, when you meet another man, someone you don’t think is a homosexual, but someone who is none the less outside the kingdom–Do you focus on his sin? Do spend time pointing out when he is greedy? Do you make it a point to ensure he knows you don’t affirm his frivolous use of time listening to world music or his idolatrous infatuation with sports?
Certainly over time, as we earn the trust of the other the opportunity will arise when we can discuss these things. If we’ve dealt with people gently we’ll likely have earned the right, so to speak, to speak into their lives directly about these things, even as happylad relates above.
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:44 am
Bob,
It is the “certainly over time, as we earn the trust of the other the opportunity will arise when we can discuss these things” that I’m concerned about. That’s my question, would you reach a point, when trust has been established, that you would address the need to leave the sin?
There is nothing in my statements that I can think of that should have led you to believe I’m out looking to stamp out the sin of people I don’t know who don’t even have a relationship with Christ. I’m sure you’re aware that in many parts of the church sinful lifestyles are being embraced as perfectly valid for a follower of Christ. I would just hope that, after the trust is earned, we don’t neglect the responsibility to assist our brothers and sisters in leaving sin.
And, with all due respect to Kim (#22), most of the evangelicals I know get quite excited by God’s extravagant mercy, both to themselves and others. Being concerned that the CHURCH take sin seriously and assist people in getting free from sinful habits is not being resentful of God’s grace. It seems to me that we are placed in the church as followers of Christ, in part, to assist each other to live as we should. That’s not being resentful of God’s grace, that’s being appreciative of God’s grace.
I guess I’m just incredibly blessed, because I just haven’t run into these unkind, unmerciful, grace-resenting Christians that so many seem to encounter so regularly.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:51 am
I think gentle=love-judgement. If we spend the time to judge ALL the sins that WE ALL commit there is no time for loving one another. I’ve never been sure why we as Jesus followers feel that some sins are more worthy of our judgement than others (I am as guilty as the next person-maybe not on the same sins-for me the two worst sins are hate and dishonesty) I have read the Bible many times through and must be missing the sin scale. I think we are all fallible human beings and need to leave the judgement to God. I feel confident that He is the only one that knows what He’s doing on this. When we all learn to do this love and gentleness will follow.
June 22nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Bob, your statement hits the nail on the head. Why do we feel compelled to focus primarily on just a few sins while ignoring others that are really just as destructive? And why do we feel it so necessary to point out those sins to people outside the Kingdom? Is it in hopes of creating a sense of need? Sometimes I wonder if we do not really trust that the Holy Spirit will do his job -which is to convict people of their sin. So we try to do it instead and we are sometimes harsh in the attempt.
But the end result is people often feel judged and condemned by us and sadly, by God himself. I wonder if we put up more obstacles to people finding Christ because of this. I once went to a debate between a young earth creationist guy and a philosophy prof from our local university (who argued for evolution). It was a debate that had been arranged I believe by one of the local churches, so the auditorium was filled with Christians. Whenever the philosophy professor spoke, making some very valid points, the crowd would boo or mock him. They of course applauded the young earth creationist guy. At one point, this woman turned around to me and stated, “can you believe that anyone could believe something as stupid as evolution?” and then she rolled her eyes. A couple of things really bothered me at that moment: 1) her presupposition that I was a Christian – which I was. But what if I had not been and I were someone searching for God? I would have been rather insulted. In fact, as a follower of Christ, I was insulted. 2) Her general overall rudeness.
I mean, it is like we get to stand at the door of the Kingdom and invite people in. So do we extend the invitation in that winsome way that was so Jesus or do we tell them to get cleaned up first (and believe the right stuff – like young earth creationism)? “Look at you! Ew, your a mess! Look at those shoes! They are filthy! Your feet stink! You stink! First go take a bath and then maybe you can come in.” Would you want to enter a home like that – with someone telling you how rotten you are? In Jesus’ time, you went into the house, took off your shoes (complete with stinky, dusty, grimy feet) and then got cleaned up. That is the kingdom – we come into the kingdom and then God begins cleaning up the mess that is our lives. And that is all of us.
To be gentle is to be considerate or kindly in disposition. It is to be friendly and tender.
When we are gentle we are not harsh or severe but rather we are mild and soft. Our culture (and often we ourselves) perhaps views gentleness as synomous with “weakness, softness or namby-pambyness”. Yet, gentleness is one of the characteristics that Jesus uses to describe himself and I think we can all agree that Jesus was not namby-pamby on sin or anything for that matter. So gentleness can have nothing to do with being soft on sin nor can it equal heresy. Yet, wasn’t there a softness to Jesus? I mean, people were attracted to him and it was not because he was rude and mean to them. Rather he treated them with respect and kindness. Just some thoughts.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Brian you said:
I guess I’m just incredibly blessed, because I just haven’t run into these unkind, unmerciful, grace-resenting Christians that so many seem to encounter so regularly.
