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Reasons to Not Trash People
The other day I ran into this article by Anthony Esolen, in which he translated an old teaching on why we shouldn’t speak badly about others, or, as the author puts it, why we shouldn’t “speak ill” of each other.
He says: “The following is from Alessandro Manzoni [1819]… The translation is my own. If we followed its wisdom, our politicians would have more freedom to attend to their business, social media might become social, and our churches might become hotbeds of charity.” That’s a pretty interesting recommendation. I recommend pressing through the older language, and considering this wisdom:
What is the main and common motive that makes us speak ill of our neighbor? That we love the truth? That we wish to draw a just distinction between virtue and vice? And the usual result—is it, perhaps, that we set forth truth in a clear light, that we honor virtue, and abominate vice? A simple look at society should persuade us right away of the contrary, and show the true motives, the true features and the common results of ill speaking.
Consider the idle chatter of men. Each in his vanity wants everyone else to notice him, but he meets an obstacle: all the others in their vanity seek the same thing. So they battle with all their skill, sometimes with open force, to win that attention that so rarely is granted them. Why, then, is it so easy for a man to feel comfortable when he declares by his very first words that he is going to speak evil of his neighbor? Why, if not that it holds forth some wretched relief to so many of his passions? And such passions! There is pride, that in its silent work makes us see our own superiority in the abasement of another, that consoles us for our failings with the thought that others have the same, or worse. A miserable way for man to err! Hungry for perfection, he scoffs at the help that religion offers him for progressing toward the absolute perfection that God has made him for, and he busies himself with a comparative perfection instead; he longs not to be the best, but to be first; he wants not to become great, but to weigh himself against others.
There is envy, inseparable from pride: envy that rejoices in evil as charity rejoices in good; envy that breathes more easily whenever a good name is besmirched, whenever it finds less of some virtue or talent. There is hatred, that makes us so quick to find evil; the self-interest that causes us to hate a competitor of any sort. These and others like them are the passions that lead us so easily to speak evil and to listen to it. They explain in part the ugly pleasure we feel in laughing at someone and condemning him. They explain why we are so indulgent and facile in our reasoning when we find fault, while a good deed has to pass a most severe tribunal before we will believe in it or in the just and pure intention behind it. No wonder if our religion does not know what to make of these passions and what they set in action. For how can such materials, sodden and worthless for building, find a place in the edifice of love and humility, of piety and reason, that she wishes to raise up in the heart of all men?
In ill-speaking there is a cowardice that likens it to secret denunciation, casting in high relief its opposition to the spirit of the Gospel, which is all frankness and dignity. For the spirit of the Gospel detests all things covert and sneaking, whereby you can hurt someone without exposing yourself. In the differences that must arise among men when they defend what is just, the Gospel commands a conduct that requires courage. One man can usually censure another without running any risk; it is to strike someone who cannot defend himself; and often with the censure there is mingled some flattery, as ignoble as it is sly, of the person who is to hear it. Never speak evil of a deaf man is one of the profound and merciful prescriptions of the law of Moses (Leviticus 19:14). Catholic moralists who apply it also to one who is absent show that they have entered into the true spirit of a religion which demands that when we find ourselves opposed to another, we keep our charity and we flee from all baseness and discourtesy.
Many say that ill-speaking is a kind of censure that helps hold men to their duties. As if a court stuffed with judges who have interests against the defendant, where the defendant is neither confronted nor heard, where anyone who might take up his cause will be put off or ridiculed, while all the points for the prosecution will be carefully laid out—as if such a court were well suited to diminish the number of crimes! But we can readily observe that we give credence to ill-speaking based on arguments that, if we had any interest in examining their strength, would never suffice to establish even a slight probability.
Ill-speaking makes a worse man out of him who speaks and him who listens, and all too often it makes a worse man out of the victim, too. When it strikes an innocent person (and of all the many sins there are, to accuse someone unjustly is among the worst), what a temptation it poses for him! Perhaps he has traveled the steep path of honesty, seeking the approval of men—full of that notion, commonplace but false, that virtue is always recognized and appreciated. Then, seeing it not to be so in his case, he begins to believe that virtue is an empty name, and his soul, that had fed on happy and peaceful images of applause and concord, begins to taste the bitterness of hatred; and the unstable foundation upon which he has built his virtue gives way. How much happier he would have been, had it made him think instead that the praise of men is no safe reward—no reward.
