Harsh Language By Christians

Today while working I listened to a sermon by Mark Driscoll from the Desiring God national conference that took place this past weekend. The message is entitled “How Sharp The Edge? Christ, Controversy, and Cutting Words”

I’ll be completely honest. When I heard about Driscoll’s topic, I was looking forward to this message as a possible convicting agent in my spiritual life, because those who know me personally know that I have a strong penchant for speaking my mind with very little regard for the feelings of others. What I got from the message, though, was an interesting mix of conviction and encouragement from the message. I was a good bit surprised by that reaction in my heart, and I guess the reason why is because as Christians we’re constantly told to “be nice” as an extension of loving our neighbors. One of the points that Mark makes in the message (strongly, I might add) is that nice does not always equal love. This is a great quote from the message that references that idea.

“Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is destroy someone before they go to hell and are ultimately destroyed, suffering forever” – Mark Driscoll

The message has given me a lot to think about. On the one hand, it has convicted me to soften my heart to be more considerate of where people are before I open my mouth and let my words fly. On the other, it has further emboldened me to speak in ways that will clearly get my point across and will catch the attention of the hearer so that they have absolutely no doubt about what my point or intentions are. I’d like to give a synopsis of the message, and at the bottom I’ll give a link to the manuscript, audio, and video of this message if you would like to hear or see it for yourself. I will use Mark’s points and give you my thoughts on what he said and what I think about each aspect.

1. Feed The Sheep – Love the Christians

That’s the first point from the message. Our first priority as Christians and as ministers of the Gospel is to feed the sheep. There are many who need to hear our encouraging and uplifting words, and it is our calling to do so. Many Christians are in the midst of suffering and need to hear our kind words. Many Christians are struggling with sins and need to know that we love them, care for them, and are there to assist them in any way that we possibly can. This is the aspect of speech that will be the least visible to the world, but it absolutely MUST be the most visible to those who are inside of our church walls. That’s not to say that it should or must be invisible to those outside, but they will not usually see us feeding the sheep because we’re not doing it for the approval of men.

2. Rebuke The Swine – Confront The Unrepentant

Paul tells Titus, in reference to the truth of the Gospel:

Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. – Titus 2:15

Rebuke is a dirty word. At least it is to most Christians. They say things like “it’s mean,” “it’s confrontational, “it’s un-Christlike,” and it’s just plain “wrong.” This attitude is not only completely incorrect, it’s incredibly troubling. We have to do some very impressive hermeneutical gymnastics to make a case that rebuke is wrong. The Bible very plainly tells us to rebuke those who are unrepentant. These Scripture references illustrate that point.

The Lord said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet, therefore the Lord will strike with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will lay bare their secret parts. In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarves; the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the signet rings and nose rings; the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; the mirrors, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils. Instead of perfume there will be rottenness; and instead of a belt, a rope; and instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a skirt of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty. – Isaiah 3:16-24

God is basically saying that these women think they are special because of their appearance, but He’s going to publicly humiliate them (a form of rebuke) for their arrogance.

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’ – Amos 4:1

Ridicule is used here towards those described as oppressive to the poor.

“Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, who drink wine in bowls
and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! – Amos 6:4-6

God is calling these people out for their continued affluent lifestyle in the midst of the destruction of God’s people.

There are more examples, but I think that the point has been made. God did not hesitate to rebuke His people when they were in the midst of sin and painfully unrepentant. Neither should we hesitate to rebuke those who are in the midst of sin and are painfully unrepentant.

Note however, that we do not rebuke the sheep. We do not use harsh language on someone who is struggling with understanding the Bible or having trouble hearing God’s voice. We do use harsh language on those who claim to be Christian but are carrying on in open sin without repentance or remorse.

3. Shoot The Wolves – Attack The False Teachers

This point was the most passionately made point in the entire message, and the one that emboldened me the most. Mark opened this point with a quote from Martin Luther, who said:

“With the wolves you cannot be too severe. With the weak sheep you cannot be too gentle.” – Martin Luther

Mark summed it up like this:

“With the wolf, you shoot. With the sheep, you weep…My point in this is that many of us have become worldly, thinking that worldly means you say certain words. Worldly means that you don’t have courage, that sometimes you don’t speak truthfully. Worldliness is saying ‘Well, if someone was offended, then we need to apologize.’ Maybe they should have been offended! We worship a guy who got murdered! The cross is an offense! And if it is not occasionally proclaimed in an offensive way then we might be false teachers.”

These words hit me hard. I have been guilty at times of feeling the urge to apologize because someone was offended, even though the words I spoke were the truth.

