Daily Innovation, Ministry Insights, and Thoughts from Todd Rhoades for Pastors and Church Leaders
If I Could Teach Christian People One Thing in Life, It Would Be This…
John Lehmberg replied to a recent post here at MMI; and I thought his response deserved a post of its own. The topic: how Christians are portrayed in the media; and how we as believers react to it. John writes, "As much as I hate to say it, I think the media’s bias against us is deserved because of the way we treat the unbelieving world. The media’s reaction toward us reflects the disparity between the teachings of Jesus and the way we treat an unbelieving culture. Unfortunately, high profile Christians who have the media’s ear say unbelievably judgmental and critical things to a culture that are not God-fearing nor do they worship Jesus. When you have these Christian men in our world who publicly critique the sexual preferences of a fictitious cartoon characters, talk about God taking out public officials in other countries because of their lack of God in their life, and then add to that the publicly fallen pastors along the way…. No wonder the media paints us unfavorably, when high profile men (who wind up representing us in some way, shape or form) make the rest of us look critical..."
John continues…
If ever someone had opportunity to judge a person, Jesus did with the woman who was about to be stoned. She was guilty of this sin, having literally been pulled out of inappropriate sexual relationship…. And yet Jesus still had no critical words for her. If ever someone had the right to judge a person, this was the moment, and Jesus still chose not to.
Yet the message of many Christian men and women in the media limelight choose to judge our unbelieving world by Christian moral standards, when the teachings of Jesus are to love those people. What right do we have to impose the morality of Jesus on people who don’t know him???
If I could teach Christian people one thing in life it would be this….
Expect unbelieving people to do unbelieving kinds of things.
The only reason for people to behave morally in our world, when it comes down to it, is because of Jesus inside them. Absent of Jesus, people will continue to sin.
It’s high time that we begin to expect these kinds of things from folks who don’t know Jesus and follow their sinful nature. They don’t know any better because Jesus is not in them. I would hope that seeing unbelieving people in this plight where they are living by their flesh would begin to well up in us compassion for those people, and love, instead of judgment and critique from us.
I think that if our world began to demonstrate compassion and love for those folks, they might actually want to return to Church, where they could find the love of Jesus….
“But God showed his GREAT LOVE for us by sending Christ to die for us WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS.”
Your comments?
This post has been viewed 359 times and was added on February 07, 2007 by Todd Rhoades. Filed under: Leadership Issues Leadership Development Share this post with a friend right now! View reactions to this post at other blogs... You can really help us out by subscribing to our free RSS feed with your favorite feed reader, or here at Bloglines. Also, you can add us to your favorites at Technorati.
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My name is Todd Rhoades, the 'behind the scenes' guy here at MMI. I'm also on the team at Leadership Network (although that doesn't mean that they endorse everything I write here). In my past life, I was the developer of a of a website called ChurchStaffing.com. I hope you'll enjoy your time here and tell all your colleagues about MMI! 
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Posted by Matthew Tilley
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 at 8:57 AM
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Thursday, February 08, 2007 at 12:13 PM
Post Your Comments:ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!
I recently did a series on my blog along these same lines, called “Can you love like that” ( http://mjtilley.wordpress.com/2007/01/25/can-you-love-like-that/). Easy to say, so hard to do.
Expect Believing people to do unbelievable things more often than you ever thought.
First let me say that I agree with most of what John is saying. When we allow other men to be our spokesman, they will often disappoint us with their actions and words. But I will disagree with John’s use of the woman caught in adultery. “And yet Jesus still had no critical words for her. “ Iwould suggest just the opposite. Jesus told her she was sinning. He said to go and SIN no more. He did not tellher she must have had a difficult childhoood, that there were better ways to live her life, or that she was wrongly accused. There was no justification because the man was not brought also, but He said she was sinning and should not sin any longer. At some point we must tell others about sin. Without that there is no reason to have a relationship with God. We must begin to show the compassion and love of Christ, but that compassion and love died for my sin. Showing compasion andlove without sin is just being a nice guy. Preaching sin without compasion and love is just being judgmental.
One other thing to consider is that the media know which Christian “leaders” will say controversial things. They go to these people for quotes because they know it will stir controversy and that will help their ratings. Some media folks hate Biblical Christianity and will go to lengths to make it look hateful. So while we need to be concerned about how we are presented and do the best we can to live out the gospel authentically and with love, we can also expect that a lot of people will hate us especially a media culture to which the gospel message is the anithesis of in many ways.
Sheeeeeesh Lehmberg!
That Atlanta sun must be making you think crazy stuff…
you rock man.
Yes we need a new word to call ourselves to distance from condemning and ruthless folks.
It’s one thing to say “Neither do I condemn you. Go and don’t sin anymore” and another to say “You heinous sinner, you are not welcome in my church!” That second statement is the message too many of us are sending.
I appreciate John’s words. Made me remember the context of a sermon I either heard or read where the speaker/writer said we too often get caught up in this Right vs. Wrong mentality when we should be focusing on Found vs. Lost. True, unbelievers may be “wrong” in whatever, but that is merely a surface sympton --- the root is the fact they’re lost.
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