Alas, if mistrust reigns among men, one of the reasons is the ease with which we speak evil. You see a man shake another man’s hand, the smile of friendship on his lips, and then you hear him run the man down behind his back. How shall you not suspect that in every expression of esteem and affection, some treachery may lie hidden? But trust would grow, and benevolence and peace along with it, if detraction were forbidden. You could embrace a man and be sure that he would not then make you the object of his reproach and derision, and you would do so naturally, with a purer and freer feeling of charity.
Many people think that those who are slow to suppose evil are too simple and inexperienced; as if it shows great perspicacity to suppose that every man in every case will choose the worst! On the contrary: a disposition to judge with forbearance, to weigh each one of a storm of accusations, and to meet real faults with compassion, requires a habit of reflecting on the vast array of human motives, and on the nature of man and his weakness.
When a man hears whispers against him (and informants are the bastard children of those who speak evil), he suffers an injustice that he alone can know, but whose peril everyone else can and therefore are duty-bound to recognize. He has acted in circumstances whose complexity he alone comprehends; his detractor, not privy to the whole, judges him on one bare fact and by rules he cannot apply with any just reckoning; it may be he reproaches the man for not doing what he would have done, perhaps because he does not share the same passions. And even if the censured man is forced to admit that the ill-speaking was no calumny, he will hardly be moved to reconsider his ways. Rather, he becomes indignant. He does not think of reforming himself. He turns to examine how his detractor conducts himself, to find out some weakness in him, to turn the tables. Impartiality is rare enough among men; rarer still among the offended. So do we lapse into a wretched war, the restless business of exposing the faults of others while we neglect our own.
When our interests set us against one another, what wonder is it that wrath and blows are so ready to us, as we pay back evil for evil? We are set up for it, having thought and spoken much evil already. In speech we are accustomed to be unforgiving, to enjoy someone else’s discomfiture, even to tear down people with whom we are not at odds; we treat as enemies people we do not know; how then shall we find ourselves suddenly disposed to charity and calm judgment, when the matter is more difficult and calls for a soul formed by long practice of those virtues? That is why the Church, desiring brotherhood, wishes that men not think evil, that they weep when they see it, that they speak of one who is absent with the same delicacy that our own self-love causes us to use for people in our presence.
If you want to govern your actions, rein in your words, and to govern those, set a watch about your heart.
Optimism vs. Hope
Here’s one more great quote from J.I. Packer. This seems incredibly relevant…
Optimism hopes for the best without any guarantee of its arriving and is often no more than whistling in the dark. Christian hope, by contrast, is faith looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God.
Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself.
Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God’s own commitment, that the best is yet to come.
Thinking about Mystery
John Frame is one of my favorite authors. For instance, I think everyone should ignore the size of The Doctrine of the Word of God, buy it, and read it. He recently posted a short article with the title, “At 80, I’m more aware of mystery.” This is an especially interesting idea from a guy who’s spent his life writing huge books about theology. Of course, he’s not saying that we can’t know anything (especially the most crucial things for us to know) about God. But he is making a great point about humility in our thinking. He mentions a plant he owns, a Sago Palm, and says:
[God’s] knowledge—even of the things most familiar to us—is vastly different from our own. He and I both know the sago palm in my front yard, but he knows far more about it than I could ever grasp. He knows it as its Creator, as the one who made the whole universe and foreordained its history (Eph. 1:11), as the one who planned from the beginning the process by which that sago palm would grow in my front yard. Further, his knowledge is normative, a knowledge that governs how all his creatures should think about everything. Because God is the supreme King, he has the right to tell me and show me how I should think about that sago palm.
He goes on:
Today some thinkers believe the world is largely made of “dark matter” and “dark energy.” But these, by definition, are realities that we don’t know, for they are dark. This is to say that for all our sophisticated philosophical and scientific schemes, the most fundamental reality of the world is unknown to us…
As I get older, I am less and less impressed by people, including theologians, who think they have everything figured out. Theologians readily confess God’s incomprehensibility as a doctrinal point, but often they go on from there to write as if they had that ultimate and final knowledge that belongs to God alone.