Then he talks about Jesus rebuking the Pharisees in Matthew 23. When we read these passages, we like to smile and say “Get ‘em Jesus!” but we’re all Pharisees to varying degrees. We’ve all added things on top of Scripture to try to force “extra” holiness onto people. If you want to know just how strong this language is, insert your name, your church, and/or your denomination where is says Pharisees, and you’ll understand how harsh this really is.

Go read Matthew 23, right now. As you read, think about what Jesus is saying to them, saying to us. If that doesn’t smack you in the mouth, something’s wrong.

Jesus shoots the wolves. We also are to shoot the wolves. We are to do this because we love the sheep, and we are doing our best to protect them.

4. Bark At The Dogs – Mock The Religious People

Religion is ridiculous. Jesus is wonderful. The two are totally separate.

The Bible constantly mocks the religion of man (also known as righteousness).

Elijah tells the prophets of Baal that the reason he isn’t responding to their worship is because he’s in the bathroom. Isaiah compares man’s righteousness to filthy rags (used feminine products) and makes fun of a man who uses half a log for an idol and the other half for firewood. Jesus uses humor in the New Testament; a camel through the eye of a needle, the plank and the speck. I’m sorry, I agree with Mark Driscoll, those things are funny.

Sometimes we have to use strong language to wake people up to the silliness of their devotion to religion.

5. Pray For The Shepherd

This one is fairly self-explanatory. Those in the ministry have to use discernment to figure out who the sheep, swine, wolves, and dogs are. Pray for them in their circumstances, pray for them in their context, as they attempt to determine how harsh their language needs to be to get the point across.

The entire point is to see more people become sheep, and that’s the purpose of any harsh language that should be used. Pray for those who lead our churches and denominations as they do the hard work laid out for them in this message.

Pray for them a lot. Pray for them more than you criticize, gossip, e-mail, text, twitter, or blog about them.

Download the sermon audio here: http://www.desiringgod.org/download.php?file=http://media.desiringgod.org/audio/conferences/national2008/20080927_driscoll.mp3

See the notes here: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByConference/41/3261_How_Sharp_the_Edge_Christ_Controversy_and_Cutting_Words/

Who are you promoting?

It’s been a while since I blogged. Sorry about that.

I’ve been stewing over something for a little while, and so here it is in blog form.

One of the key themes throughout Scripture is the lack of importance found in man. Jesus repeatedly told people not to seek their own promotion, telling them things like:

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”   – Matt. 6:5-6

And again:

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”  – Matt. 6:16-18

Too often, we as Christians spend too much time promoting ourselves. We want people to think we’re ultra holy, super cool, or powerful speakers. In reality, though, none of those things matter in the grand scheme of things. There will never be a person that comes to Christ because of how holy or cool I am. Nobody truly comes to salvation because of how eloquent a speaker is. People only come to Christ because, through the power of the Holy Spirit, they see how glorious God truly is and how insignificant and worthless they are.

How do we combat this attitude? Well, beneath all the instructions that the Bible gives us is one statement found in 1 Corinthians. This statement is at the same time simple and profound, and it speaks to the heart of what every Christian’s absolute aim should be.

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”. – 1 Cor. 10:31

There it is. In everything we do, our aim should ALWAYS be to promote the glory of God. This isn’t something that comes naturally, though. Our human nature is to promote ourselves. I find myself wanting to be seen as cool and innovative, and mostly I just fall flat on my face because it’s not about me. We have to make an intentional choice in all of our actions and decisions to glorify God. This means we have to control our impulses, and actually THINK about what it is we’re doing before we do it.

Every single action we take should be preceded by us asking ourselves the question: “Is this for God’s glory or my own?” We must examine our hearts honestly, and always question our motivations. The time has come for the church as a whole to stop pointing fingers and assigning blame, to stop being jealous of the success of others, and to recognize that when we all seek to promote God’s glory rather than our own, His purposes will be served and we have no right to question the way He serves those purposes. The only heart we know the condition of is our own, so let’s be sure that our heart is in the right place before we question the motivations of others.

From this point forward, I pray that the Church would be filled with people who are intentional. That we would all do the things we do on purpose and not that we would do what we want and attempt to justify our actions later.

From today forward, I’m making a commitment to seek God’s glory above all else. Will you join me?

I think someone slept through Biology class

Wait a minute…it really WAS Adam and Steve?!?!?!?!

Yes sir, I would agree that two men creating a child together would certainly be a moment for the history books.

Just call me Captain Obvious

So I changed the look of my blog last night. I just decided the other one was too cluttered, and I wanted to kinda streamline things. I also liked it because of the green thing that says latest on my newest post. It looks like slime from an old Nickelodeon show. What do you think?

