Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing~ 1stPeter 3:9 NIV
Regular readers of this blog have probably figured out by now I have some issues with how many contemporary Christians do church. My various church peeves have been documented ad nauseum in previous posts. To be truthful, I decided recently that the peeve posts were getting a bit old and I probably wasn’t going to write another one. Then I came across a “Christian” video on Facebook and discovered unfortunately, I still have something to write about.
The video features a Christian guy who has a bunch of tattoos. He begins his harangue by telling a story about another Christian (a woman) who informed him his tattoos made him look trashy. She also said that his tattoos were so offensive she couldn’t stand to look at him.
For the record.
I sincerely believe that other people’s tattoos are none of my business. I do not care if he or anyone else gets or has a tattoo. Please do not assume that this is some sort of anti-tattoo screed. Because it’s not. I repeat. I do not care about his stupid tattoos. I do care about how he handled the situation with the woman because it hurt the reputation of Jesus. Badly.
I will begin with what he did not do.
He did not tell her she hurt his feelings with her harsh words (Luke 17:3). He did not inform her that there are people in this world who have tattoos who need the forgiveness and grace that only Jesus can offer (John 3:16, Mark 2:17). He did not tell her that her attitude towards tattooed people might make them reluctant to become followers of Jesus (2ndCorinthians 6:3). He did not attempt to educate her on the differences between Old Testament Law and New Testament freedom (Romans 7:6, Galatians 5:13, 1stCorinthians 10:23). He did not, at least from what I can tell pray for her (Matthew 5:44). He did not take his concerns to the elders of her church and ask them to help him work out his issues with her (Matthew 18:15-16).
In other words, he did not handle the situation biblically.
Instead he posted a video where he proclaimed loudly and proudly that he “hates Christians and the church” because of “people like her”.
It has become nauseatingly trendy for Christians to declare passionately that they love Jesus but hate the church and all the people in it. They feel justified even righteous in saying these things because they believe that all Christians, other than themselves of course are hateful, judgmental and pretentious. They also nearly always believe that the church is simply a misguided, human-run organization that has nothing at all to do with God or Jesus.
Insert eye roll here.
This idiocy is hurting everyone, especially unbelievers. It needs to end now for at least four reasons:
It’s not about our stupid, trivial, easily-wounded feelings-
It’s about people who do not know Jesus. When a non-believer hears from a Christian that all Christians are terrible people; that unbeliever is given every reason in the world to never become friends with a Christian, attend church or consider the truth-claims of Christ. Some will undoubtedly spend eternity in hell because of Christians who didn’t have the sense or self-control to stop hating on other Christians in public forums. The very thought that our actions or words might keep another person from a relationship with Jesus ought to put the fear of God into us all (Luke 17:1, Matthew 13:41). If it doesn’t something is seriously wrong.
Christians who hate on other Christians are disobedient and placing themselves in danger of judgment (2nd John 1:5, 1st John 3:10, 1st John 2:9) –
It is unloving and judgmental to hate someone because of their tattoos or hairstyle or how many earrings they have. It is equally unloving and judgmental to hate someone because you have concluded they are unloving and judgmental (Matthew 7:35). We are commanded to suck it up and love the unlovable. That includes Christians we don’t like or always agree with (John 13:34-35).
God will set us all straight someday-
Everyone says thoughtless and hurtful stuff, frequently without even realizing it. It’s part of being stupid and human. It’s critical we remember someday God will call each of us into account for our insensitive and foolish words (Matthew 12:36). Rather than rail against Christians who say stupid things we ought to examine our own words carefully and pray we all have the foresight and good sense to repent before our day comes.
We are commanded to keep “family” stuff in the “family”-
Christians are a family (Psalm 68:8, Galatians 6:10, Hebrews 2:11, 1stPeter 2:17, 1stPeter 5:9). Paul makes it clear in 1stCorinthians 6:5-7 that it is far better to be wronged by a fellow believer than to shame Jesus and the church by publicly airing family junk to those who are not part of the family. In Matthew 18:15-16 we are given the pattern for working-out issues between Christians.
We would do well to follow it.
Trying to follow you here, isn’t virtually everything you said about he did in his video true of what you’ve done here with this blog (and all your previous peeve blogs)? Did you go to him or go to the internet to talk about him?
