I received several e-mails yesterday from angry people because I supposedly “defended” Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker, (mega preachers who duped the world into believing in them, only to find that they were fallen men and no better than any of the rest of us).
I got one particularly angry one from someone who was all bent out of shape because I was counseling the fellow that I know from the ministry who had gotten himself into an affair and should have known better, because ministers are “held to higher standards” in several places in the Bible.
These ministers should never have sinned because they knew the Bible said not to do it!
Huh?
Sin is defined in the dictionary as “an act, thought, or way of behaving that goes against the law or teachings of a religion, especially when the person who commits it is aware of this. It is a shameful offense – something that offends a moral or ethical principle”.
The Bible that I have studied for over forty years teaches that all of humanity sins (including preachers – even mega preachers). This is a humanity that includes adulterers, indulgers, homosexuals, pornographers, transgressors, whoremongers, blasphemers, peccadillos, gossipers, coveters, idolaters, liars, thieves, drunkards, revilers, criminals, swindlers, lusters, rapists, debauchers, haters, murderers, un-forgivers, perverts, sorcerers, druggies, condemners, fornicators, slave traders, two-timers, and various and sundry other ignoble people.
They should be reviled by all of us “good” Christians, right?
There is a story told by Jesus in the Bible that seems applicable. A scribe, (lawyer familiar with Mosaic law), asked Jesus a question about what commandment was most important. Jesus turned it around and asked him what he thought the answer should be.
The scribe answered that he thought that the correct answer was the command that states that we should love God with everything we can muster, (heart, soul, strength and mind), and second to that we should love our neighbor in like fashion.
Jesus answered him and told him he was correct. Then, in typical lawyer fashion, the scribe asked an interesting question, “Who is my neighbor?”
Jesus didn’t tell him that his neighbor was limited to those who followed the Bible to the letter including the most religious people on the face of the planet at the time, (the Pharisees, Levites, scribes, or even the “chosen” people the Jews at large), which was perhaps the answer he was looking for. Jesus didn’t tell him to only love those who do not sin.
He answered instead by telling him a story about a man that had been beaten, robbed, stripped of his clothing, and left half dead lying in the road bleeding by some thieves.
A Pharisee, (a priest and considered the pinnacle of religious authority at the time) came along and when he saw the man lying there, he quickly crossed over to the other side of the road and kept walking. Next a Levite, (a person who worked fulltime in the church performing various duties; another heavy-hitter’ in the religious realm), came along and did likewise. Finally a Samaritan, (despised half-breed person of mixed heritage widely disliked by Jews and Gentiles alike), came along.
The Samaritan dressed his wounds and assisted the person and then took him to an Inn where he cared for him. The next day he left money with the Innkeeper to help this person and gave instructions to the innkeeper that if more money was needed, to go ahead and provide it to this person and the Samaritan would repay the innkeeper on his next visit.
Jesus again answered this scribe’s question with a question, “So which of these do you think was neighbor to him who fell among thieves?”
And the scribe said, “He who showed mercy on him.”. Then Jesus said to
him, “Go and do likewise.”
Hmmm…Jesus made the point that religious people should not let their religion get in the way of being a Christian. Being a Christian is about loving one’s neighbor in the same way that Jesus loves all of humanity (which the Bible establishes as being sinners).
I always try to explain to people who relate to me that they do not go to church because of a bad experience with a religious person that Christ is not to blame for the shortcomings of some people who are mistaken about the mission that Christians are on.
As Christians we are commanded to love our neighbors, which means we must love sinners and that includes Christians and non-Christians. We can hate the sin but we are ordered by God to love the sinner. (If you do not like this command, take it to God, and don’t disparage the messenger; I’m sick of nasty e-mails and don’t have time to read them all.)
Christians should be a group of people who love Jesus and want to be just like Him. They sin and their sins are just as black in the eyes of the Lord than those of their sinner neighbors, but they have been forgiven through the sacrifice that Christ Jesus, who exemplifies love, mercy, kindness and inclusiveness, took our punishment for our sins.
Paul was the greatest preacher of all time in my opinion. If you want to hate fallen preachers because the Bible holds them to a higher standard, then hate Paul too.
Paul clearly agonized over the conflict of sin in his life which is painfully obvious from his treatise below. And those of us who call ourselves Christians and are engaged in this same conflict, can clearly understand the meaning of these words which led the apostle to bemoan himself as a wretched man, constrained to what he abhorred. He could not deliver himself; and this made him the more fervently thank God for the way of salvation revealed through Jesus Christ, which promised him, in the end, deliverance from his enemy satan.
Why do you suppose we must suffer this conflict?
Perhaps so we Christians might constantly feel, and understand thoroughly, the wretched state from which God’s grace saves us. Additionally I would imagine to help keep us from trusting in ourselves instead of the rich and free grace of God through Christ.
Listen carefully to Paul’s anguish before you condemn him or anyone for not being perfect…
Have a great weekend and go to church this Sunday!
Romans 7:14
For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.