by Frank Turk
For the sake of that being remedied, I offer a link to the analysis right here. Don't miss it for the sake of your our righteous indignation.
Dear Derek Webb --
I started my (meager and non-profit) blogging career with an open letter to you about 6 years ago, and it's funny how that has come full circle as you stay on your quest to be come an artist (we'll come back to that) and I stay on my quest to, um, blog.
Over at HuffPo, Chris Stedman's interview of you has made some waves in the week after Christmas. It's really cool that, unlike the rest of us, you can get interviews with secularists and directors of inter-religious dialogue -- and I mean that sincerely even though I know it sounds sarcastic. If more people who were actually Christians could get interviewed by Chris Stedman, Chris himself would probably be better for it -- and his readers would at least be disabused by the stereotype of "Christianity" with which they are abused today.
I have to grant you something: you are right about the problem the church has in addressing the "gay" issue. I blogged about that a few years ago myself, refer to that post frequently as the topic comes up and further notes are required, and I commend that to you for context of my note to you today.
There are three things which bothered me about your talk with Mr. Stedman that I want to pass on as we approach the New Year, and I offer them to you in no particular order:
1. The Gospel
What is the Gospel, Derek? (please forgive the faux familiarity; I address you as one somewhat-public person to another) You seem to have summed it up to Mr. Stedman as, "Jesus says we are to be preemptive about how we love." Yet this is not at all how Jesus prepares people for the Gospel, nor what he seems to put at the first place for the reason God sent him, the Son, into the world.
I know someplace, somehow, you "get" this: the Son of Man was not sent to be served, but to serve, and to lay down his life as a ransom for many. He came to suffer much at the hands of the leaders of Israel and to be put to death. And he did this not as a moral example but as a sacrifice -- as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Yet your interview with HuffPo doesn't really mention that -- and maybe that's Mr. Stedman's editorial hand showing. You instead leapfrog that in this interview and go directly to "love". But this is how we know what Love is: seeing that God did something for us when we were unworthy of it. Christ died for sinners and not merely for morally-neutral people -- or worse, for people who are just moral equivalents of each other who can't see either the log in their own eye or the mote in his brother's eye.
The key note of the Gospel, Derek, is the need for it. I am well-known in this little backwater of the internet for saying that any random sinner is "just like me" -- but can I point out a difference between your approach and mine? Your approach is to say, "I'm not any worse than the least of these," and my approach is to say, "I am no better, and maybe I am worse."
The nuance there is important. From the perspective you have delivered to the readers of HuffPo, it's just a "come as you are" thing to say that men are sinful. Them's the breaks, as they say. It soft-soaps the problem of sin significantly into something you put this way: "One of the hallmarks of following Jesus is to pursue and love people who are different than we are and have different beliefs than we do, and to live our lives loving, understanding and coming into common ground with those people."
The problem with that is that Jesus didn't die to establish common ground, Derek: Jesus died because the wages of sin is death, and that's the common ground of all men of all times and all places. I may actually be worse-off than the homosexual, morally: my sins may be more wide-spread and more deeply-rooted (which is an interesting question, given your position here; again: more on that in a second). But what that does not do is mitigate the fact that the homosexual's sin is actually an offense to God from which he must repent, and not merely recognize as a different expression of self.
2. the Church
To that end, Jesus died to make the believers into the Church, right? Jesus didn't die so that we can make a moral equation up which makes Islam and Hinduism and Judaism and then the social/religious agnostics who come 'round about Him as "believers" into a happy mixed family. Jesus died so that the believers can be called out from death into life, and called out from the world to the household of God, and called out of sin and into salvation.
Readers of this blog know that I am not a perfectionist -- I don't believe that there are any Christians who are perfect morally, least of all me personally. In fact, I think one of the greatest sins in the American Christian life is the inability of so-called theologically-conservative Christians to live in community with other believers. There is a call to repentance needed there which has not yet been sounded or even rightly-framed which we English-speakers have to face up to. It smashes our idols of individuality and intellectual pride. That matter is for another day.
But that said, Christ died to call out the Church. This is an unquestionable fact of the New Testament; it's the key-note point of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and also the "book ends" of Paul's letter to the Romans. Somehow, if Christ died for us, we are a new people set apart from the world and it's fallenness. Right? Colossians 3? So when we make the confession that we are sinners, we are also making the confession that we ought not to be sinners. Making allowance for the sins of others so that we can "love them" is unloving because it is spiritually deadly. It completely squashes the actual Gospel in place of a new kind of legalism. Rather than seeking to find out all the ways in which we ought "not to do," we are in fact seeking out all the ways we can allow all the things we ought not to do. It's a legalism of tolerance -- which you exchange in your interview into a legalism of love. It's not love, you might say, if it doesn't include those who mutilate themselves to justify their sexual urges. It's not love, you might say, if we can't bless the sexual union of two people who are sexually identical rather than sexually compatible. It's the legalism of permissiveness, which is merely license raised to a moral imperative.
The Church cannot say such things. When it does -- and I submit to you that the conservative church does this exactly today regarding marriage and sexuality -- it is gone far afield. To have it go far into another false field for the sake of balance (which, as I take it, is your complaint) is not prophetic or artistic: it is blasphemy, and anti-Gospel.
3. The Artist
Which brings me to my final comment. Personally, I grew up in a liberal-arts environment. Then I "got saved" and spent 20 years as a Christian. I have found that there is a singular refuge for people who do not want to be held morally and philosophically culpable for the trash they flatulently expel into the common conversation. In Christian circles, it's the "prophet"; in academic circles, it's "the artist".
Back in the "old days" before you started filing complaints against the local church and Christians in general, you didn't couch yourself behind the conceit of being "an Artist". But today, that's your trip. Are you really more-qualified to make moral, political and social pronouncements than anyone else -- than pastors and qualified teacher of the Bible, for example -- now that you are "an artist"? Is it really at all reasonable let alone generous or spiritually-mature to denigrate pastors as people who don't have enough time to get spiritually informed except through CNN and blogs? I think it's a dodge you can cleverly use to escape scrutiny, and you should frankly know better. You're not some kid floating through college on his father's hard-earned dime; you're not some flattered entertainer who lives in a vacuum protected by publicists and agents and sycophants (I hope). You're in some way a self-made man who has been there, done that -- which makes your daffy diatribes against conservative Christianity, and the disguise of being an "artist", all the more unbelievable.
To say, as you have said here, that your pondering these issues trumps other views because you are an "artist" is simply adolescent. If your moral pronouncement trumps, for example, John Piper (not an artist), what if Charlton Heston says you're wrong? His artistic cred trumps yours for sure: how do you deal with it? And what if Ian McKellen then comes out and proffers yet another moral pronouncement -- does his cred trump Heston? What exactly will we do when the artist community unsurprisingly cannot speak with one voice and cannot come to a moral consensus? What will us poor non-artists do if CNN or FOX does not clear it up for us?
The answer, of course, is to put the artist in his place -- subject to God's revelation. That's the Christian answer, anyway -- settle matters of faith and practice by what God hath said -- and that, done by men of good faith who are elders and leaders in the church. But the way you have, over time, read the Bible, has become shallow and ambiguous -- which is the hallmark of pretentiousness, not artistic depth. To see Jesus as only a lover of the sinful and not a judge or even decent moral counsellor is to misread all of the book of John and all of Revelation and all of Paul's statements which begin "therefore" in the New Testament.
