A Gentle Answer: Our 'Secret Weapon' in an Age of Us Against Them

by Scott Sauls

If you reverse the order of these two sentences, if you say, “Leave your sin” before you will consider saying, “Neither do I condemn you,” then you have ceased to speak the language of Christ, and you have ceased to reflect the heart of

He does what the theologians call putting the indicatives (statements about who we are by virtue of whose we are in Christ) before the imperatives (statements about what we must become, and how we must now live, in light of who and whose we are).

Jesus invites us to come to him as we are—“Zacchaeus! Come down from that tree. I’m coming to your house today!”—but this must never be mistaken for an invitation to stay as we are.

When Jesus comes to our house, he doesn’t do so merely to take our side. He does so in order to take over.

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the Great Commission was to make our own joy complete. Yet, curiously, there is currently a glaring exception to the evangelistic impulse that we will want to tell others about the things that bring our lives the most meaning.

uncomfortable, but that it is actually wrong. According to the report, 97 percent of Christians across four generations—millennials, Generation X, baby boomers, and elders—agree with the statement, “The best thing that could ever happen to someone is for them to come to know Jesus.”

47 percent of millennials, plus smaller but still significant percentages from the other three generations, agree that “It is wrong to share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith.”2

lately, she has become “horrified and embarrassed” about American Christianity in particular, which she believes promotes nationalism, political agendas that damage and overlook those who are poor and sick and vulnerable, and political leaders whose personal lives are filled with dishonesty, greed, predation, and misogyny.

Ask the average skeptic, agnostic, or atheist what they think Christianity stands for, and she will likely respond by saying that Christianity is about being right, acting superior in your rightness, and injuring people with your rightness.

Leader: What right do we have to dine at the Table of Jesus? Family: We have every right to dine at his Table. Leader: What gives us this right? Family: We have this right because Jesus came not for the strong, but for the weak; not for the righteous, but for sinners; not for the self-sufficient, but for those who know they need rescue. To all who are weary and need rest; to all who mourn and long for comfort; to all who feel worthless and wonder if God even cares; to all who are weak and frail and desire strength; to all who sin and need a Savior—Jesus welcomes into his circle, adopts into his family, and reserves a place at his Table. For he is the mighty friend of sinners, the ally of his enemies, the defender of the indefensible, and the justifier of those who have no excuses left.7

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Why is the world’s experience of Christians so different than Christians’ experience of Christ? Why aren’t God’s people reflecting his gentleness, truth, and love? This

the scribes were responsible for interpreting scripture,

Pharisees were responsible for building a code of ethics based upon those interpretations.

Rather than letting themselves be handled by the Word of God, they presumed themselves to be handlers of the Word of God. Rather than standing beneath the Word of God, they started using the Word of God as a tool with which to exalt themselves over other people . . . and even over God himself.

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if I find myself starting to enjoy the sound of my own name more than the sound of Jesus’ name, I know that I have gotten off-center.

Some condemn Pharisees in order to keep their distance from biblical truths and commands that make them uncomfortable.

We must be careful not to reject something true and good, the teachings of Scripture, in an effort to get rid of something dirty that needs to be removed—the self-serving, erroneous ways of the Pharisees.

If we are not careful, we risk swinging the pendulum from loveless or conservative pride to lawless or liberal pride.

there are forms of liberalism that can become a breeding ground for entitlement, resentment, separation, tribalizing, echo chambers, and scorn.

“We progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table—er, so long as they aren’t conservatives. Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We’re fine with people who don’t look like us, as long as they think like us . . . [This illuminates] liberal arrogance—the implication that conservatives don’t have anything significant to add to the discussion. My [liberal followers] have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination . . . So it’s easier to find a Marxist in some [academic] disciplines than a Republican . . . The discrimination becomes worse if [someone is] an evangelical Christian.”

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The sociologist George Yancy, who is both black and an evangelical, agreed, observing, “Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black. But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close.”

in our passionate zeal against the spirit of the unloving Pharisee, that we do not become unloving Pharisees ourselves—a

Your ranting against the unloving Pharisee in your midst confirms that you, Scott, are an unloving Pharisee toward those you deem unloving Pharisees.”

“Is Jesus asking me to choose between her and him?”

God’s preferred way to make his presence known on earth—not chiefly through movers, shakers, and A-listers, but rather through outcasts, losers, those of ill repute, and those who were held in low esteem.

Have you ever met a person who says they fell in love with Jesus because a religious person or group of religious people scolded them for their morals, their ethics, and their lifestyle choices?

Jesus didn’t share or abide by any of the socially exclusive ism’s to which we are often bound. What’s more, he would have been excluded by most such measures. Those of us who measure a person’s worth by dollars instead of dignity would do well to remember that Jesus couldn’t afford a place to live (Matt. 8:20). Those of us who measure a person’s potential by where she went to college should note that Jesus didn’t go to college or to school at all (John 7:15). Those of us who measure a person’s significance by their line of work ought to recall that Jesus worked with his hands (Mark 6:3). Those of us who measure a person’s beauty by his external appearance should observe that Jesus was average looking at best, if not outright unattractive (Isa. 53:2). Those of us who determine whether or not we want to befriend a person on the basis of his popularity or the types of associations that he keeps should remember that Jesus was a man of no reputation, even his own people did not receive him, and he was chiefly seen as a friend to sinners (John 1:11; Matt. 11:16–19). And those of us who measure a person’s desirability by his marital and familial status ought not forget that Jesus had no wife and no children.

