The people through whom God accomplishes
his purposes are not always the guys at the top of your list or mine.
Sure, once in a while there’s a Moses or a
David that comes on the scene and is almost singularly responsible for changing
the course of a nation, reshaping popular opinion, or in some measure reversing
a seriously destructive spiritual trend. From the safety of ample historical distance, it seems to us like God made a couple of good calls there — as he did with Joshua, Nehemiah, Hezekiah (for the most
part), and many more.
But in the Old Testament, for every one of
those obvious-in-hindsight choices, there’s a Jehu, a Samson or a Joab running
around stabbing, pummeling, dropping houses on people or feeding evil queens to
the neighbourhood canines.
Why would God use people like that, we wonder?
Sons of Thunder
How about the people chosen by the Lord to
follow him and do his work once he had risen from the dead and ascended into
glory? What was with those Boanerges anyway? The “Sons of Thunder”, as the Lord named them. Encountering
inhospitable Samaritans, James and John are all set to break out the brimstone:
“Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume
them?” Perhaps the NASB is right and the Lord replies, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of”. In any case, we can be sure he rebuked them: all English translations tell us that.
The John of much later years was of a
different spirit. The “apostle of love”, some have called him. He wrote things
about the Lord Jesus that I would argue are higher and more beautiful than
anything written by the other disciples.
Something changed, for sure. But he started
as a flamethrower, and it would be ridiculous to suggest that everything John
did as a young firebrand was useless to God. He was immature, sure, and maybe
overly judgmental. But there was something about him that made the Lord love
him very deeply notwithstanding his early shortcomings.
Give Me Chastity
We might equally wonder why God uses
certain people today, particularly Christians who are regularly accused of
“embarrassing” their fellow believers.
Church history does not lack for
significant figures with a propensity for ruffling feathers or having
questionable personal lives. Martin Luther was said to be anti-Semitic; to have believed Jewish homes should be destroyed, synagogues burned and their
money confiscated. John Wesley had what has been characterized as a catastrophic love life. Augustine was said to be obsessed with sex and is famous for his prayer, “Give
me chastity ... but not yet.” Yet all were God’s men at their particular hour in history.
One never wants to give the enemies of God cause to blaspheme or to trivialize sin, especially when bad public examples cause weaker Christians to follow suit. But it happens. Regularly. And, rationalize it as we may, at some point we have to concede that even if God’s choices in the people he uses are often mysterious, the value of such men to the kingdom of God remains, notwithstanding their well-documented flaws.
One never wants to give the enemies of God cause to blaspheme or to trivialize sin, especially when bad public examples cause weaker Christians to follow suit. But it happens. Regularly. And, rationalize it as we may, at some point we have to concede that even if God’s choices in the people he uses are often mysterious, the value of such men to the kingdom of God remains, notwithstanding their well-documented flaws.
An Embarrassment to His Fellow Believers
I notice the sorts of Christians that
attract the most criticism from their fellow believers are the ones actually
getting something done, usually something visible. On the Internet, when you
read things like, “He’s a really bad testimony” and “an embarrassment to his
fellow Christians”, usually he’s attracting followers in droves. Rarely do we
see significant critical huffing and puffing about somebody whose name we don’t
recognize.
Hey, it’s not impossible that some of the
criticisms spring out of jealousy or arise from misunderstandings. Other times
the naysayers are spot-on.
Now, I won’t suggest Christians in the
limelight are untouchables, or that we should never draw attention to the
shortcomings of our fellow believers. Far from it. Public unity that only slips
the lid over a pot full of simmering resentment is no great pleasure to the Lord.
Still, we need to watch HOW we go about criticizing
fellow Christians.
Judgmental, Hypocritical, Insensitive …
Adam Hamilton says, “When Christians are judgmental, hypocritical, insensitive and mean-spirited, they are acting in ways that are unchristian.” These are just the sorts of accusations most often leveled at Christian public figures.
Hamilton’s statement is true but not
particularly helpful. The problem is that words like “judgmental”,
“hypocritical”, “insensitive” and “mean-spirited” are almost entirely in the
eye of the beholder. Each of these adjectives, you will note, is general rather
than specific. All are very much subjective calls. They are characterizations
of particular behaviours by onlookers who cannot possibly be privy to all relevant
information.
The language of the Lord Jesus, John the
Baptist and the apostles is often rather intense: things like “brood of vipers”, “blind fools”, “dogs”, “swine”, “whitewashed tombs”, “murderers”, “children of the devil”, etc. This sort of language might easily have been characterized as “judgmental”,
“insensitive” or “mean-spirited” even in the first century, let alone today.
Criticism with Content
A Christian public figure using similar
language today might be intense, sincere, faithful and honest. Equally, he
might be judgmental, hypocritical, insensitive and mean-spirited. How could we
tell? To criticize him with any moral legitimacy, we’d really need to know:
(i) whom he was addressing, since some people require a different tone than others; (ii) the circumstances; (iii) his motive; and
(iv) his evidence. Very few of us are ever in a position to weigh all that
information.
Coming from anyone without the prophetic
gift, I suspect adjectives like “judgmental”, “hypocritical” and “insensitive”
are often a cheap shortcut; an easy way to express unhappiness with a fellow
believer without actually providing any hard evidence for the critique.
We might note that the Lord was never vague
or general in taking on the shortcomings of public figures. He didn’t do innuendo.
He didn’t start rumors. When he had something to say, he was quite specific. Accusing
the Pharisees of hypocrisy, he provides nearly 30 verses of hard evidence.
Stand or Fall
I am increasingly disinclined to pass
judgment on my fellow believers for the way they go about God’s business. That
was not always the case. But I have come to realize that it is to their own
Master that they stand or fall — and I hear God is able to make them stand.
Oh, I’m happy to judge their words when
they write them down for the world to see. Bad doctrine is always fair game: if
you want to immortalize your errors in print or online, everybody’s entitled to
a shot — or at least to provide alternative interpretations. Have a go at
mine if you like.
But the way they serve? How aggressively
they attack the minions of the evil one? The strategic mistakes they make along
the way? The opinions they hold that are out of sync with the zeitgeist? Their
interpersonal conflicts? The weird personality quirks that make them brave and
crazy enough to do things I wouldn’t dare, even if they do seem to have a
tendency to go off half-cocked?
Such details are not unimportant, but they
do not invalidate lifetimes of service, provoking paradigm shifts in Christian
thinking or the God-given ability to shine genuine light on murky areas of theology.
Moreover, most of them are hearsay, and almost none of them are my business.
I think I’ll just zip my trap and watch.
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