May we all suffer fewer artists of this sort in the future, and may you repent of it as soon as possible.
We all know you want to be a lion -- we all want to pass as cats. You want to be a big, big star; you want to be someone to believe. You want to be Bob Dylan. The problem is that you're not. You're akid fellow from Texas who has, over 20 years, convinced himself that there is no Old Testament substantiating the New Testament; that Jesus does not fulfill that law so that in his death those who repent and believe are made a people like him. What we therefore ought to be is both enemies of sin and friends of sinners -- but I think you have missed this someplace, publicly and intentionally. My offer to you is to come back to this, which is the Christian faith and not some romantic or secularized stereotype of the actual faith.
While I have been harsh here, I hope this letter finds you well, and in the good graces of God, and with a heart inclined toward him and inclined to repent. You have said that you refuse no invitations for interviews, and I post this as an open invitation to do two things inclusively here together: [1] to post your [unedited] open reply to this letter in this space at your convenience, and [2] to also record a 60-minute interview with me on this subject which would be available here unedited on this subject to correct the record as necessary, correct my view of the interview with Stedman, and to dialog on the question of the church being in the world, on mission to lost people, but not of the world.
You can tweet me @Frank_Turk, or e-mail at frank at i-t-u-r-k dot com.
UPDATED 25 Feb 2012
Yes: hello. Before you read this further, this post is, right now, the #2 all-time viewed post in the history of this blog. It accounts for 1% of all traffic to this blog. And, methinks, a lot of people miss about 2/3rds of what went into the original post because it misses the detailed analysis of the original interview which posted the same day, but gets missed when someone links through to this letter only.For the sake of that being remedied, I offer a link to the analysis right here. Don't miss it for the sake of your our righteous indignation.
-- Frank Turk
Dear Derek Webb --
I started my (meager and non-profit) blogging career with an open letter to you about 6 years ago, and it's funny how that has come full circle as you stay on your quest to be come an artist (we'll come back to that) and I stay on my quest to, um, blog.
I have to grant you something: you are right about the problem the church has in addressing the "gay" issue. I blogged about that a few years ago myself, refer to that post frequently as the topic comes up and further notes are required, and I commend that to you for context of my note to you today.
There are three things which bothered me about your talk with Mr. Stedman that I want to pass on as we approach the New Year, and I offer them to you in no particular order:
1. The Gospel
What is the Gospel, Derek? (please forgive the faux familiarity; I address you as one somewhat-public person to another) You seem to have summed it up to Mr. Stedman as, "Jesus says we are to be preemptive about how we love." Yet this is not at all how Jesus prepares people for the Gospel, nor what he seems to put at the first place for the reason God sent him, the Son, into the world.
I know someplace, somehow, you "get" this: the Son of Man was not sent to be served, but to serve, and to lay down his life as a ransom for many. He came to suffer much at the hands of the leaders of Israel and to be put to death. And he did this not as a moral example but as a sacrifice -- as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Yet your interview with HuffPo doesn't really mention that -- and maybe that's Mr. Stedman's editorial hand showing. You instead leapfrog that in this interview and go directly to "love". But this is how we know what Love is: seeing that God did something for us when we were unworthy of it. Christ died for sinners and not merely for morally-neutral people -- or worse, for people who are just moral equivalents of each other who can't see either the log in their own eye or the mote in his brother's eye.
The key note of the Gospel, Derek, is the need for it. I am well-known in this little backwater of the internet for saying that any random sinner is "just like me" -- but can I point out a difference between your approach and mine? Your approach is to say, "I'm not any worse than the least of these," and my approach is to say, "I am no better, and maybe I am worse."
The nuance there is important. From the perspective you have delivered to the readers of HuffPo, it's just a "come as you are" thing to say that men are sinful. Them's the breaks, as they say. It soft-soaps the problem of sin significantly into something you put this way: "One of the hallmarks of following Jesus is to pursue and love people who are different than we are and have different beliefs than we do, and to live our lives loving, understanding and coming into common ground with those people."
The problem with that is that Jesus didn't die to establish common ground, Derek: Jesus died because the wages of sin is death, and that's the common ground of all men of all times and all places. I may actually be worse-off than the homosexual, morally: my sins may be more wide-spread and more deeply-rooted (which is an interesting question, given your position here; again: more on that in a second). But what that does not do is mitigate the fact that the homosexual's sin is actually an offense to God from which he must repent, and not merely recognize as a different expression of self.
2. the Church
To that end, Jesus died to make the believers into the Church, right? Jesus didn't die so that we can make a moral equation up which makes Islam and Hinduism and Judaism and then the social/religious agnostics who come 'round about Him as "believers" into a happy mixed family. Jesus died so that the believers can be called out from death into life, and called out from the world to the household of God, and called out of sin and into salvation.
Readers of this blog know that I am not a perfectionist -- I don't believe that there are any Christians who are perfect morally, least of all me personally. In fact, I think one of the greatest sins in the American Christian life is the inability of so-called theologically-conservative Christians to live in community with other believers. There is a call to repentance needed there which has not yet been sounded or even rightly-framed which we English-speakers have to face up to. It smashes our idols of individuality and intellectual pride. That matter is for another day.
But that said, Christ died to call out the Church. This is an unquestionable fact of the New Testament; it's the key-note point of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and also the "book ends" of Paul's letter to the Romans. Somehow, if Christ died for us, we are a new people set apart from the world and it's fallenness. Right? Colossians 3? So when we make the confession that we are sinners, we are also making the confession that we ought not to be sinners. Making allowance for the sins of others so that we can "love them" is unloving because it is spiritually deadly. It completely squashes the actual Gospel in place of a new kind of legalism. Rather than seeking to find out all the ways in which we ought "not to do," we are in fact seeking out all the ways we can allow all the things we ought not to do. It's a legalism of tolerance -- which you exchange in your interview into a legalism of love. It's not love, you might say, if it doesn't include those who mutilate themselves to justify their sexual urges. It's not love, you might say, if we can't bless the sexual union of two people who are sexually identical rather than sexually compatible. It's the legalism of permissiveness, which is merely license raised to a moral imperative.
The Church cannot say such things. When it does -- and I submit to you that the conservative church does this exactly today regarding marriage and sexuality -- it is gone far afield. To have it go far into another false field for the sake of balance (which, as I take it, is your complaint) is not prophetic or artistic: it is blasphemy, and anti-Gospel.
3. The Artist
Which brings me to my final comment. Personally, I grew up in a liberal-arts environment. Then I "got saved" and spent 20 years as a Christian. I have found that there is a singular refuge for people who do not want to be held morally and philosophically culpable for the trash they flatulently expel into the common conversation. In Christian circles, it's the "prophet"; in academic circles, it's "the artist".
Back in the "old days" before you started filing complaints against the local church and Christians in general, you didn't couch yourself behind the conceit of being "an Artist". But today, that's your trip. Are you really more-qualified to make moral, political and social pronouncements than anyone else -- than pastors and qualified teacher of the Bible, for example -- now that you are "an artist"? Is it really at all reasonable let alone generous or spiritually-mature to denigrate pastors as people who don't have enough time to get spiritually informed except through CNN and blogs? I think it's a dodge you can cleverly use to escape scrutiny, and you should frankly know better. You're not some kid floating through college on his father's hard-earned dime; you're not some flattered entertainer who lives in a vacuum protected by publicists and agents and sycophants (I hope). You're in some way a self-made man who has been there, done that -- which makes your daffy diatribes against conservative Christianity, and the disguise of being an "artist", all the more unbelievable.