Also, you may have noticed that the link to “The Story So Far” is gone. That’s because I started working on it, and I didn’t want you to be able to read it before it was done. It will be back before the week is over.

Finally, if you’re reading this on Facebook (since I have it set up to automatically upload my blog as a note), you should really come to my blog. That way you can vote in the cool poll that I made, and you give me more traffic. The address is http://corytaylor.wordpress.com

Happy Day

The Red Sox are flat-out CRUSHING Tampa Bay right now.

1st place, here we come.

Update:

The Red Sox have finished flat-out crushing Tampa Bay.

Now in a tie for 1st.

Happy Day Indeed.

Am I a bad person?

I laughed hysterically at this. Is that wrong?

It’s a beautiful morning

This morning, I woke up at 6:15 to get ready to go to work. I take my shower, get dressed, and gather my things.

I walk into the kitchen to feed my cats, but they all start acting weird. They meow at me, and then run into the front room, the one that I don’t use because it’s not finished. I walk in there to see what their problem is, and I see this:

Yes, that is a hole in the ceiling.

This is my life.

Good day

Today was a good day. I got my project finished at like 3 in the morning, and then read for a while.

Another wonderful night of no sleep. Hooray.

Staff meeting was really good. Great moods, great conversation, great planning sessions all around.

Then I went to work and got sent to Macon to fix a broken computer, but when I was done I got to hang out with Jenny. That was a good time. I convinced her to use “Vintage Jesus” by Mark Driscoll for her upcoming Bible Study. I apparently have some pull or something.

Picked up Crazy Love by Francis Chan, which is really good so far.

Finally, everyone should get on Twitter. It’s pretty stinkin cool.

Love you guys

If you wouldn’t mind

It’s 10:15 PM.

I have a major assignment due at Staff Meeting in the morning, which starts at 8:15 AM. I have not started this assignment yet. It’s not procrastination, I swear, I really just don’t know where to begin. It’s making my brain ache. I need prayers to keep my from going nuts and pulling my beard out.

I am preaching next Sunday, and I could always use prayers to be sure that I’m speaking God’s words and not mine.

Over the next two Wednesdays, I am unveiling some things to my students about the direction the student ministry is going to go starting next month. Pray for them, and for me as I try to lead them in the direction that I believe God is taking us.

By the way, if you’re one of my students reading this, don’t ask me what these things are, you’ll find out soon! Just be in prayer and be pumped!

I love you guys

Since People Are Confused

Several people have commented to me that the layout of my new blog is a little confusing, so I figured that I would explain the set-up.

Here on the left-hand side are the blog posts. The most recent ones are closest to the top, as was the case with my old blog. If you wish to comment on a post, then under each post is a link to comments. It will either say “No Comments” or will have a number of comments listed, such as “1 Comment” or the far more common “1,000 Comments.” Once you click that link, it will take you to a page where you can leave a comment about each particular post. Just to specify, you must click the comment link on the post you wish to comment on.

Along the top section of the blog is the name of my blog on the left: “This is Cory’s Blog.” Yes, it’s very catchy, thank you. Then, over to the right are links to the pages contained within my blog. The first link is “Home,” which will take you back to the main page of the blog containing all the posts full of awesomeness. Next to that is the “About Me” link, which contains the information that is also contained in the section directly under the links also titled “About Me.” That link is kinda useless, but I can’t get rid of it, so I guess it’ll just sit there and take up space. The next link is “The Story So Far,” which will at some point contain the story of my salvation, God saving me from the brink of suicide, my call to ministry, and all of the incredible things that He has done and is continuing to do to change me and mold me into the man that He created me to be. That page is empty, but it will be filled soon — I promise! The final link, “Reading/Listening,” contains a listing of what I am listening to and reading currently, and will contain reviews of books and albums in the future.

Finally, the section on the right hand side of the screen, under the page links contains the About Me information, which I’ve already talked about. Under that, it contains several sets of links. In the left column are links to my most recent posts, and then under that are the links that I have added. Some of them are websites, and others are links to blogs written by people that I know. Then, in the right column are the archives, which gives links to months when I’ve posted blogs. In the parenthesis next to the month is a number, which is the number of blogs that I posted in that month. Beneath that are the categories, which are groups of posts under the same category. You access all the posts in that category by clicking those links. FInally, under that are the RSS links, which you would use to add my blog to an RSS feeder. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a tool that checks all the blogs you add to it remotely and shows you new posts in your favorite blogs without you having to go to the site and check the blog manually.

So there you have it. I hope that my explanation was thorough enough so that there are no more questions about this layout, but if there are, then leave a comment to ask another question and I’ll do my best to answer it.