By Robin G. Jordan
I am troubled when I witness those who profess to be Christians, followers of Jesus, ridicule those with whom they disagree. Disagreeing with another person over a particular matter, and being convinced of the rightness of our own position, does not give us license to mock them or otherwise derisively speak of them. I am particularly troubled when the one doing the ridiculing is a minister of the gospel who has taken a vow “to lay aside the study of the world and the flesh” and to make himself, as much as lies in him, a wholesome example and pattern to the flock of Christ.
I must admit discomfort on my part when I am tempted to do so privately and give into that temptation. My conscience tells me that I am doing the wrong thing, indulging in a work of the flesh. The Holy Spirit reminds me of Jesus’ words, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matt 7:3).
Jesus did not mince his words but he did not jeer at the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law or taunt them. We are not following his example when we deride others because we do not like what they have said or done.
I witness a lot of this sort of thing happening on the blogs on the Internet—Christians acting like children in a schoolyard or neighborhood gossips. They may gang up on an unpopular poster or take turns in making disparaging remarks about an absent person or persons. They seem heedless that non-Christians may be observing them and forming their opinions of Christians and the Christian faith from their words and actions. They appear mindless of Jesus’ own teaching that one day they must give an accounting for everything that they have ever said.
If anyone draws to their attention what they are doing, they are likely to turn on that person. They give no indication that they themselves see anything wrong with what they are doing.
My prayer is that God, working in their heart, will help them to recognize the wrongness of what they are doing, and will lead them to stop doing it and change their ways. They certainly will be better people for it. Their witness to those around them will be enhanced and strengthened. They will shine like the bright lights God meant them to be.
5 comments:
Robin:
Ever seen the OT Intro's impugning, oppugning, and belittling the old Princetonian's on Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch? It's ugly. Very ugly and some of us, e.g. your's truly, have resisted the utter arrogance of 19th-20th century liberal hubris.
What did Bob of Pittsburg grow up on at General Seminary?
Where were the Episcopalians while Princetonian Professors William Henry Green, Robert Dick Wilson, and Oswald T. Allis were defending the Mosaicity of the Pentateuch?
Episcopalians had no answers, then, like now. They were putzing with lacey-sacerdotalists, e.g. Bishop Doane, NJ. It's been a very ugly century.
Will we get a serious "log-extraction" from the eyes of these impugners? The ruthlessness with which they impugned classicists was brutal.
Of note, the last 20 years--in my own lifetime--these hostlile liberals are being replaced. And the Mosaicity of the Pentateuch is being reconsidered--no thanks to Anglican scholars...are there many of merit like the old Princetonian titans?
I can assure you. The liberals have been the most arrogant and abusive breed. As to Pentateuchal scholarship, there day is long over.
That's for starters. Don't even get me started about Anglo-Romewardizing or Wesleyan-Pentecostalist enthusiasms and their self-righteousnessnes.
Cheers.
And Wesley was a disastre. Just read a bio on him tonight. Talk about self-righteous! Obnoxiousness.
And a proto-Pentecostalist, to boot, with tongues, enthusiasm, dreams, revelations, poltergeists, drawing of lots, and other chaotic Montanist issues. Thankfully, Wesley was resisted, but it is no honour to the "self-righteousness" of this proto-Pentecostalist...akin to the charismatic "we are the more holy than thou."
I will ponder more this obnoxious "more righteous than thou" perspective of the enthusiasts.
Mt.16.1-12...beware of Saduccees and Pharisees. Robin, they are everwhere.
Or Metropolitan Jonah (OCA)? With his "logging operations" at the ACNA-hugfest at Bedford, TX? At their gala inaugural a few years back? What ever prompted the ACNA back-stage (and unidentified) managers to hire this "logger" to speak to Anglicans?
The old boy did eye surgery without even the charity of affording anesthesia to the obsequious victims.
And the back-stage puppeteers offered not just their eyes to Mr. Jonah's eye-gouging "log ops," but their backs to his lashes.
Given the absence of any rejoinder from ACNA leadership and its satellite PR-centre, VOL, one is compelled to wonder: "Given no response to Mr. Jonah, are there nerves in the eyes of ACNA?" "Why no response to this eye surgery without anesthesia?" Or, "perhaps, is there a deeper problem with the `eyes'?" I think the latter question has merit.
Robin and others:
Speaking of opthamology and anesthesia, the story of "loggin ops" without anesthesia in the REC is still an untold and undocumented story.
A few emails today from REC rectors who fear to take a stand--the REC Lauds would drop the boot on them. Too bad.
One man's logs is another man's eye irritant.
Robin:
I well remember a Canadian Anglo-
Catholic, on the internet, telling us that Calvin and Luther "crapped in the fine flowers of English Catholicism." He has disappeared, but there were some heady days on the internet as ACs made their foray. I don't see much of it these days.
This much, they loathed the English Reformers, including some proto-Puritan REC-ers interested in "purifying" the REC of Reformed Theology. They were very vociferous Puritans--as was Newman and other Tractarian Puritans.
One man's log is another man's eye irritant.
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