To say, as you have said here, that your pondering these issues trumps other views because you are an "artist" is simply adolescent. If your moral pronouncement trumps, for example, John Piper (not an artist), what if Charlton Heston says you're wrong? His artistic cred trumps yours for sure: how do you deal with it? And what if Ian McKellen then comes out and proffers yet another moral pronouncement -- does his cred trump Heston? What exactly will we do when the artist community unsurprisingly cannot speak with one voice and cannot come to a moral consensus? What will us poor non-artists do if CNN or FOX does not clear it up for us?
The answer, of course, is to put the artist in his place -- subject to God's revelation. That's the Christian answer, anyway -- settle matters of faith and practice by what God hath said -- and that, done by men of good faith who are elders and leaders in the church. But the way you have, over time, read the Bible, has become shallow and ambiguous -- which is the hallmark of pretentiousness, not artistic depth. To see Jesus as only a lover of the sinful and not a judge or even decent moral counsellor is to misread all of the book of John and all of Revelation and all of Paul's statements which begin "therefore" in the New Testament.May we all suffer fewer artists of this sort in the future, and may you repent of it as soon as possible.
We all know you want to be a lion -- we all want to pass as cats. You want to be a big, big star; you want to be someone to believe. You want to be Bob Dylan. The problem is that you're not. You're a
While I have been harsh here, I hope this letter finds you well, and in the good graces of God, and with a heart inclined toward him and inclined to repent. You have said that you refuse no invitations for interviews, and I post this as an open invitation to do two things inclusively here together: [1] to post your [unedited] open reply to this letter in this space at your convenience, and [2] to also record a 60-minute interview with me on this subject which would be available here unedited on this subject to correct the record as necessary, correct my view of the interview with Stedman, and to dialog on the question of the church being in the world, on mission to lost people, but not of the world.
You can tweet me @Frank_Turk, or e-mail at frank at i-t-u-r-k dot com.
Awesome Update:
BEFORE YOU POST A COMMENT (and I do mean you personally), ask yourself this question: "Self, if my response to Frank Turk is that he should have first called Derek and had coffee with him to do the Biblical thing and not make this all like this, and I'm going to set him straight, why am I posting a comment on his blog rather than calling him? Am I just like Frank, or am I really following Jesus?"
If you can answer that question in a way that doesn't embarrass yourself, lay on, MacDuff.
--The Neighborhood Bully
BEFORE YOU POST A COMMENT (and I do mean you personally), ask yourself this question: "Self, if my response to Frank Turk is that he should have first called Derek and had coffee with him to do the Biblical thing and not make this all like this, and I'm going to set him straight, why am I posting a comment on his blog rather than calling him? Am I just like Frank, or am I really following Jesus?"
If you can answer that question in a way that doesn't embarrass yourself, lay on, MacDuff.
--The Neighborhood Bully
Awesome Update #2:
After closing the comments and reflecting on this post, the one very obvious and glaring problem with the discussion has been the actual lack of actual discussion. For example, with the panoply of people pelting me for not contacting Derek directly to make nice with him privately over his public disapprobation (notice I got it right this time) of the church and its moral judgment, only two people have bothered to send me an e-mail about the subject to take their points off-line. TWO. And I bring it up only because I put my e-mail address and Twitter ID in the post. Finding me would have been as hard as blinking.
This describes the kind of objection that concern is -- because it apparently doesn't apply to the people who offer it. It certainly didn't apply to Derek who, rather than respond here, or respond with an e-mail, or even respond with a quick note with any clarifiers, posted drive-by tweets for three days about nameless bloggers and told people via twitter that I was specifically a body part of inglorious use.
File that with this open letter, and keep it between the ditches.
--The Neighborhood Bully
After closing the comments and reflecting on this post, the one very obvious and glaring problem with the discussion has been the actual lack of actual discussion. For example, with the panoply of people pelting me for not contacting Derek directly to make nice with him privately over his public disapprobation (notice I got it right this time) of the church and its moral judgment, only two people have bothered to send me an e-mail about the subject to take their points off-line. TWO. And I bring it up only because I put my e-mail address and Twitter ID in the post. Finding me would have been as hard as blinking.
This describes the kind of objection that concern is -- because it apparently doesn't apply to the people who offer it. It certainly didn't apply to Derek who, rather than respond here, or respond with an e-mail, or even respond with a quick note with any clarifiers, posted drive-by tweets for three days about nameless bloggers and told people via twitter that I was specifically a body part of inglorious use.
File that with this open letter, and keep it between the ditches.
--The Neighborhood Bully
250 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 250 of 250Lucas --
So why not call me and love me? Am I not lost? Am I not a sinner? Is that not the Biblical path?
I love it that people now say "I have gay friends" the way closet racists said in the 70's "I have black friends". I am totally amazed that this is the new pass-card to credibility regarding the Gospel.
Turns out I have adulterous friends and lying friends. I hang out with them all the time. Now think on this closely because it will harm the theology you are now implementing and replace it with one which is much-improved:
If my friend are all adulterers and liars, and the basis of our relationship is my being OK with their sinfulness, have they heard the Gospel at all? That is: if they never hear me, like Paul in Rom 6, say "may it never be" toward all sin, have they been given the Gospel, or given instead a comfy chair on the buss to the other place?
Or worse still: what if the point is to tell them that because they are morally-valuable image-bearers and they have dignity, their sin is the problem which separates them from God -- and your chummy attitude prevents you from ever saying that? What if you will never say "may it never be"?
Here's how you know if you will ever say "may it never be": have you ever said it yet?
If the answer is "no", you have a problem the Gospel can fix, but you are not giving them the Gospel.
Mull it over.
203. I am going to get families some time in the next hour and have to sign off for the night. I'll shut 'er down sometime in the morning.
Play nice.
Frank- Yes, I did read your post, as well as Derek Webb's interview, and the blog of yours from a few years ago that you linked to at the beginning of this post, as well as the movie review it discussed. And yes, I am reading my own comments.
You've been nothing but condescending and unhelpful since my original comment. You refused to answer my initial question not once but twice. You implied that the people who use the term "LGBT" consider transsexuality and homosexuality to be essentially the same thing, which is flat out incorrect, and that is the reason I said I think you would benefit from doing some research on the differences between those two sexual orientations, and on the views of the LGBT community in general.
The Internet is a poor tool at determining someone's emotions. I'm not "freaking out" - I'm just frustrated and sorely disappointed that someone with your readership is promoting ignorance, because your implications about the LGBT community are misinformed and incorrect.
Whether or not you take me seriously, I sincerely hope that you will take some time to learn more about these issues of sexuality and gender. The more you educate yourself about issues like these that face the people of this day and age, the more capable you will be of loving them as God loves them.
As I said in my initial comment - thank you for your time and your thoughts.
Frank:
The "awesome update" needs to become rule #9.
Matt said:
[QUOTE]
You implied that the people who use the term "LGBT" consider transsexuality and homosexuality to be essentially the same thing, which is flat out incorrect, and that is the reason I said I think you would benefit from doing some research on the differences between those two sexual orientations, and on the views of the LGBT community in general.
