But what about Him?

Last Sunday I preached on John 21. Jesus asks Peter 3 times "Do you love me?". One of the ideas that stood out to me from the text was the fact that Peter, who normally loved to be the center of attention, shifted the focus to John when Jesus' words got a little hard to handle. I called it "the art of spiritual deflection". Often when we feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit we rush to look at the life of someone else. "What about him?" But as I have chewed on this idea I have been confronted with another question. What role do we play in the lives of others? I have been wondering specifically what role that Christians need to play in keeping society "moral". Is our emphasis on keeping society in line a form of spiritual deflection? As is often the case, God has given me food for thought regarding this very issue. It came from Ron Sider's E-Pistle. The article is so good that I've copied the entire text below.

TO LOVE OR TO CONDEMN: What should Christians do when our countrymen violate biblical principles? by George Ellis

Society is estranged from our God. Entertainment is more violent and vulgar than ever and explicit pornography downloads easily from the Internet. Homosexuals battle for the right to marry and abortions are a commodity. It’s no wonder evangelicals want to take action. Some respond with “righteous indignation” in defense of God under attack. Many are fearful, seeing a falling society pulling us and our children down with it. How should we react?

While modern technology allows unique forms of sin, man’s heart has always been separated from God. Evil was also rampant during New Testament times. Jesus called his contemporaries “wicked” and “adulterous” (Mark 8.29). Infanticide, the ancient practice of leaving unwanted newborns outside to die, is cruel beyond our imagination. During the first centuries of Christianity, Rome dragged many believers to painful and humiliating deaths.

How did Jesus and the early church deal with the societies in which they lived? First, Jesus condemned sin. The New Testament overflows with demands on believers to live clean lives. Jesus required higher morals than even the Jewish law: the Old Testament forbade the acts of adultery and murder; Jesus forbade called it a sin simply to desire such things (cf. Matt.5:22,27).

But Jesus presents a paradox when he opposes religious leaders and befriends prostitutes and tax-gathering thugs. He prefers open sin to the hypocrisy and pride of the Pharisees when he says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Matt. 9:12). Paul repeatedly instructs the church about godly behaviour (see 2 Cor. 2:21, Eph. 4:31, Col. 3:8, 1 Tim.2:8), while remaining quiet about reforming the actions of those outside. On the whole, the New Testament instructs believers to concern themselves with their own behavior and, to a lesser extent, with that of other believers.

In addition, there are specific commands against trying to change the behavior of others. Jesus condemned this practice in the Pharisees (Matthew 7:1). Paul writes an explicit reproof in I Corinthians 5:12: “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?”

Some read the scriptures differently, saying, for example, that we become “salt and light” by compelling unbelievers to good behavior. Jesus gave such a command, but he seems to have meant something quite different: “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).

The proper reaction of believers to evil around us is to mind OUR behaviour — that God might be glorified. This idea is repeated in I Peter 2:12:
“Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

The Pharisees were the best-behaved people in Israel, as Paul, a former Pharisee, tells us:
“… If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:… in regard to the law,[I was] a Pharisee; …as for legalistic righteousness, [I was] faultless” (Phil. 3:4-6).

How did Jesus receive these models of morality? He called them “whitewashed tombs” and "snakes” (Matthew 23).

Some evangelicals use the clearing of the temple in Matthew 21:12 as a model for “righteous anger,” defending the faith against evil. But was that His purpose? The ZONDERVAN LIFE APPLICATION STUDY BIBLE provides context: “Merchants…set up their booths in the court of the Gentiles in the temple, crowding out the Gentiles who had come from all over…. Their commercialism in God’s house frustrated people’s attempts at worship.” Perhaps Jesus is providing travelers the opportunity to worship, a God-given right that merchants were denying. In this sense, Jesus was delivering justice, restoring the gift of God that had been usurped by men.

It is difficult to conclude from the short passage what motivated Jesus that day. However, the incident is unique in His ministry, and his reaction is specifically to a perversion of God’s house. It was a single event over a narrow issue. He never charged us to react that way over similar issues and certainly not over broader issues of sin in our society.

Some evangelicals use Old Testament Law to justify compelling unbelievers to better behavior. While the Old Testament is a treasure for the modern Christian, applying the Law of Moses is difficult because it was written for citizens of theocratic Israel. The New Testament is written for “strangers in the world” (I Peter 2.11) and those whose “citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). The New Testament is not a governing document for those outside the church.

Why did Jesus spend so little time trying to change behavior? Probably because it doesn’t work. Scripture teaches that simply changing behavior cannot please God (Romans 3:28). We are to focus on winning unbelievers to Christ, not correcting their behavior.

Of course, after coming to the Lord, new believers should be instructed to take up Christian disciplines. They ought to obey the scriptures and be compelled to stop gross sin upon threat of expulsion (I Cor. 5).

In some cases there are biblical reasons to hold those outside the church accountable for their offenses. We should oppose the unjust in order to rescue the defenseless. Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission defines “injustice” as the misuse of power “to take from others what God has given them” (see his compelling book, GOOD NEWS ABOUT INJUSTICE, [IVP, 1999]). Haugen points out that Jesus derided the Pharisees for ignoring injustice even as they obeyed the command to tithe in every detail: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices - mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Matt. 23:23). (See also Psalm 10:17,18 and 72:12-14, and Isaiah 1:17.)

Evangelicals are too rarely recognized for their dedication to justice. How often do we champion the cause of the abused worker, the enslaved third-world child, or the mistreated prisoner? Jesus gave sober advice against neglecting the oppressed and impoverished in Matthew 25:31-46.

Abortion provides us an opportunity to fight injustice. Evangelicals see abortion as a terrible injustice to the unborn and doubtless compassion drives many of us to action. But the world often cannot see it, perhaps because our zeal to protect the unborn doesn’t translate into compassion for the infant. Healthcare, quality pre-school, and decent housing for poor families are issues that evangelicals are often silent about.

Another contradiction is that the church was largely silent when 500,000 Iraqi children died during the embargo of the 1990s, mostly for lack of food and medicine (see Tony Campolo’s SPEAKING MY MIND [W Publishing Group, 2004]). Few of us were vocal about the genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Sudan. Why doesn’t our belief in the sanctity of life move us to action? The confusion bred from our mix of political stands prevents many outside the church from seeing compassion in our anti-abortion activities.

In an informal survey, Philip Yancey found that evangelicals are known by unbelievers mostly for being anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, and “anti” other sins (see Yancey’s WHAT’S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE [Zondervan, 1997]). Few people described evangelicals to him in terms of love, grace or anything positive. We’ve strayed from the model of the early church where Christians, poor as they were, were known among unbelievers for taking care of each other and of strangers (see Bruce Shelly’s HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN PLAIN LANGUAGE [Thomas Nelson, 1995]). They won unbelievers from a society much more hostile than our own to the message of Jesus. Imagine the power of the Gospel if we were known for acts of mercy and compassion rather than for trying to stamp out sin.

Food for thought, eh?