In conservative theology, writers tend to confess mystery, but then go on to meticulously explain such things as the order of God’s decrees and the inner activities of the Trinitarian persons without any clear biblical basis.
Liberal writers say that conservative theologians claim too much knowledge of the mysterious God, but then they go on to explain in great detail what government programs God demands of us to help the needy—again, without biblical basis.
At 80, I look at both types of theology with sadness and amusement. God is not here to motivate our rationalistic quest. God is Lord of heaven and earth. He comes to drive us to repent of sin and embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Of course, the whole thing is worth a read.
“Readiness to die is the first step in learning to live.”
This month J.I. Packer went home to be with the Lord. He was a teacher, theologian, and author, and was part of a little circle of people the Lord raised up in the 20th Century (like, say, Billy Graham) to guide and bless his church all over the world. If you’ve never heard of him and want a synopsis of his life, there’s a great one here.
His classic work is Knowing God. I highly recommend it.
And finally, I ran across a great post, “40 Quotes from J. I. Packer (1926–2020)” Here are six:
“The Scriptures are the lifeline God throws us in order to ensure he and we stay connected while the rescue is in process.”
“The healthy Christian is not necessarily the extrovert, ebullient Christian, but the Christian who has a sense of God’s presence stamped deep on his soul, who trembles at God’s word, who lets it dwell in him richly by constant meditation upon it, and who tests and reforms his life daily in response to it.”
“Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.”
“The Christian’s motto should not be ‘Let go and let God’ but ‘Trust God and get going.’”
“I believe that prayer is the measure of the man, spiritually, in a way that nothing else is.”
“Readiness to die is the first step in learning to live.”
If you like these, click here and read more…
Why the World Can’t Get Peace
Monday nights studying through John’s gospel with so many of you have been great. In John 14:27, John records that Jesus said this:
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
There is a lot here—a lot of important truth for us to ponder, and bring into the center of our thinking and feeling about the world and our lives. I think the breakdown of this verse by D.A. Carson is very insightful. Here it is:
Of this peace Jesus says, I do not give it to you as the world gives. The world is powerless to give peace. There is sufficient hatred, selfishness, bitterness, malice, anxiety and fear that every attempt at peace is rapidly swamped. Within a biblical framework, attempts to achieve personal equanimity or merely political stability, whether by ritual, mysticism or propaganda, without dealing with the fundamental reasons for strife, are intrinsically loathsome.
That is why [in Jeremiah, 6:13-15] God denounces “prophets and priests alike” who “practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, where there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.”
The world promises peace and waves the flag of peace as a greeting; it cannot give it.
But Jesus displays transcendent peace, his own peace, my peace, throughout his perilous hour of suffering and death. And by that death he absorbs in himself the malice of others, the sin of the world, and introduces the promised messianic peace in the way none of his contemporaries had envisaged. The pax Romana (“Roman peace”) was won and maintained by a brutal sword; not a few Jews thought the messianic peace would have to be secured by a still mightier sword. Instead, it was secured by an innocent man who suffered and died at the hands of the Romans, of the Jews, and of all of us. And by his death he effected for his own followers peace with God, and therefore “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding.”
You Don’t Have to Be Impressive
Who is the most important person in the Bible? Jesus, of course. Now—make a list of the other really important people in the story the Bible tells. I bet you won’t get too deep before you name David and Paul.
Here’s an interesting fact about all three: It is explicitly noted in scripture that they all lacked qualities which made people pick them out as important or impressive.
Of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah said:
He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.
When the Prophet Samuel was sent to anoint a king from Jesse’s sons, he assumed it would be the oldest:
So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, “Surely the LORD’S anointed is before Him. But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees…”
The one God wanted, David, was not even considered worth being considered. His father left him out of the meeting when he called his sons to see who would be chosen.
And when the Corinthian church thought of Paul, who had founded their community and written scripture for them, the best they could say was, “His letters are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.”
David, the future king—too young, not really part of the conversation. Paul the missionary—nice letters, but really, in person, not too impressive. Jesus himself—nothing really to make him stand out. But all three, the exact kind of people of people God wanted to use, and did use—in big ways.