[/QUOTE]
Is there a LGBT community or not? If no, why use the term? If yes, then the fact there is a "community" is the pat argument against all your other thoughts here.
Is there an LGBT community? I'd love for you to say "no". It would start a trend, and it would make my day.
The Neighborhood Bully link is actually the priceless part. You have to follow it to really let it rock your world.
AND I'm going to make a new post for the weekend which is the next installment of THIS classic post from Evangel which is Phil's favorite except for my Manhattan Declaration post over there.
--I missed it was a link. NICE! oh irony, how I love thee.
Frank- Yes, there is an LGBT community. There's also a Christian community, is there not? And isn't it true that people who belong to the Christian community are, in some ways, quite different from one another? The same applies to the LGBT community. The Christian community is tied together by beliefs. The LGBT community is tied together by struggles associated with sexual orientation and gender. However, just as the Christian community has sub-divisions, such as fundamentalism, evangelicism, etc, the LGBT community has sub-divisons, such as homosexuality, transexuality, bisexuality, etc. Does that make sense?
Yep, theology harmed, because that's your goal in all of this right? Lets see if we can harm each other's theology because that definitely brings out the Christ in us all.
That, in essence is my point. This isn't a theological debate.
My goal in becoming friends with homosexuals, wasn't some pass-card for Gospel credibility. I became friends with homosexuals for the same reason that I told them to their face. Because Jesus loves them, and I love them. Seems to me that they can see Jesus in me and know that Jesus loves them, which then just might turn them to Jesus. Turning to Jesus saves you from hell. Not changing your ways. If changing your ways alone saved you from hell, then the pharisee's would be first in line at the pearly gates, and the thief on the cross would be burning in hell.
MY GOAL was not to get them to change their ways, but to bring them to Jesus, who is the only one that could ever give them the power to change their ways...once they are saved!
Turn to Jesus. Turn from your ways. Those two MUST be chronological.
The Holy Spirit convicts, not me. A fact I'm very thankful of since He does a considerably better job.
Love God, love your neighbor. This sheds a little more light on those two sentences when you realize that loving your neighbor because you love God is a key element in others doing the same.
Lucas writes,
The Holy Spirit convicts, not me. A fact I'm very thankful of since He does a considerably better job.
True. The Holy Spirit must convict and arrest the sinner of his sin.
But are you telling me, that over the course of a friendship, you never raise the question of the person's sexual orientation and explain to him or her why that is contrary to God's will and how he or she will be condemned unless he or she falls upon Christ to be saved and then a part of that salvation is turning from and forsaking homosexual lust? How is that loving the person in Christ, exactly?
(Getting my last digs in, as it is called, and thank you Frank for extending beyond 200.)
There are a lot of new visitors here today, and I for one am glad to see some new faces as it were! It feels like it's been a long time since a TeamPyro post has had such a big response.
So for those of you who are first-time readers, I welcome you to stick around for the long haul. Keep coming back to warm yourselves by the fire. You may be shocked and outraged or even confused by what you read. Maybe you're afraid to comment for fear of sounding silly or being misunderstood. But keep coming back. In a few months, you'll begin to "get" these guys, and understand their "tone" and you might be challenged in your own personal walk, edified by what you read, or convicted even. I hope so. I hope your experiences reading here will be the blessing that they have been for me. And we all can to some degree benefit from learning to be patient and actually listening to what one another has to say, and grow in our desire to know the Scriptures and to know the Lord.
That is all.
Oh, and this: Gluttony has many forms. Some people desire chocolate. Others prefer pork. Still others cannot refuse a salty snack. Regardless of the individual unique person and their weakness, it's all categorized as gluttony. Which is sin. Just like fornication. And murder. And pride. And false humility. And, and, and. And that is all.
...and some of us are gluttons for TeamPyro posts...
Absolutely I would bring that to their attention "over the course of our friendship", but here is where I feel there is an important and deciding factor:
1. How many homosexuals who turn to Jesus don't know that they are in sin? Most of the time they know it more than I do. In that case, the course of action would be me not pounding the truth of the sin to them, but rather coming along side them, encouraging them, showing them what the Bible says and helping them to overcome.
2. We're now talking about a situation in which the person has seen your love. They know that you truly do have their best interest at heart. The truth is now out of love, not out of an agenda. This is a far cry from approaching someone, truth guns blazing and alienating someone before you even have a chance to show them enough love to open them up to the truth
How is it possible to separate love from the truth?
Like Frank said, this is not biblical.
Fred says it rightly.
Lucas,
Just a thought, but the Puritan William Ames said that "Theology is the doctrine or teaching of living to God...It is a guide and master plan for our highest end, sent in a special manner from God, treating divine things, tending towards God, and leading man to God."
Theology was "a living to God"
The Puritans were renowned in believing that theology was the 'art of living well towards God'.
Replying to RG: How can you separate love from truth?
Lets imagine someone walks up to me and begins this conversation:
"Lucas, you're 5'6, that's short. You must have had people make fun of you. You don't make a ton of money. It must suck not being able to pay all of your bills every month. You're a musician, but some people don't like your music at all. You are a sinner that deserves to go to hell unless you repent."
Was there love in that conversation? Or JUST truth?
I'm confused why you say this isn't biblical.
I Corinthians 13:2 "If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and ALL KNOWLEDGE; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
The truth can be very unloving. Combined with love it can be the most life changing virtue. God is truth, but He is also love. That doesn't mean they are the same thing, that just means they are combined.
Lucas, those things you listed - height, bills, income, etc. - are not lifestyle choices, as homosexuality is. They are not sins, as homosexuality is. Let's not be pedantic nor confuse the two, please. Stay on track.
In reply to themississippimama:
We weren't talking about sins or lifestyle choices. We were talking about truth and whether or not you can separate truth from love. I'm 5'6. That's a fact. I'm going to hell if I don't repent. That's another fact. It is possible to list those facts without love.
Lucas, you're confusing facts about specific sin (in this case, homosexuality) with facts for facts' sake. You're talking apples and oranges here. You're not making a valid argument. What you're trying to say is kind of elementary. Stay on topic.
The truth IS Jesus Christ. All of Him, all of the Gospel, all of His Law, all of His commandments, since He is the Word and that He came into this World to reveal Himself..
John 19:35
How better it be to speak the truth that they may believe. Faith comes by hearing the Gospel of truth in love. How did God "love" the world? By hanging out with us? More like hanging on the cross for us!
Truth is the Word! The Word was, is and always will be. God is Love.
Caring about someone in truth, knowing Christ in your own heart does not allow for anything less than the love of God to shine through you by and through Jesus Christ, which would be to preach the Gospel which will set those you so call care about free. Your love does not do that. Neither does mine. The Truth sets you free.
I am sure others on here can say much more to add to this.
the gospel is not about being right or wrong...
Lewis:
Are you right or wrong?
Reply to themississippimama:
I don't feel the need to backtrack this whole thing. Did you read the posts up to this point? If you did you would find that when I was talking about how you can have truth without love (as in the case of relating to the lost) that the example of someone simple quoting truths (I'm 5'6 etc) without love was very much on topic. It was in direct reply to RG's comment "You can't separate truth from love". Furthermore, the fact that you can in fact separate truth from love weighs in heavily to this topic...especially when we are talking about hammering a lost person with truth and not loving them first.
