Which Sins Do You Choose To Confront? (July 25, 2004)
Last week I said that some sins are worse than others. This week I'm wondering why we are more willing to confront some sins than others. Is it because they are truly worse in the eyes of God, or because for some reason they rankle us more? Or perhaps because they are easier targets?
Leadership Journal records the responses of four evangelical pastors to the question, "What's the most important thing you want to say, pastorally, to a homosexual couple?" Disturbingly, none of the four even addressed the question, much less gave what I thought was the obvious answer: "Repent." I imagined these pastors standing with John the Baptist and shaking their heads in dismay as John tells Herod, "You cannot have your brother's wife." (How alienating! Now Herod will be offended! He’ll regard us as adulterophobes. How will he ever come to know how kind and loving and joyful we are if we tell him he has to repent? And who are we to judge a man who clearly was born with a promiscuous orientation?)
It interests me that we evangelical pastors are not nearly so wishy-washy about challenging sinners when the issue is dear to us and less politically sensitive. My favorite example is the oft-cited passage in the book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, where Pastor Jim Cymbala savages the sin of gossip. He tells new members:
I charge you that if you ever hear another member speak an unkind word of criticism or slander against anyone - myself, an usher, a choir member, or anyone else - that you stop that person in mid-sentence and say, "Excuse me - who hurt you? Who ignored you? Who slighted you? Was it Pastor Cymbala? Let's go to his office right now. He'll apologize to you, and then we'll pray together so God can restore peace to this body." But we won't let you talk critically about people who aren't present to defend themselves.
I'm serious about this. I want to help you resolve this kind of thing immediately. And know this: If you are ever the one doing the loose talking, we'll confront you.
I was deeply impressed with this quote when I first read it, and used it in a sermon. But now I'm wondering, does Cymbala take the same approach with other grave sins? (Maybe he does! Please understand I am not criticizing him at all. I’m just wondering.) If the sin were fornication rather than slander, would he urge members to confront the sinner on the spot? Imagine a pastor telling new members, "I charge you, if you ever hear another member say, 'I'm living with my fiancé,' you stop that person in mid-sentence and say, 'Excuse me? You're living in sin? Let's go to the pastor's office right now so you can repent.' I want you to resolve this thing immediately. And know this: If you are ever the one doing the cohabiting, we'll confront you."
Maybe that is exactly what he would say, and if so, I applaud his consistency. But what I'd like to know is just what is the set of sins concerning which it is our duty to stop the sinner cold and insist on immediate repentance. Abusing drugs? Having an abortion? Viewing pornography? Refusing to tithe? Getting drunk? Using a racial epithet?
Just wondering.
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Sunday, July 18, 2004
Are All Sins Equally Bad? (July 18, 2004)
I think one of the devil's favorite games is to get people to obliterate moral distinctions and lump unlike things together.
What spurred this thought is a comment I heard on WMBI by a Christian counselor who said, "We have many fat preachers condemning gays, but no gay preachers condemning gluttons." It's a line designed to get a laugh and provoke reflection over how shameful it is that we treat some sins as more damnworthy than others. Who are we to condemn homosexual sin while giving ourselves a free pass on overeating? The Bible says gluttony is wrong, but many of us are afflicted with this weakness, and so, like gays, we are all sinners in need of God's grace and his unconditional love that meets us where we are blah blah blah blah blah blah.
I am tired of these false moral equivalencies that trivialize perversion. It is true that everyone is a sinner and in need of God's grace. It is also true that a saint like Mother Theresa and a beast like David Berkowitz (Son of Sam killer) must both receive forgiveness through faith in Christ. But it is not true that all sins are the same. Gluttony and sodomy are not comparable, and it is not equally valid for a glutton to rebuke a sodomite as the other way around.
More times than I can count I have heard evangelicals utter the careless statement that "All sins are equally bad in God's eyes." No they aren't. Jesus explicitly denies this in his statement to Pontius Pilate, "He who delivered me over to you has the greater sin" (John 19:11). Only if sins differ in severity can one be regarded as "greater" than another. Likewise, when Jesus says that it will be "more tolerable" for Tyre and Sidon on judgment day than for Korazin and Bethsaida (Matthew 11:21-22), it is hard to see why Tyre and Sidon should get off easier unless somehow their sins were not as bad as those of the other cities.
With regard to gluttony and homosexual practice, it doesn’t take an Einstein to see from the Bible which sin is worse. The Old Testament does not prescribe the death penalty for eating too much, but it does for gay sex (Leviticus 20:13). The New Testament does not use pigging out as an example of a sin to which the wicked are "handed over," but it does so for homosexual indulgence (Romans 1:24-27). I don't see gluttony listed among the sins that keep people out of the kingdom of heaven. But gay practice listed there (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
And as for the social cost - my goodness. I have never met a woman who did not want to go on living just because her husband had gotten thick around the midsection. But just about any pastor can relate stories of poor, distraught, near-suicidal women who did not know what to do after their husbands had left them and the kids for another man. And though a fat guy may give himself a coronary before his time, at least he's not spewing a virus that has taken, and continues to take, tens of millions of lives.