I’ve been thinking about these stories lately, because they have so much to speak to our age—with all its obsession over image, success, and standing out from the crowd. One of the sicknesses distinctive to our culture is the desire to be special. Something inside of us knows that there are a few people out there who are actually impressive—you know, the Ceasars and Da Vincis of the world and all that—and that knowledge has a way of making us think that that kind of exceptionality or notoriety is the measure of human worth. To really matter, you’ve got to be something, and probably, you’ve got to be something that sets you apart from the crowd.
Our culture has made it into a mantra for children. Is there anyone left that knows how to make a message for kids that isn’t some version of “you’re unique and special and have all kinds of qualities that make you part of the 1%”? And social media hasn’t helped this little nagging voice we all have to fight with. I’d say it’s only amplified it and made it worse. Now, everyone can curate an image of themselves and show the world that, they too are special—they are beautiful and creative and unique.
Of course, almost none of us are actually distinctly any of those things. Only 1% of people are in the 1%. Which means there’s a 99% chance that nothing about me sets me apart from humanity in these specific ways we’re all so enamored with. Of course—I am distinctive, because God makes us all unique. But that’s God’s truth, not Disney’s. We can’t read the beauty and power of our uniqueness through Disney’s lens. We’ll misunderstand it, and weight everything incorrectly. Why? Because the uniqueness the world worships (which currently is almost all physical beauty, artistic ability, or athletic ability) has almost nothing to do with the kinds of things God cares about. For instance, the world thinks of uniqueness as something to set you apart from everyone else. It only sees value in separation and isolation. Stand apart, so that people can gaze at you, and that’s how you’ll find your fulfillment. But if you know your bible, you immediately see the flaw in that kind of thinking. Human fulfillment is not found in isolation and having many eyes pointed at us. Those things are called death and idolatry.
Human fulfillment is found in connection and inclusion—connection to God, and inclusion in the body of Christ. Connection to God doesn’t set you apart, it brings you together with Him. And inclusion in the body of Christ doesn’t make you a singular thing to be seen, it makes you part of something bigger than yourself, where Jesus is center-stage. It’s within the reality of the body of Christ that uniqueness is a powerful, useful, God-honoring reality. Just read 1 Corinthians 12 to see how it all works—everyone has a unique role to play in the big family God is growing. But this goes so far beyond acting ability or a jump shot or a photogenic smile that it boggles the mind.
Those things are very, very small. The plan of God we’re called to play a role in is very big.
And our modern culture has no way of capturing the things related to God’s plan. In fact, it is totally uninterested in those things. They don’t photograph well (or at all). They don’t get clicks. They don’t typically make money. They ignore and transcend the things the world cares so much about—the money and looks and grappling for power.
So what about us?
God has called us to follow in the way of Christ. We can expect to be more like David and Paul than Kim and Kanye. We can live free of the burden of trying to make an image. We can stop worrying if we’re beautiful. It doesn’t matter at all. We can waste no more effort trying to push ourselves forward or get noticed. God sees us. He’ll makes sure anyone who needs to know us takes notice. We can step off the exhausting highway of self-promotion, and onto paths of peace and walking with Jesus.
If you’re a follower of Jesus, and you struggle feeling unimportant, or unspecial, take a deep breath, and relax into the love and eternal plan of God. Put the devices away (they drive these feelings of inadequacy) and spend time drinking in God’s words.
God doesn’t need you to make yourself anything. He made you. Trusting in the blood of Christ, and finding forgiveness of sins, you have his love.
He has his place for you, and it’s full, connected, and eternal.
More Help for Thinking Through Growth
UPDATE 7/24: Calvary Philly just launched a page with resources geared towards promoting understanding and racial reconciliation. Click here to see it all, including a special message from Pastor Joe.
Recently an African-American friend and I began a slow conversation about issues of race, and especially issues of race in the church. He turned me on to John M. Perkins, one of those people you think–it’s really a crime I didn’t know about this guy before all of this. I’m almost done listening through his book Dream With Me, and I plan to move right on to One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race and Love. (Incidentally, you can listen to them both free on the Hoopla App, all you need is a library card.)
In addition to good books, this friend has also shared a few videos with me.