After reading the interview in question, the article and a lot of the many comments here, I am getting a sense that people are talking about love and how to show love.
I thought that a simple reading from the Bible might clear this up.
Mark 10:17-27.
The main verse I am thinking of is verse 21.
Bottom line: It is possible to tell the truth without love; it is impossible to show love without telling the truth. Lots of you kids here are too dense/immature/distracted/deluded to understand this.
In fact, just the other day I found myself saying the same thing elsewhere. Unsure how to link directly to my comment, so scroll down if you're interested. Better yet, read the whole meta, the tone of which is a lot like this one.
Lucas:
You are about to say something you will regret because you aren't even reading whole sentences at this point. Go back and re-read the "harm your theology" sentence again before proceeding and get over your problem, which is that you think your theology does not need to be harmed.
All bad theology needs to be harmed -- it does not need to be nursed. I have bad theology that needs harming the same way weeds need harming to get the lawn healthy. Until you get that about you, you are simply going to be part of the next generation of provincial cultural Christian.
And thicken up your skin. If you want to get into the rebuke business, you need to, as Paul said to the Corinthians, gird your loins and man-up.
Matt said
[QUOTE]
rank- Yes, there is an LGBT community.
[/QUOTE]
Aha. So they are unified somehow, right? They have something which makes them one people -- and that's sexual stuff. You would say "alienation" I would say "fornicators", and I would mean "just like all other sexual sinners". The problem now is that the rest of your arguments are in tatters.
Hence:
[QUOTE]
There's also a Christian community, is there not? And isn't it true that people who belong to the Christian community are, in some ways, quite different from one another?
[/QUOTE]
Wow. Giant leap-frog of logical calculus.
What makes there a Christian community is that they are unified by grace through faith in Christ. In your view, you can lump Catholic and Baptists together, but neither Catholics or Baptists would allow such an assumption. And the working unit of Christian community is the local church -- where we can say pretty well, even in the worst-lead churches, there is a common set of beliefs which unify these people.
They identify as Christian because they say "this is how we are the same".
And the LGBT "community" does exactly this same thing. To arbitrarily disambiguate them when it is inconvenient to call them "unified" is just daffy.
[QUOTE]
The same applies to the LGBT community. The Christian community is tied together by beliefs. The LGBT community is tied together by struggles associated with sexual orientation and gender. However, just as the Christian community has sub-divisions, such as fundamentalism, evangelicism, etc, the LGBT community has sub-divisons, such as homosexuality, transexuality, bisexuality, etc. Does that make sense?
[/QUOTE]
Not in the context of what you are arguing. You might say, for example, that there are Chinese LGBT and African LGBT, and their struggle is different. Sure: why not. But the reason you can refer to "LGBT" is that this group self-identifies under the heading "non-hetero sexual practices".
Your original hooha was this:
I'd appreciate it greatly if you could clarify these remarks - who exactly are you referring to when you say "those who mutilate themselves to justify their sexual urges?" Homosexuals? Transsexuals? Both? And what do you mean by "the sexual union" - intercourse? Certainly you're not referring to marriage as "the sexual union," are you?
To which I said: you understand me perfectly. Transsexuals mutilate themselves for the sake of their desires. Homosexuals are pressing the church to sanctify their unions as "marriage". You understood what I said. Now you are offended -- because you think I ought not to lump these groups together when they have lumped themselves together.
What is the actual issue now?
Ben:
I love you.
Frank- That's all I wanted to know. That's the clarification I asked for in my first comment. I didn't know which group you were referencing when you mentioned "mutilation" - I assumed you meant transsexuals, but since transsexuals weren't the topic at hand, I was unsure. And I didn't understand whether the "union" you were talking about was simply intercourse or if it was marriage.
And yes, members of the LGBT community do identify under the heading "non-hetero sexual practices" - however, the implication that unsettled me was the implication that just as, say, a male-to-female transsexual believes he should have been born a female, a male who identifies as gay also believes he should be a female. The fact that a male identifies as gay does not necessarily believe he should have been born a woman - he just simply happens to find men attractive as opposed to women. A man can find another man attractive without feeling as though he was born with the wrong sex organs. Transsexuals and homosexuals can be grouped together because they both have non-heterosexual orientations, but to say that they have no differences in other areas, such as gender identity, is not true.
I hope we both understand each other a little better now, and thanks for clarifying what I asked you to clarify, even if it took a little extra time to get there.
I haven't gone through all of the posts in detail but from what I read most of the dissenting post arguments can be summed up by this.
http://www.spurgeon.org/images/pyromaniac/TeamPyro/e-s_049.jpg
Frank,
The tone of your article proves EVERY point Derek made in His article.
Your allegiance is to your CREED not love. (Jesus)
To somehow find Revelation and the books of John as anagalous to Derek talking to a unbeliever about interacting with unbelievers is ludicrous! These books were written to the CHURCH there is no coorlation with the way Derek spoke about Love and your point about Jesus being a judge and moral leader. We are only to judge the Church and not the world.
Love is the answer read The gospel of John and pray for some enlightemment.
Frank,
I would have called you personally to set you straight about why you should have called Derek Webb and asked him to sit down for a cup of coffee, or perhaps a half calf soy latte, to share you concerns about your low brow misunderstanding of his artistically nuanced critic of mainstream Christianity, but alas, I do not have your phone number. Instead I thought I would come here publicly and loudly share my thought with you.
Reflecting on Matt m.'s comments. I was pondering why we don't have hordes of adulterous men visiting the site demanding that Frank is misrepresenting them and unfairly lumping them with adulterers when in fact they are 'incestuous adulterers' with their own unique set of circumstances and problems. Just asking.
Harwell --
[QUOTE]
Frank,
The tone of your article proves EVERY point Derek made in His article.
Your allegiance is to your CREED not love. (Jesus)
[/QUOTE]
Awesome. I'm glad I could help.
[QUOTE]
To somehow find Revelation and the books of John as anagalous to Derek talking to a unbeliever about interacting with unbelievers is ludicrous!
[/QUOTE]
Here's what I said:
To see Jesus as only a lover of the sinful and not a judge or even decent moral counsellor is to misread all of the book of John and all of Revelation and all of Paul's statements which begin "therefore" in the New Testament.
There is no question that Derek's description of Jesus' only reaction to sinful people is "love and open arms". He says it explicitly. And that, frankly, is not even a reductive picture of Jesus: it's a Jesus stick-figure.
So to point Derek (and you) to the book of John or the book of Revelation (also by John) to show the fully-orbed Christ who judges sin and has pretty harsh words for people who think that they can love (him) without putting sin to death is not ludicrous: it's simply reading the Bible.
[QUOTE]
These books were written to the CHURCH there is no coorlation with the way Derek spoke about Love and your point about Jesus being a judge and moral leader.
[/QUOTE]
While I usually suspect people don't read my blog posts, what I am certain of is that you didn't read the interview. Here's what Derek said:
The church has spent so many years dealing publicly in the morality of the issue, in a way that misrepresents the response that I believe Jesus would have, that Christians have forgotten, or maybe never really [knew] in the first place, that whether your moral response to the gay issue is that it is perfectly permissible in the eyes of the Bible, or that it is totally reprehensible, your interpersonal response should be absolutely no different to gay people.
The response, by the way, is love. Period. It's love and open arms, regardless of your position on the morality.