Wisdom requires us to assign degrees of value to what is good and degrees of opprobrium to what it evil. To lump together all sin into one indistinguishable mass is intellectually lazy and biblically dishonest. A careless refusal to distinguish greater from lesser sin tends to mask true outrages, and gives false comfort to evildoers who ruin others' lives and imperil their own souls.
Some gifts are greater than others (1 Corinthians 12:31). Some expressions of love are greater than others (John 15:13). And yes, some sins are greater than others too.
I think one of the devil's favorite games is to get people to obliterate moral distinctions and lump unlike things together.
What spurred this thought is a comment I heard on WMBI by a Christian counselor who said, "We have many fat preachers condemning gays, but no gay preachers condemning gluttons." It's a line designed to get a laugh and provoke reflection over how shameful it is that we treat some sins as more damnworthy than others. Who are we to condemn homosexual sin while giving ourselves a free pass on overeating? The Bible says gluttony is wrong, but many of us are afflicted with this weakness, and so, like gays, we are all sinners in need of God's grace and his unconditional love that meets us where we are blah blah blah blah blah blah.
I am tired of these false moral equivalencies that trivialize perversion. It is true that everyone is a sinner and in need of God's grace. It is also true that a saint like Mother Theresa and a beast like David Berkowitz (Son of Sam killer) must both receive forgiveness through faith in Christ. But it is not true that all sins are the same. Gluttony and sodomy are not comparable, and it is not equally valid for a glutton to rebuke a sodomite as the other way around.
More times than I can count I have heard evangelicals utter the careless statement that "All sins are equally bad in God's eyes." No they aren't. Jesus explicitly denies this in his statement to Pontius Pilate, "He who delivered me over to you has the greater sin" (John 19:11). Only if sins differ in severity can one be regarded as "greater" than another. Likewise, when Jesus says that it will be "more tolerable" for Tyre and Sidon on judgment day than for Korazin and Bethsaida (Matthew 11:21-22), it is hard to see why Tyre and Sidon should get off easier unless somehow their sins were not as bad as those of the other cities.
With regard to gluttony and homosexual practice, it doesn’t take an Einstein to see from the Bible which sin is worse. The Old Testament does not prescribe the death penalty for eating too much, but it does for gay sex (Leviticus 20:13). The New Testament does not use pigging out as an example of a sin to which the wicked are "handed over," but it does so for homosexual indulgence (Romans 1:24-27). I don't see gluttony listed among the sins that keep people out of the kingdom of heaven. But gay practice listed there (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
And as for the social cost - my goodness. I have never met a woman who did not want to go on living just because her husband had gotten thick around the midsection. But just about any pastor can relate stories of poor, distraught, near-suicidal women who did not know what to do after their husbands had left them and the kids for another man. And though a fat guy may give himself a coronary before his time, at least he's not spewing a virus that has taken, and continues to take, tens of millions of lives.
Wisdom requires us to assign degrees of value to what is good and degrees of opprobrium to what it evil. To lump together all sin into one indistinguishable mass is intellectually lazy and biblically dishonest. A careless refusal to distinguish greater from lesser sin tends to mask true outrages, and gives false comfort to evildoers who ruin others' lives and imperil their own souls.
Some gifts are greater than others (1 Corinthians 12:31). Some expressions of love are greater than others (John 15:13). And yes, some sins are greater than others too.
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Does Goodness Unite? (July 11, 2004)
Goodness is the great divider.
I thought about this theme when my son asked prayer for a friend whose parents are on the brink of separation. It is one of those cases where one partner is good and the other is evil. Here the husband is pleasant, mature and courteous, and the wife is foul-mouthed, hostile and (I think) under-medicated. She is insisting that he get out and leave her all the money.
Their troubled relationship illustrates what I have long regarded as a massive flaw in the marriage counseling industry: the assumption that, if you become a better husband or wife, it will make your spouse a kinder and better person too. This is not true. What is true (generally) is that if your spouse is already good, your goodness will delight him and make him better. If he is bad, your goodness will anger him and make him worse.
An under-appreciated teaching of Jesus is that his holy presence would generate discord rather than unity. He said, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - a man's enemies will be the members of his own household" (Matthew 10:34-36). This division was not purposeful, but a simple matter of fact. People's inclinations toward good or evil would snowball in opposite directions as they met Christ. His goodness would divide them.
Rather than acknowledge this painful truth, it seems to me that much of the Christian community chooses instead to fear that others will disapprove of them. “If they don't like us, we must be doing something wrong. Worse, if they don't like us, they won't become Christians!” That may be so, but don't worry about it. Do what is right, do what is pleasing to God, and let people respond this way or that however they may. Certainly it is good to be loved, but the goal of inspiring other people's love must never be allowed to trump the goal of doing right. Nazis and pedophiles and terrorists (and even some spouses) will never like us no matter what we do - or they may offer to keep us in their good graces only if we sacrifice the holiness that they find displeasing. We can't do that. We must simply remember that goodness divides, and ever will divide, and we must never regret any goodness that has met with either cool indifference or hostile opposition.