For instance, he sent me this note: “This presentation isn’t exaggerated. It’s daily life as a Black or Brown man in the USA,” and a link to this ad by P&G. It’s called “The Look.” And it’s powerful:
In further conversation, this brother in Christ rejoiced that Jesus has “looked” on him as well, and that Jesus’ look is more powerful than the look of men. And so it is. But if I’ve been able to live unaware of any of this, it’s going to help me love my brothers and sisters better to be able to at least be aware of some of what they deal with if their skin’s darker than mine.
He also shared this excellent video from Tony Evans with me:
As I’ve written here before, children of the King are no more defined by history, or legacy, or politics, or other’s viewpoints, than we are by skin color. God recognizes “every tribe, tongue, and nation” and they will be around his throne, and the blood of Christ is a stronger, more powerful identity marker, than any other thing. If you are his, that is your identity, before anything else.
So–no guilt. No world-induced frenzy of self-loathing. Just love. Love wants to reach out, connect, learn, and help. And he will help us continue to do that, and to do it better, by his grace.
In Word, In Deed, In the Name
In Colossians 3:17, Paul wrote:
“Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
Some thoughts for today, from this amazing verse:
Everything we do as Christians must be done by the direction and the authority of Jesus Christ. Together, these twin realities is determine the source, the nature, and the goals of our actions, as well as the power by which we act.
They also rule out all kinds of action which Christ would never direct us to do, or put his authority behind.
But, positively, they open to us a whole world of things to both do and say which, on our own, we could never have the confidence, direction, power or authority to do or say. Only disciples of Christ know the freedom and joy of living by the power of the Name.
So let us never forget the authority we walk in.
There are things to do and say.
And there is a Name that stands behind, and motivates, all of them.
You Don’t Have to Listen to Them
If you weren’t raised in a Christian family, there’s a good chance that you have a defined, obvious time you remember, when you began to follow Jesus. If you were raised by Christian parents, the waters might be a little murkier. I’m pretty sure I got saved at 16. I underwent a fairly dramatic life-change. But then, my parents had shared the knowledge of God with me from my first days. I never remember a time when I didn’t intellectually know about God, consider myself a Christian, and even self-identify as a follower of Jesus. It was just that my life was a much more mixed bag before the Lord confronted me that winter night in 1994.
Which means that I have memories like these: I was 15, eating lunch, I think, in the courtyard of Hatboro-Horsham High School, and a friend (not a Christian at all) looked at me and said, “You say you know God, so why do you hate people?” I don’t remember having anything intelligent to say back. I did in fact hate people. There were kids at that school I couldn’t stand, and I talked about it all the time. And of course, this person who didn’t follow Jesus knew enough to see the hypocrisy in my actions, and call me out on it. He was right. It wasn’t the only time a friend who didn’t know God called me out for some inconsistency. Having real friends leads to that sort of thing. I say all this as a preface to the rest of this post—I am about to make a case that we followers of Jesus should become better at ignoring what non-believers say about us. That’s right. In 2020, we need to develop thicker skin—becoming less sensitive to the way people who don’t follow Jesus critique our life of serving Him.
But first, I just acknowledge, right up front, that many times people who don’t know Jesus do notice things about us, and God does use them, I think, to prod us to notice some blind spot. I am not above it. We are not too good to listen to others. And so, we should be up for it.
But is that the rule? Must we listen to everything people say about us? Must we listen to what the news says about us? What about activists on Twitter? What about college professors? What about celebrities? What about your friends or co-workers or classmates? How do you know when they have legitimate critiques about you, and when you can safely ignore their appraisals of your life as a Christ-follower? I’ll come back to this last point, but first, let’s remember a basic premise. I think we find it in Psalm 1:
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.
This first line of Psalm 1 introduces us to the idea that there is something called “the counsel of the ungodly.” Everyone who wants to be blessed will not “walk” in it—in other words, they won’t listen to this advice and act on it. “Ungodly” just means people who have no knowledge of God, or no desire to be under his authority, or no interest in following Christ. “Counsel” is “advice that is concerned with moral and ethical decisions in life” (according to Allen Ross in A Commentary on The Psalms).
So what is “the counsel of the ungodly”? It is the advice, plans, wisdom and whole way of thinking of those who do not acknowledge the authority of God in their lives.