Now, get this: he is utterly ambiguous about the moral question. Read it a couple of times to see that. So think this through: both of these statements must be true --
If action X is moral, the church's relational reaction to a person doing action X is "love".
-AND-
If action X in immoral, the church's relational reaction to a person doing action X is ... love!
Really? Put the word "stealing" in for "action X" and see if it makes any sense, or lying. Or for the sake of this thread, put "blogging" in there as it is now widely known to be a cardinal sin, thanks to Derek's tweets.
The statement is absurd -- because the work of the church to those in sin is simply and solidly a call to repentance. It doesn't matter if you created your personal identity around your sin: the church is calling you out of it, not just to accept it as merely the breaks or your "differences".
[QUOTE]
We are only to judge the Church and not the world.
Love is the answer read The gospel of John and pray for some enlightenment.
[/QUOTE]
Hillarious! What a punchline! I'm reading John 10:22-29. No judgment of the world there.
Lucas-
If we are going to follow Jesus' example then we need to speak the truth in love. Not love the person first then gradually give them the truth. Remember the Samaritan woman at the well. In her brief encounter with Jesus she was not only confronted with her adultery but also told that salvation was from the Jews, essentially that her preferred method of worship in Samaria was unacceptable to God. She then returned to town and told everyone to come meet a man who told her everything bad she had ever done.
Now if Jesus had followed your proposed method of evangelism she would have returned having had a conversation with a very nice man, maybe even with the knowledge that he cared for her in some way. Instead being faced with the truth spoken in love she returned with a knowledge of her sin before God that would lead to a truly repentant heart.
Jesus never put Love before truth and when we ponder the consequences of sin we can see why. If we really believe there is an eternal hell and that people are going there every day then genuine love will lead us to speak of the wrath that is to come and plead with them for there soles.
Turkleton,
You are a master at your craft of defending the gospel generously. It was a very refreshing read. To echo one commentator, Webb's retreat from clearly pronouncing the gospel in both song and in his beliefs. My dearest hope is that he reads this, is convicted and goes back to the old Derrek of "40 Acres" and "She Must and Shall Go Free".
As a loyal member of the Gut Check Nation, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks for your work and your forward on YRR. Keep up the good work friend.
B-Atch (phonetically: Be-yatch)
Frank, I'm going to ignore your insinuations that I'm only reading half sentences, as well as your call out attempt to get me to challenge your theology with mine. I don't claim to have the perfect theology. I don't claim to be 100% right. I don't claim that other's theology needs to be harmed and then much improved to mine. If that means I need to man up, then congrats, you're more of a man than me.
I'd rather just look at Jesus and how he handled things. You might call it a "half gospel" but I feel strongly that the Saviour of the world is a good example to go by when saving the lost.
Lets look at the woman at the well. Jews weren't supposed to associate with samaritans. Jesus talks to her. Asks her for water. She's taken back "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman? (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)" So Jesus reaches out, not caring about his reputation with the religious. He then tells her that God offers living water. Something amazing. Not only is this guy talking to a samaritan woman, but he's telling her she has the right to be part of God's kingdom. Seems like quite the display of love! He then tells her she has 5 husbands and is living with a man who isn't her husband, but doesn't follow it with telling her she's going to hell because of it. Doesn't use hell as an scare tactic to make her repent...instead offers her something better. The FACT was that she was a lustful woman who wasn't going to go to heaven...but the TRUTH was that she had an opportunity for something much better. Jesus chose truth over fact...if that makes any sense.
How about Mary when she was about to be stoned? The fact was that she deserved everything she got, and since Jesus was just, He should have let her get stoned right? Instead he saves her life, turning an entire mob away. Once again Jesus is leading the charge with love first, it is after her life is saved that he tells her to sin no more.
Jesus invites Zacchaeus to dine with him to everyone's criticism. Zacchaeus responds to love with repentance. Jesus doesn't have to tell him how to make things right, Zacchaeus comes up with the plan to make it right. Jesus leads the charge with love first, once again.
Matthew the tax collector didn't have Jesus pounding down the fact that he was going to hell. Jesus says "follow me" and then goes to his house to hang out...much to others criticism. Then check out what he says to the criticism
"But go and learn [fn] what this means: 'I DESIRE [fn] COMPASSION, [fn] AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Jesus showed love, not in condemnation hoping for repentance, but in throwing away his reputation with the religious to show the sinners that he wasn't too above them to hang out with them, and THAT was what ultimately led them to repentance.
Why should our approach be different?
How about Mary when she was about to be stoned? The fact was that she deserved everything she got, and since Jesus was just, He should have let her get stoned right? Instead he saves her life, turning an entire mob away. Once again Jesus is leading the charge with love first, it is after her life is saved that he tells her to sin no more.
Jesus invites Zacchaeus to dine with him to everyone's criticism. Zacchaeus responds to love with repentance. Jesus doesn't have to tell him how to make things right, Zacchaeus comes up with the plan to make it right. Jesus leads the charge with love first, once again.
Matthew the tax collector didn't have Jesus pounding down the fact that he was going to hell. Jesus says "follow me" and then goes to his house to hang out...much to others criticism. Then check out what he says to the criticism
"But go and learn [fn] what this means: 'I DESIRE [fn] COMPASSION, [fn] AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Jesus showed love, not in condemnation hoping for repentance, but in throwing away his reputation with the religious to show the sinners that he wasn't too above them to hang out with them, and THAT was what ultimately led them to repentance.
Why should our approach be different?
Brad "The E List 'YRR' Superstar"
Awesomest blog handle ever.
I don't follow Twitter, but after reading through the relevant "tweets" of the principal parties, I feel like I've stepped into the middle of some kind of neo-McLuhanesque otherworldly happening.
In the end, what I see is a long, carefully thought out original post, a few jumping off points for serious discussion, a few engaging comments and a few good dissenting opinions, but overall, a whole lot of noise and heat and light.
Well, I can't pretend complete aloofness here. I put up a couple of comments of my own, but the gist of them just comes down to this: Luke 18:13. That's a daily gut check for all of us. That's the only thing that keeps me anchored day after day.
Darn-tootin' right we need to check our own motives and make sure we're not shooting from the hip of self-righteousness. Darn-tootin' right we need repent of our own sins first and foremost.
But as people much smarter than I have pointed out, the thing about it is, that the moment we thank God for not being like that Pharisee (or "you Pharisees," to bring it more on point)...the moment we do that, we end up being that Pharisee.
And so it comes back to Luke 18:13 all over again. Repent, rinse, repeat. But the sole reason God can or will have mercy on me is because Jesus Christ died in my place, on the Cross for my sins. That's Good News...but only if we share it with the ones we love.
Now I need to go floss my brain after following through with this tragicomedy, and also two painful redrafts of this comment...which (a) no one will read, and (b) someone will object to anyhow.
All Religious people are the same. Jew, Muslim, Christian - all religious, all have many things in common.
Religious people blow themselves up. Religious people fly aircraft into buildings. They conduct Holy Wars, Jihads and Crusades.
And those sentences I've written are just as true - and just as completely missing the point - as lumping GLBT together.
Transsexuals aren't Gay the way Orthodox Christians aren't Sikhs.
Lumping them together, as opponents of Atheism, is convenient for some purposes, but misses the essential differences between them.
I hope I've made the point without offence.
Homosexuality isn't a "Lifestyle Choice". Fornication - sex outside a marital relationship - is. So is Celibacy. One can be Homosexual and Celibate, or Heterosexual and Celibate. Neither is sinful.
