Neglect
“Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You give a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, yet you neglect what is more important in the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness! You should have done these things without neglecting the others. Blind guides! You strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel!” (Matthew 23:23-24)
We understand well how the truth of God in Christ through the Spirit involves the witness of God regarding Himself and His people in the Scriptures. We recognize the importance of insisting on the “whole counsel of God” (cf. Acts 20:27). We seek to discern this whole counsel of God by means of the substance of what has been revealed.
Yet even within this “whole counsel” God has established certain matters upon which He expected His people to emphasize, focus, and prioritize. Likewise, the people of God themselves will be tempted to emphasize, focus upon, and prioritize various aspects and elements of this “whole counsel” for all kinds of socio-cultural reasons.
And whenever something is emphasized, focused upon, or prioritized, by necessity, something else is comparably de-emphasized, neglect and/or suppress. Just as we can learn a lot about ourselves based on what we choose to emphasize, focus upon, and prioritize, we can also learn much based on what we choose to de-emphasize, suppress, and/or neglect.
Even if God had not made specific provision regarding emphasis in the witness of Scripture, human limitation and nature would thus testify. We would like to imagine we can uphold all kinds of things appropriately and equally, but such is a deception and a fool’s errand. As finite creatures we can focus on and understand only so much. “Focus” represents the perfect concept for illustrating the premise: we frequently find ourselves using our senses to focus on certain objects or priorities; by necessity, by focusing on some things, we are not focusing on the other things. We cannot keep everything in mind equally at all times; we will emphasize some things and comparatively neglect other things.
Neglect involves not providing sufficient or appropriate attention to a given matter. For our purposes we do well to understand neglect in terms of one of two aspects: benign neglect and malign neglect. Both of these dimensions can be well discerned from Jesus’ condemnation of the lawyers and Pharisees in Matthew 23:23-24.
In Matthew 23:23-24 Jesus provided all the evidence for emphasis which we might need: under the Law of Moses there were “more important” things like justice, mercy, and faithfulness; since they are more important, the Pharisees should have emphasized, focused upon, and prioritized them. If there are “more important” things, that also means there are “less important” things: as an example, Jesus spoke of giving a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin. We can describe the tithing of spices as something which Israelites under the Law should have regarded with “benign neglect”: a matter which was of lesser importance and upon which little emphasis or weight should be given.
“Benign neglect” should never be understood as meaning “ignoring” or not performing: Jesus told the Pharisees they did well in not neglecting to tithe the mint, dill, and cumin. Understanding matters of emphasis, focus, and priority is not a pretext for commending disobedience or faithlessness in minor matters.
Thus we focus on the “benign” nature of the “neglect”: gentle or kindly, not causing difficulty or a problem. There are many matters in the faith we do well to uphold but not emphasize; what value is there in straining a gnat? Thus there are “minor” things which should stay “minor”; not only are we not in the wrong to keep them as minor, we would in fact transgress God’s purposes in Christ through the Spirit if we put stronger weight on them!
Unfortunately, many issues which we should treat with “benign neglect” have become hot-button issues upon which many place great emphasis, and criticism of that emphasis is rarely received gently and kindly. Many of our disputations and even some of our “distinctives” prove much more akin to tithing mint, dill, and cumin than they do to justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Our conversation regarding many of these matters proves full of bombastic rhetoric which provides more heat than light. We do well to repent of such misplaced emphasis and restore Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return as our primary emphasis as His servants.
Yet Jesus was not charging the lawyers and Pharisees with benign neglect: He upbraided them for neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness in Matthew 23:23-24, thus “swallowing the camel.” Such represents an example of “malign” neglect: neglect which leads to harm.
Malign neglect proves multifaceted. Some malign neglect derives from outright denial or rejection of some aspect of what God has made known in Christ through the Spirit. Most of the Pharisees, for instance, rejected Jesus as the Messiah of God; thus they worked to suppress the proclamation of Jesus as Messiah and actively worked against His purposes (e.g. Matthew 12:22-37). Such represents the extreme danger which comes from calling good evil and evil good (cf. Isaiah 5:20): one can thus delude oneself into thinking one is following God’s purposes when he or she is in fact rejecting them and leaving the work of God in Christ left undone.
Yet the most pernicious and sadly widespread forms of malign neglect rarely involve outright denial or rejection of some aspect of what God has made known in Christ through the Spirit. Instead, the truth of God is always maintained in pretense; yet the camel is swallowed by ignoring or suppressing certain aspects of God’s truth. And this is not behavior of the Gentiles; it happens frequently among the people of God!
How could the people of God actively ignore or suppress aspects of God’s truth and yet feel justified and righteous? Consider the lawyers and Pharisees which Jesus condemned in Matthew 23:23-24. They were active, devoted students of Torah and sought to manifest holiness. Yet in their punctilious concerns about aspects of purity and holiness, they alienated themselves from the people whom God wanted them to encourage and serve. In their arrogance they considered themselves as more holy and righteous than the common people. Ultimately they proved more loyal to their ideology and standing than to God, His people, or His truth (cf. John 11:47-48).
Christians today remain tempted in the same ways as the lawyers and Pharisees of old.
Christians can become overly dedicated to punctilious concerns about aspects of the faith regarding which they should really consider with “benign neglect.” In so doing they define holiness and righteousness in terms of holding to certain ideas and behaviors and emphasize them strongly. Other ideas and behaviors, however, do not receive the same emphasis. Such is how Christians can deceive themselves into thinking someone is justified if they wear the right clothes and show up during the times of assembly and maintain that definition above and beyond everything else.
Likewise, Christians are tempted toward tribal associations and connections. Loyalty within the tribe and matters of what God has made known in Christ through the Spirit will come into conflict at times, and all too often, the truth is ignored or suppressed in order to maintain tribal loyalty. Such is how Christians might strongly condemn other Christians who believe they can give funds from the church treasury to human institutions or use instrumental music in the assembly but refrain from condemning fellow Christians who uphold white supremacy and/or exhibit xenophobic behaviors.
Tribal associations and connections also tend to define what Christians are tempted to comparatively emphasize or neglect. We see this exemplified vividly in terms of sexual immorality and in terms of women and childbearing. One tribal association is strongly tempted to emphasize the humanity of the baby to the neglect of the humanity of the mother, and another association is tempted to emphasize the humanity of the mother to the neglect of the humanity of the baby. One tribal association strongly condemns same sex sexual behavior but comparatively neglects condemnation of sexual harassment and abuse, often to the point of suppressing any work which would attempt to bring justice for those who have suffered sexual abuse. Another tribal association will make much of condemning sexual harassment and abuse but strongly resist, and often actively suppress, any condemnation of same sex sexual behaviors. It always seems easier to want to ignore, neglect, and suppress any aspect of the truth of the witness of God in Christ through the Spirit which seems to give more succor to those whom one views as one’s ideological opponents than to one’s own views.
Matters of emphasis and neglect, therefore, provide no “safe spaces”: they are matters of significant consequence. Woe to us if we emphasize what God would have us treat with comparatively benign neglect, and if we malignantly neglect that which God would rather have us emphasize! So much of what we emphasize and neglect reveal to us and to others our hearts, our fears, and our anxieties. May we seek to dedicate ourselves to the truth of God in Christ through the Spirit no matter what, and may we emphasize that which God has emphasized in Christ, and treat with comparatively benign neglect that which is true but remains of lesser importance, and be found rightly handling the word of truth on the day of judgment!
Ethan R. Longhenry
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