How does this counsel come to us? First, and most naturally, it comes to us person to person—someone in our lives who doesn’t acknowledge God tells us how we should think or talk, or what we should be doing. And here, we’re not talking about getting medical advice from a doctor, or advice on our car from a mechanic. We’re talking about life advice. Especially about the things affect the direction of our lives, and things that impact how we follow Jesus. People who don’t follow Jesus can be pretty quick to tell those of us who do how it should be done. Right?
“If you really cared about people, you would…”
“If you love God so much, why don’t you…”
“Unlike Christians, Jesus would be…”
It’s difficult enough when it’s face to face with people in your life, but today we have much more. We have the media (social and traditional), which has taken the thoughts of complete strangers, multiplied the number of people who may speak to us by the thousands, and then adopted an urgent, demanding stance—we must listen to them, all the time. Their concerns must dominate our lives. Their demands must dictate our actions. Their words must define our worlds. Their appraisals determine who we are.
And if we don’t listen? Mobbed. Sidelined. Cancelled.
Now, anytime the mob is big enough, there will, of course, be consequences for defying them. But Jesus told us not to worry about any of that. So fear is one thing we need to combat, but there is another danger for us right now in all of this, and it is this—we are in danger of thinking that, just because the voices are loud, or incessant, or powerful, we have to listen to them. Maybe I have to get on board. Maybe their concerns need to be my concerns. Maybe, if everyone says I’m a bad representative of Jesus, they’re right. And all the different media have become like a thick blanket of pressure always pressing down on our heads—the more we watch or listen or read, the more we feel the pressure, and if we’re not careful, it can become dominant.
Think about that for a second. I bet a lot of us know that feeling of pressure very well—the pressure to check in, to stay current, and then to lend our voice to the Voice of the Media itself. The more you look at it, the more you listen, the louder the voice in your own head becomes. But Psalm 1:1 invites us to come up for air. It invites us to consider the source. Who is speaking? Who is demanding my attention, or my allegiance? Here’s the test:
- Do they submit to the Lordship of Christ?
- Do they follow his teachings?
- Are they…Godly?
If the answer is no, then Psalm 1 says their voices can safely be ignored. God says it.
Think about the freedom the Word of God is offering us here. If they are not godly, we should not listen to them. They don’t know God. They don’t understand him. In fact, they are opposed to the rule of Christ, which means that they fundamentally misunderstand the world, and everything in it. Therefore, their counsel is unhelpful in any area that really matters. It may be prompted by a real situation. It may be a response to real pain, or anger at real injustice. It may even have some element of good intentions—a desire to help or try to fix the world. But it is not wise. It does not know what the real problems are, and it will not submit to the actual solution.
The problem is alienation from God and rebellion against Jesus.
The cause is sin.
The symptoms, my friends, are all the hate and injustice and inhumanity.
The solution, everywhere, always, to everything, is the same for everyone: Bow the knee to King Jesus; take his word as your command; be transformed by the Holy Spirit, and go live life free of sin. Think that won’t change things? Try it. When everyone does it, it’s called heaven. It would heal racial divides. It would heal systemic injustice. It would heal the gay community. Right? It would heal the war on the border of Russia and Ukraine and the trash-filled oceans and Kensington and every marriage and your anxiety…and everything else.
So…if a non-believer calls you out, here is a simple check to do: Are their observations, and is their advice, in line with the teachings of Christ and the rest of scripture? If it lines up, I may want to think about what they’re saying. If a friend calls me out for hating people, well, I should listen to him. But if they demand things that contradict the teachings of Christ, or place burdens on people Christ never would, or propose solutions that ignore Jesus, or act like they actually have the right to evaluate my service to Christ—that’s the counsel of the ungodly. We don’t have to listen to it.
We love them. But we don’t take their marching orders.
A Psalmist’s Guide to Processing Evil
Friends, here’s another guest post from Tony DeFranco. Please take some time with this. It might even be a great morning devotion meditation, with Psalm 37 open in front of you, a pencil in your hands, and a few minutes to talk to God about it all. Enjoy… –BW
I cannot think of a better word than exhausting to describe the last few months. How else would anyone describe scrolling through news feeds on several different apps followed by long sessions on social media – the platform where we watch iPhone videos of people being murdered and cities being burnt to the ground? All of this content is invested in us on our hour lunch break during work, while we wait in line somewhere, or maybe because we think that is the only way we can be informed about the world around us.