Yet what was Nathanael told instead? That a no-name from Nazareth—the

Jesus’ treatment of Nathanael affirms two things about Jesus, the gentle Savior: he sees both the best and the worst in us, and he loves us just the same.

If we want to follow Jesus, we’ll need to adjust our expectations for the life he gives us.

when defined by a modern Western point of view, our understanding of the phrase can potentially stand in opposition with Jesus’ own vision for the good life.

We believe that being happy is the equivalent of being successful, comfortable, and in control of our lives.

The happy people will be those who are persecuted, slandered, sucker-punched, excluded, and bullied because of their connection with Jesus Christ.

as our brothers and sisters across the globe expect and experience violence, oppression, and death, we in the West get our feelings hurt, withdraw from people relationally, and even become hostile when someone mildly criticizes us for our faith.

and for the relatively safe world in which we live. However, the contrast between the depths of life-threatening persecution and the shallows of social media criticism should provide us with needed biblical perspective.

Today, more than 75 percent of the world’s population lives in societies that impose severe religious restrictions. Christians in more than sixty countries experience persecution from their governments and their neighbors. Each month 322 Christians are killed, 214 churches and Christian properties are destroyed, and 772 forms of violence such as forced marriages, rape, beatings, and arrest are perpetrated globally against believers in Christ.5

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human rights activist Elie Wiesel said in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, “Whenever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.”

Christlike gentleness and prophetic strength do not cancel each other out; rather, they complete each other.

“discipleship means allegiance to the suffering of Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called upon to suffer. In fact, it is a joy and token of his grace.”9

Being persecuted is not the same as being criticized, disliked, or overlooked because of our own judgmental and offensive postures toward our nonbelieving neighbors and the world. If our

She is what some would call a comprehensively pro-life activist and advocate who champions the cause of the vulnerable unborn as well as the vulnerable born—“from womb to tomb.”

It became clear to Ann, as it will for every Christian openly committed to mercy and justice for all, that she was too conservative for her liberal readers and too liberal for her conservative readers. She

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being opposed, criticized, or mistreated because of our “message and works” is foreign to our experience as Christians, it is wise to ask ourselves who (or what) is truly shaping and discipling us. What grips us, and what do we hold out as hope to others? Is it a political party? Is it a cable news channel? Is it a desire for public stature and reputation? Is it fear of rejection, loss of friendship, or loss of a job? Is it a friend group or an ideological echo chamber? Is it the shifting values, ethics, and dogma of the culture in which we live? Or are we being discipled, in the totality of our views, by Scripture and Jesus Christ alone?

If we identify as Christian but experience little criticism or opposition for our faith, a gut check is likely in order. Are we going along to get along? Somewhere along the way, we may have wrongly mistaken “being nice”—a popular strategy for avoiding social awkwardness or rejection—for the biblical fruit of gentleness. But as Anglican minister and writer John Stott has said, “We shouldn’t be surprised [and concerned] if anti-Christian hostility increases, but rather be surprised [and concerned] if it does not.”

Even if the world treats us as nobodies because of our friendship with Christ, we can be certain that we’ve been warmly welcomed by and embraced into an eternally rejoicing and replenishing society, which is far greater than any other society this world may offer.

In a mysterious way, our enjoyment of heaven will be that much sweeter to us, not in spite of the fact that we suffered, but because of the fact that we suffered.

This future hope to which Jesus directs us is just one of the reasons why we can endure hardship, criticism, and persecution.

Christ chose to turn God’s justifiable wrath away from us by absorbing that very wrath himself through substitution, sacrifice, and forgiveness.

Another person who experienced public criticism from Falwell was Larry Flynt, founder and publisher of Hustler, a pornographic magazine known for its disturbingly graphic images of naked women. Beginning in the early 1970s, a public war of words ensued between the two men. According to Flynt, “Falwell was blasting me every chance he had. He would talk about how I was a slime dealer responsible for the decay of all morals. He called me every terrible name he could think of—names as bad, in my opinion, as any language used in my magazine.”19 After several years trading insults with each other, Flynt ran an ad in Hustler mocking Falwell and parodying the minister describing his first time having sexual intercourse. In the parody, the made-up version of Falwell lost his virginity with his mother while both were drunk and in an outhouse. Feeling hurt and smeared by the parody, Falwell filed a libel suit against Flynt in federal court, beginning a five-year battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court. To both men’s surprise, Flynt and Hustler won the case. Offended by the outcome, Falwell publicly criticized the decision and referred to Flynt as a “sleaze merchant.” But ten years later, the relationship between the minister and the pornographer took a different turn. Being high-profile, public enemies made them perfect ratings material for talk shows, and the two men were invited to continue sparring with one another in front of eight million viewers on Larry King Live. Ac...