With all due respect, I do not believe it’s the same thing Guy. I did not state anywhere that I hated this guy because I don’t. Nor did I mention him by name or disparage his ministry. If I knew him I would have spoke to him personally before I did anything else (I did put a comment on his Facebook page that he did not respond to). My intention here is to correct a wrong I see in the church that is leading unbelievers away from Jesus and leading immature Christians away from the Church. If I could have told less of the story and still made my point I would have. It is biblical and sometimes necessary for one believer to correct another or a doctrinal wrong they see in the church (2nd Timothy 4:2, Galatians 5:21 Ezekiel 3:18-20)
It is not only important to embrace Jesus but every word written from His mouth.
The scriptures say we are to LOVE HIM WITH OUR ALL, and OUR NEIGHBOR AS OUR SELF, (OUR ALL). Let’s put this in perspective. Before you speak picture yourself talking to the person you love most in your life.
Also you can not on your own, filter your emotions and thoughts with out the HOLY SPIRIT, BORN AGAIN EXPERIENCE, with the evidence of tongues. Read the book of ACTS, after the book of JOHN. YOU must have this. You do not have the ability to fight against the dark forces of evil, which is so strong today. Without the
Holy Spirit you will not understand Christianity, and you won’t have the ability to LOVE or SERVE the LORD the way you need to.
The HOLY SPIRIT is the most wonderful thing that can happen to someone. It is a part of GOD’S SPIRIT alive in US : LOVE, PEACE, JOY.
What would be the point of JESUS’ dying if we just stayed the same? There is a heaven and there is a hell. The good news is that we get to experience some of heaven through the born again experience of the HOLY SPIRIT.
GOD BLESS YOU ALL. I KNOW HE WANTS TOO.
Amen, Lorraine!
I don’t know that I consider the guy’s frustrations as “hating on Christians.” He was angry, annoyed, and put off by this lady’s comments. I can understand that. She was pretty rude. I mean, she’s certainly entitled to disliking tattoos, but, unless he specifically asked her what she thought of his tattoos, why did she need to express her opinion of them to him? I can relate to him. I’m a Christian and I also personally witness other believers tear other Christians down. Or act rudely to them. I’ve had others act judgmentally towards me. It’s annoying. For the record, we don’t know what all steps he took in dealing with this lady. He may have talked to her privately about how she was rude. He didn’t elaborate about that. The point of his video, I believe, was to let other Christians know that their words to each other have consequences. I agree. We Christians really need to pull our heads out of our rear ends and get our act together more often than we do…
I do not disagree with you Aaron. The woman was out of line and for that reason I made no effort to defend her. That said, Christians are called to handle their disagreements and problems in a way that is different from the world. She was awful, but putting the problem on Facebook only makes all Christians look sad, small minded and petty.
If I may gently point out, if a person studies John 1:1-14, he will realize that Jesus Christ HIMSELF is the Creator in Genesis 1:1 and following, etc. If the person then follows J. Vernon McGee’s advice to go to the Hebrew or Greek language (in this instance, Hebrew) to learn the Old Testament Name of the Creator/Jesus in Genesis 2:4, then he would learn His OT Name, transliterated, is YHVH, JEHOVAH, and that Jesus’ OT Name appears OVER 6800 TIMES in the Old Testament, the person would understand that Jesus Christ IS the part of the Godhead that does 99% of the speaking IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. By then saying and teaching the INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIVING (erroneously called “law”) of the Old Testament no longer apply, like Leviticus 19:28, for example, CONTRADICTS Hebrews 13:8, and we are concluding that Jesus CANNOT be the promised Messiah because He is CONTRADICTING what He clearly stated IN the Old Testament. IF, and I mean, IF Jesus is God in the flesh AND HE is Who was promised in Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18 (as I am convinced He is), then it Scripturally AND LOGICALLY follows that what our Savior, Jesus the Messiah, taught in the Old Testament is STILL true in the New Testament. Doesn’t that make perfect sense?
Iver Bye. Well stated. I agreer with that, however it’s not the main point that she’s trying to make. We are not to judge the world, but ARE to gently bring others in the faith to a knowledge of wrong and try to remedy it. Sadly it SOUNDS like the lady was not gentle and kind, although the truth is that we weren’t there so we don’t know exactly what she said, how she said it, and what the context of the conversation was. We’ve got info here that is removed from the original conversation. I agree with Aaron Mendenhallthat as far as I can tell, nobody said “hate.” The “hate” thing is being used way too much when it’s merely a disagreement, not a hatred of the person with whom you disagree. All my personal opinions….I hope everyone has a happy day:<)