Yet, something is missing within this new way of life, with our phones in our hands. We “know” more, yet do less. After all, there is no time to act when there are more headlines to read, peoples’ opinions to scroll through, and hashtags to learn so we are relevant. None of that is proper action toward evil. So what’s missing? The ability to process. Think about it. If from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep I get hit with: someone being murdered (that one comes with a video filmed by a person walking by the scene), a tsunami leveling an entire people group, riots in my city, Coronavirus “on the rise,” and a new scandal that just broke from a major politician; can I actually process each and every one of those things? No way. Especially when the very next morning we are going to get a fresh set of headlines.
This leads me to a question I have been asking myself more and more lately: why do so many people feel the need to start social media accounts where they can comment on current events? They’re not news anchors, professors, writers, or anything that would be classified as a position that justifies such commentary. It think the answer is, it’s their version of processing.
The danger for us comes when we do not process things happening in our world for ourselves, but let the people with social media accounts do that work for us. I mean, after all, we are already on the platform getting the news, so why not see what 25 different people have to say about the issues right? In the most gracious way I can say it, I’d like to submit this thought—that is not the right way to process what we see happening around us. In fact, it’s dangerous and toxic. How we process will determine how we act. How then, does someone following Jesus process the onslaught of evil we see growing around us? Through the lens of the Bible.
We need to see the world the way God’s Word defines the world.
One of the most life-giving things I have done in light of the growing list of bad headlines is process each heartbreaking narrative through the Psalms. It is from that mindset and posture that I become empowered to act in a way that pleases God. Psalm 37 in particular has been one I continually revisit to gain grounding and definition in the midst of the chaos and confusion we live in daily. I’d like to offer what is within that Psalm to you as something we need to meditate on and let sink in so that all of our action toward evil and wickedness in the world comes from a place of Biblical security and peace. I encourage you to read Psalm 37 on your own, and often.
1. THE REALITY (What is actually true no matter what I see)
“Wicked Man,” and “Evildoers”
- fade like the grass v.2
- wither like the green herb v.2
- will be cut off v.9
- will be no more v.10
- his day comes v.13
- their own weapons will be there end v.15
- their arms will be broken v.17
- will perish v.20
- cursed by God v.22
- cut off vv.22, 28, 34, 38
- they cease to be known v.36
- altogether destroyed v.38
- they have no future v.38
“The Righteous”
- inherit the land v.9, 11, 22, 29
- upheld by the Lord v.17, 39
- known by the Lord v.18
- preserved forever v.18, 24, 28, 29
- protected from shame v.19
- provided for in famine v.19
- not forsaken v.28
- not abandoned to the wicked v.33
- counted innocent v.33
- has a future v.37
- saved v.39
- delivered v.40
Key Insight:
Believing these things enables us
to act in the most beneficial and God honoring way
toward any given situation.
2. OUR RESPONSE (What can actually come out of me, no matter how I feel)
If we believe the reality defined above, we will respond differently than people who do not follow Jesus
- We do not get worked up over evil and angry at the ones causing it(vv. 1-2, 7b-8)
- We process evil with our preservation in God at the forefront of our minds(vv. 3-7a, 8a, 21-22, 27, 30, 34)
- From there we can take action and know we are honoring God, because we believe His definition of every situation
3. THE BIBLE’S GUARANTEE (Why we can fully trust that this reality is true)
There is no doubt that we can trust God’s reality, the Psalmist tells us what we are experiencing in 2020 is nothing new, and that evil never lasts.
Concerning the “wicked man”:
I have seen a wicked, ruthless man, spreading himself like a free laurel tree. But he passed away, and behold he was no more; though I sought him he could not be found. (vv. 35-36)
Concerning the “righteous”
I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. (v. 25)
Please hear me out: these things are true.
Evil cannot, will not, does not prevail.
Perpetrators of such things cannot, will not, do not prevail.
God sees where we are at; He is not surprised.
He has seen it before, and He has big plans to bring it all to an end.
It is from that reality that we need to be taking action toward the things we see around us that are evil, not the reality of CNN, Fox News, Facebook, or someone on YouTube.
The reality described to us in the Bible should be our guide, it is within those pages that we must process evil. We can be assured that if we do that God will move through us to have His will done on earth as it is in heaven.
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