Fornication is though, whether homo- or hetero-sexual.
Drunkeness is a lifestyle choice, as is sobriety. One can be a sober Alcoholic, or a sober non-Alcoholic. Neither are sins.
Drunkenness is though, whether one is an Alcoholic or not.
Divorce absent cause is a sin, for the Divorcer. So is remarriage after divorce, for either party.
Both are greater sins, based on the number of times they're mentioned in Scripture, than either Fornication (hetero or homo) or drunkenness.
When those who are on their 4th marriage, with a history of intoxication, rail against gays as being particularly sinful, particularly evil, then they add the great sin of hypocrisy too.
"To see Jesus as only a lover of the sinful and not a judge or even decent moral counselor is to misread all of the book of John and all of Revelation and all of Paul's statements which begin "therefore" in the New Testament.
May we all suffer fewer artists of this sort in the future, and may you repent of it as soon as possible." -
--The Neighborhood Bully
This is what it is all about after I thought about it, and discussed this with my son-in-law a bit.
There are two extremes, let's say,: Fundamentalism, or give non-Christians a tract and get them saved vs. Liberalism, Jesus loves everybody just the way they.
And you have a grand variety of views in between.
Derek seems to lean toward the liberal side of things, to me.
I feel like I would be judged as a Fundy by the more Liberals, and a liberal by the more Fundy.
If that makes any sense.
The Gospel, and the whole Bible, is where we need to meet. If someone is not willing to meet here, and discuss, and even debate, then there is no reason to meet. It's time to shake the dust off, as Our Lord told us, there will times when this is necessary.
@Zoe Brain
I know you want to paint homosexuals as not being able to help their "orientation" hence no one should confront them about their "orientation" because it would be like condemning a black man for having darker pigment in his skin cells. But this argument is baloney. The same reasoning is easily applied to those individuals who claim to be "oriented" toward pederasty. Are we to give them a pass on their so-called "orientation" or tell them their thinking is wrong?
1. It never ceases to amaze me how the folks who are most vocal and vicious about "love trumps all" platitudes are by far the least serious about understanding and practicing actual love.
2. Perhaps the most troubling line of this interview has barely been scratched in these comments: "I feel as though I have received various coordinates from God over the years in terms of what I need to be spending my time and my work on, and that's really what I'm listening to."
It's more than "I'm an arteeste and my views are above reproach". It's a full-out "I'm on a mission from God", as if he's 106 miles out of Chicago with a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes. Apparently this voices-in-my-head divine imperative is to tell us all to forget about all those other divine imperatives that were actually written down for us so many years ago.
I'm going to respond to Lucas' last posts, and then close the thread.
[QUOTE]
Frank, I'm going to ignore your insinuations that I'm only reading half sentences, as well as your call out attempt to get me to challenge your theology with mine. I don't claim to have the perfect theology. I don't claim to be 100% right. I don't claim that other's theology needs to be harmed and then much improved to mine. If that means I need to man up, then congrats, you're more of a man than me.
[/QUOTE]
Well, again, since you're on about half of what I said, I will reiterate that you are doing the worst possible thing in thinking about this subject: cherry-picking my words to make sure you can be right. The -first time- you posted, you could't even identify what it is I did in my post -- but you could identify what Derek was doing in a very generous way. Points for being a fan of Derek, but completely overwhelmed by the fact that you could not grab onto what I said -explicitly-. That's simply failing to read what's given to you.
When I get to the place where I point out your theology needs to be harmed -- and I say exactly what I mean here, that [I] will harm the theology you are now implementing and replace it with one which is much-improved, your response was "Yep, theology harmed, because that's your goal in all of this right?" Now think: did I say my goal was to "harm theology" or "harm in order to improve" theology? The substantive difference, I am sure you can agree, is that the latter has a constructive end. Your framing of it removes the constructive end -- and in an obvious and rather ham-handed way. It's not even subtle.
Before we move on to the next bit, it is also wildly self-deceptive of you to say in many different ways that you are not dealing in theology. "Theology" is, in the most rudimentary definition, "the study of divine things as they relate to man." To say, as you have explicitly, "this isn't a theological debate," demonstrates exactly how uninformed you are and why you need to harm your misinformation and improve it with, at least, raw facts.
Just to make sure no one has to doubt what I mean here, in the last two days I have interacted with an army of DW defenders, and the commonalities between them are bit astonishing and stark: they are all people for whom theology is a dirty word, that any systematic connection between the OT and the NT if ignored or refuted, that any picture of Christ as High Priest even in parallel to being a moral instructor is dismissed or minimized, and who have as a group not had spiritual responsibility for any other people. This is especially amusing because they are all didactically instructing me in their theology, demanding Christ be something which is not uniquely Christian, an are seeking to improve my spiritual life.
The light at the end of that tunnel for me is this: at least they are passionate about it. My thought is that if they actually read the Scriptures now and fill in their youthful zeal with facts, they will be a great tool in the hands of the almighty Potter.If they do not, they will most certainly become household jugs only useful for dishonorable things, and Paul says in Romans 9.
[more]
[con't]
To continue with Lucas:
[QUOTE] I'd rather just look at Jesus and how he handled things. You might call it a "half gospel" but I feel strongly that the Saviour of the world is a good example to go by when saving the lost. [/QUOTE]
Doesn't that seem very rational? It seems rational to me -- but that's a theological approach. Maybe it's good, maybe it's lacking, but the first item of self-awareness here is to see this is actually theology -- and as such, it has to make some article of sense both internally and against the source it is drawn from: the Bible.
Let's see how Lucas fares:
[QUOTE] Lets look at the woman at the well. Jews weren't supposed to associate with samaritans. Jesus talks to her. Asks her for water. She's taken back "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman? (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)" So Jesus reaches out, not caring about his reputation with the religious. He then tells her that God offers living water. Something amazing. Not only is this guy talking to a samaritan woman, but he's telling her she has the right to be part of God's kingdom. Seems like quite the display of love! He then tells her she has 5 husbands and is living with a man who isn't her husband, but doesn't follow it with telling her she's going to hell because of it. Doesn't use hell as an scare tactic to make her repent...instead offers her something better. The FACT was that she was a lustful woman who wasn't going to go to heaven...but the TRUTH was that she had an opportunity for something much better. Jesus chose truth over fact...if that makes any sense.
[/QUOTE]
Seems rational, right? But unfortunately Lucas has missed about 25% of the exchange. For example, when the woman asks how a Jew can ask a Samaritan for water, Jesus doesn't "reach out": Jesus rebukes her -- "If you knew the gift of God," he says. That is: you can't see what is obvious; you are ignorant. So Jesus first act with her is not service or reconciliation: it's challenging her to see something she needs -- the gift of eternal life.
Just a quick aside here: that's what's at stake. Eternal Life. Jesus is saying this first, and I think Lucas is saying it last if at all.
Lucas says that Jesus statement "if you knew" is actually the statement "you have a right to be part of God's kingdom." Does it really? How does it line up with the next part of this exchange -- where the woman actually does ask for water which, when drunk, will never leave on thirsty again?
See: when she asks for eternal life, Jesus points at her sin. He says: you're right -- you have had 5 husbands and this man you are with now is not your husband. And he also tells her that she does not know God (you worship what you do not know).