Martyred missionary Jim Elliot said it well when he wrote in one of his journals, "Let me not be a milepost on a single road: make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me."
Goodness is the great divider.
I thought about this theme when my son asked prayer for a friend whose parents are on the brink of separation. It is one of those cases where one partner is good and the other is evil. Here the husband is pleasant, mature and courteous, and the wife is foul-mouthed, hostile and (I think) under-medicated. She is insisting that he get out and leave her all the money.
Their troubled relationship illustrates what I have long regarded as a massive flaw in the marriage counseling industry: the assumption that, if you become a better husband or wife, it will make your spouse a kinder and better person too. This is not true. What is true (generally) is that if your spouse is already good, your goodness will delight him and make him better. If he is bad, your goodness will anger him and make him worse.
An under-appreciated teaching of Jesus is that his holy presence would generate discord rather than unity. He said, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - a man's enemies will be the members of his own household" (Matthew 10:34-36). This division was not purposeful, but a simple matter of fact. People's inclinations toward good or evil would snowball in opposite directions as they met Christ. His goodness would divide them.
Rather than acknowledge this painful truth, it seems to me that much of the Christian community chooses instead to fear that others will disapprove of them. “If they don't like us, we must be doing something wrong. Worse, if they don't like us, they won't become Christians!” That may be so, but don't worry about it. Do what is right, do what is pleasing to God, and let people respond this way or that however they may. Certainly it is good to be loved, but the goal of inspiring other people's love must never be allowed to trump the goal of doing right. Nazis and pedophiles and terrorists (and even some spouses) will never like us no matter what we do - or they may offer to keep us in their good graces only if we sacrifice the holiness that they find displeasing. We can't do that. We must simply remember that goodness divides, and ever will divide, and we must never regret any goodness that has met with either cool indifference or hostile opposition.
Martyred missionary Jim Elliot said it well when he wrote in one of his journals, "Let me not be a milepost on a single road: make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me."
Sunday, July 4, 2004
If You Loved (July 4, 2004)
In the movie Critical Care, a comatose old man is kept alive by artificial means as his daughters argue about disconnecting him. As the story develops and involves doctors, lawyers and hospital administrators, we see that this (possibly) brain-dead old man is a pawn in a game where millions of dollars are at stake.
He cannot communicate, and the only visible sign of life is that his fingers constantly tap the bars on the side of his bed. This activity is ascribed to random neural firing. But an aide, knowing that the man had served in the navy, wonders if he might be tapping out Morse code. Indeed, when he translates the taps into dots and dashes they signal, over and over again, the words, "If you love me."
The movie never tells us whether the message is a coincidence or the man's deliberate attempt to communicate. Most likely it is neither, but rather a message from God to all those involved the case. The movie makes the point that the actual decision whether or not to disconnect matters less than what is motivating the decision. “If you love me,“ and the sentence hangs there for others to complete. Let us assume that there is no money involved, no career at stake, no selfish emotions to indulge, no policy to follow. If you loved me - and that was the only thing you had to consider - well, then, what would you do? Disconnect or leave connected? If the answer is obvious, then do that.
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes, "The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering about whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did." When you "act as if you did" you not only do the right thing, you find also (maybe) that your good work has pulled some affection along behind it. Lewis continues, "As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."
Play this game with yourself. Pretend that you loved someone, and were motivated so purely by love that all your natural self-interest was magically snatched away. What would you do?
In the movie Critical Care, a comatose old man is kept alive by artificial means as his daughters argue about disconnecting him. As the story develops and involves doctors, lawyers and hospital administrators, we see that this (possibly) brain-dead old man is a pawn in a game where millions of dollars are at stake.
He cannot communicate, and the only visible sign of life is that his fingers constantly tap the bars on the side of his bed. This activity is ascribed to random neural firing. But an aide, knowing that the man had served in the navy, wonders if he might be tapping out Morse code. Indeed, when he translates the taps into dots and dashes they signal, over and over again, the words, "If you love me."
The movie never tells us whether the message is a coincidence or the man's deliberate attempt to communicate. Most likely it is neither, but rather a message from God to all those involved the case. The movie makes the point that the actual decision whether or not to disconnect matters less than what is motivating the decision. “If you love me,“ and the sentence hangs there for others to complete. Let us assume that there is no money involved, no career at stake, no selfish emotions to indulge, no policy to follow. If you loved me - and that was the only thing you had to consider - well, then, what would you do? Disconnect or leave connected? If the answer is obvious, then do that.
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes, "The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering about whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did." When you "act as if you did" you not only do the right thing, you find also (maybe) that your good work has pulled some affection along behind it. Lewis continues, "As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."
Play this game with yourself. Pretend that you loved someone, and were motivated so purely by love that all your natural self-interest was magically snatched away. What would you do?
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