I’ve had the same experience. I’m a grace, love and mercy of God junky as are most of my friends and Christian cohorts.
I hold to the mindset that “You who are spiritual, restore you brother in sin in a spirit of meekness and love”. I thank God that I’ve had brother’s and sisters in Christ who have gently and lovingly pointed out weak and sinful areas of my life and walk with me in removing those things that hinder God’s love.
June 24th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Brian,
You ask: “would you reach a point, when trust has been established, that you would address the need to leave the sin?”
Yes. I have and will. My wife refers jokingly to my general ministry style as the church of the “swift kick in the rear end”. I’ve learned over time to be more gentle but I believe it does much harm to ignore sin in people’s lives. I wish people had been more direct with me over the years.
But the real crux of the matter comes next. After I share, how do I respond to their reaction? What if they shrug it off or refuse to accept my position? It often takes time for the Holy Spirit to work into someone’s hardened heart. Will I have the patience to remain gentle and continue to actively love this person? In the best case, they’ll repent and ask for forgiveness, but even then true transformation will take time (hence our Lord’s admonition to forgive someone ad infinitum). The truth is our God is patient, always hoping for the best and we need to be too.
We’re priests, not judges.
June 24th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Bob,
I pretty much agree with you on everything you wrote. Certainly God is patient and we should be as well. I’m encouraged to read your affirmation that “I believe it does much harm to ignore sin in people’s lives.” That’s not the feeling I get from many of the posts on Ken’s blog.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
I will NEVER point out a weak area or area of sin in another brother or sister’s life until I have firmly established relationship,trust and the surety that they know I love them and care for them.
If I bring any corrective word, I always begin it with “Do you believe I love you and care for you?”
Some of my friends know the way I operate and they tend to cringe and say “Oh no, what have I done now”. It’s a bit of a joke between us. They do the same for me. We’re not obsessed with it. We don’t put undo stress on each others weaknesses, but we do love one another and want to see us free our hearts and lives so that we can receive more of God’s love.
I, however, do not do these things with those who are not brothers and sisters. Those who have not yet entered the fold are not to be judged by me. They are doing what comes natural to their nature (I’m pretty sure Eric C. is cringing as he reads this comment). Without the Holy Spirit sinners sin. It’s our nature as sinners. So I do have a different standard with those not yet in the fold.
June 26th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Inspiration.
No doubt about it, for me anyway: the Bible is filled with powerfully inspiring life-changing passages, alongside quite a few that — as I mentioned in post #60 of 2 of Ken’s “worldview” blog — diminish man and strip him of his dignity. So for me, reading the Bible is a dramatic experience as I embrace some passages and recoil at others.
As far as scriptures go, the Bible is all I’ve ever read. In the next few years, I want to read others: the Koran, etc., and consider whether my reactions are anywhere similar. I’ll bet that they, too, have some of both: powerfully inspiring verses that draw people in; and verses that diminish and/or damn those who question the faith.
Has anyone else read some of these other books and care to comment on my future journey?
June 26th, 2009 at 8:33 am
BTW, I meant to put my last post in the “literal word” thread, but oh well…
Happylad,
I haven’t cringed at anything you have written in this thread. In particular, I love what you wrote in post #10 — that you weep with others — and in the last post — that before you correct someone, you want to be sure they believe that you love them.
That’s powerful. That’s beautiful. You put their dignity before their depravity. And even after you’ve offered your correction — and even if they refuse your correction — you never deny their God-given dignity.
That’s a transforming way to approach others.
June 26th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Eric,
Please try the Quran. I have, but I won’t spoil it for you.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Eric C. – thank you for your beautiful post. I didn’t think you would cringe at all of my comments though. I thought you might cringe at my statement that sinners sin and that is what comes naturally to them (not that it doesn’t come quite easily to those of us in the fold as well).
Again, thank you for your generous and beautiful response to me. I appreciate the post AND I appreciate you!
June 27th, 2009 at 12:58 am
Joao,
I will brace myself. I’ll bet that Muslims too remake themselves in the image of who/what they worship. But the Muslim world hasn’t always been so radicalized as it is now.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:16 am
happylad, I think some common ground is emerging between my posts and some of your responses. Sinners DO sin naturally. WE sinners DO sin naturally. And I think some of my concerns about the way american evangelicals approach sin has to do with underestimating this. There is a sense that by conforming to a particular evangelical culture’s mores regarding sin–a VERY superficial understandin of sin, btw–WE, the evangelicals are in some different status than whoever the outside group is. This offers a powerful psychic comfort but it is compelely faslse and abhorrent to the Spirit. It is an idolatrous comfort that has nothing to do with God. It is the comfort of hell–sweet in the mouth, but sour in the stomach. The awareness of sin that you articulated–how profoundly natural it is for us sinners is a key to a more humane and divine approach to sin, a Jesus approach, that discomforts the comfortable (those of us who think we’ve got sin figured out and it’s our job to apply our knowledge) and to comfort the conflicted.