Now, here's the kicker: when the woman went to town and told people what happened, she didn't say, "I met this guy who was kind to me and loved me." She said: "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did." That is: see a man who told me all my sins -- because what they did not discuss is anything but her works of ignorance and shortcomings.
If that is true -- and I leave it to the read to decide, especially to go back and read John 4 -- then Lucas' rendering here is, at best, half right. But it is not half-right: he missed that Jesus is not trying to help out someone who is hurting by showing her that her differences are valuable. Jesus here "told her everything she did".
That is how we prepare people for the Gospel.
[con't]
[QUOTE] How about Mary when she was about to be stoned? The fact was that she deserved everything she got, and since Jesus was just, He should have let her get stoned right? Instead he saves her life, turning an entire mob away. Once again Jesus is leading the charge with love first, it is after her life is saved that he tells her to sin no more. [/QUOTE]
Well, at least Lucas is consistent. The NET Bible translator notes say this about this passage:
This entire section, 7:53-8:11, traditionally known as the pericope adulterae, is not contained in the earliest and best mss and was almost certainly not an original part of the Gospel of John. Among modern commentators and textual critics, it is a foregone conclusion that the section is not original but represents a later addition to the text of the Gospel. B. M. Metzger summarizes: “the evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming” [Read the whole note here for the annotated details]
I mention it only to say that after not getting John 4 right, Lucas is going to resort to one passage, not likely Scripture, and then read what is an astounding lack of detail for a conclusion which is, at best, speculative.
First, the passage does not say it is Mary -- he assumes it is Mary and was probably taught that by a well-meaning friend. But the passage only says it is a "woman caught in adultery". My thought is this: given that Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are crucial players in the Gospel of John, for John not to identify his woman as Mary means this is not Mary.
Second, the assumption "he should have let her be stoned" opens up the problem that Lucas has other assumptions about what he is arguing against that are unwarranted -- in this case, that sinners need to die rather than be allowed to repent. Have I said that anywhere -- and by "anywhere", I mean ever at any time in any place? How about in this long string of threads specifically? So why bring it up.
Here's one explanation: Lucas is missing the problem presented by the text. The woman is brought before Jesus not because they were going to stone her and he just showed up: the text says (ESV) "This [that is 'Moses says to stone her'] they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him". See: the Pharisees are looking for a way to charge Jesus with breaking the law that they might discredit or destroy him. So the dynamic here is not "They are going to stone her and Jesus triumph over judgment with love." The dynamic is "The Pharisees are looking to trip Jesus up, and again Jesus confounds their guile."
So in that, Jesus doesn't bend down and start loving this woman: Jesus begins writing on the ground. Whatever it is He is writing on the ground, I am confident it's not a poem which says this woman just needs love. What he explicitly says to these people, on their demand for jesus to agree with Moses, is "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And he writes some more on the ground. The combination of the two activities causes the crowd to go away, "beginning with the older ones."
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Now, let me suggest something: what's at stake is Moses' law, and the question now, by Jesus reply, is, "Which of you is without sin?" Whatever it is Jesus wrote on the ground, none of them thought they were without sin.
And this is the startling part -- because Lucas says this passage is just about love, open arms. But here Jesus convicts the crowd of sin. he points them at their own sin, and that detail causes them to all withdraw.
Is the woman forgiven? Sure she is -- but oddly she wasn;t the one Jesus was talking to the whole time, was he? He was talking to people with sin who thought they were righteous.
So when Jesus bends down and forgives the woman, she was not the subject of this story: she was a pawn in the Pharisee's plot, and Jesus sees that and sends her away with the clear warning: "go now and sin no more."
That's a lot different than Lucas expounds.
[QUOTE] Jesus invites Zacchaeus to dine with him to everyone's criticism. Zacchaeus responds to love with repentance. Jesus doesn't have to tell him how to make things right, Zacchaeus comes up with the plan to make it right. Jesus leads the charge with love first, once again. [/QUOTE]
It's interesting that Lucas sees Zacchaeus as unrepentant prior to Jesus offering to dine with him. Luke (the Gospel writer) points out that Zacchaeus was a rich man and a tax collector, but that when Jesus came to Jericho, Zacchaeus was climbing a tree in order to see Him.
Let's put that in a modern paraphrase: Zach is an IRS agent who audits and collects money from all kinds of people and makes good money at it. But when Jesus came to town, he climbed a tree to make sure he could just lay his eyes on him.
It sounds to me that Zacchaeus was giving up dignity and propriety -before- Jesus comes to his house for the sake of seeing Jesus. I think it's not a very credible reading to say Zacchaeus was not repentant before Jesus called him from the tree.
[QUOTE] Matthew the tax collector didn't have Jesus pounding down the fact that he was going to hell. Jesus says "follow me" and then goes to his house to hang out...much to others criticism. Then check out what he says to the criticism "But go and learn [fn] what this means: 'I DESIRE [fn] COMPASSION, [fn] AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." [/QUOTE]
This may actually be the only place Lucas may have a point -- if we read generously.
Of course Jesus isn't "pounding down the fact that [Matthew] was going to hell." This is Lucas' caricature of what I have been pointing out -- and again I'd like to reiterate that it doesn't improve his point to exaggerate mine. But in that, there is something odd about Lucas' approach to reading here. He of course cites Jesus response to the approbation of the Pharisees, but he misses the context of the citation. If anyone read Hos 6 and finds it to mean that God is just interested in loving people, I think they are missing the other 10 verses in the chapter. What Jesus is in fact saying here is that sinners who repent are the ones who love God -- not sinners who cll their sin righteousness.
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See: Hosea 6 is a classic passage of God telling Israel: hey! Repent -- don;t just make religious noises and pretend to do things that will please me. Repent! I don't want sacrifice, but your actual love for me.
To say that Hos 6 means we should just welcome each other because God wants us to love one another is to miss th story of Israel broadly, and the purpose of Christ specifically.
[QUOTE] Jesus showed love, not in condemnation hoping for repentance, but in throwing away his reputation with the religious to show the sinners that he wasn't too above them to hang out with them, and THAT was what ultimately led them to repentance. [/QUOTE]
Well, not in these passages. Do you have others? I'm still interested -- because maybe Jesus showed love to sinners without asking them to repent someplace in Mark, or maybe Paul tells us to just love and the repentance will come. I'm pretty sure not, but if it's there I'll apologize and repent myself.
See: the pattern of the whole Bible is God's good grace, man's rejection of it, and God's call to repent for the sake of forgiveness. This is the story of Israel over and over for 1600 years. That pattern is not suddenly deleted because Jesus came in the flesh: it is fulfilled because Jesus came in the flesh -- in Jesus' own words.
I want you to consider something seriously: why would all the Prophets, including Moses, tell Israel "if you repent you will be forgiven," and suddenly Jesus take up the slogan "I forgive you (I won't mention repentance)"?
It makes no sense -- but because you do not want to deal in "theology", you are going to miss this point of continuity between Old and New Testament. Not one jot or tittle of the Law will pass away until all of it is fulfilled -- which is an explicit saying of Jesus.
Why miss that? WHy miss the greater story in order to misread the details?
[QUOTE] Why should our approach be different?
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We should do what the Bible says Jesus did, explicitly. Unequivocally. But first we must identify what it really says. Please think about that as you continue to review this issue.
Thread is closed. Thanks for playing.
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