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

by Scott Sauls

In the painting lauded as his first masterpiece, Judas Returning Thirty Pieces of Silver, Rembrandt painted his own face as the face of Judas, the betrayer.

Jesus’ restraint here, marked by his refusal to expose or humiliate his soon-to-be betrayer, is Jesus’ final act of courtesy and love toward

Jesus did not want to shatter Judas; he wanted to melt him.

the word woe is not typically a term of scolding and contempt, but rather is a term compelled by compassion, sadness, longing, and loss.

popular opinion. We, too, protect ourselves

In our modern context, a growing number of people who identify as Christian can, like Peter, allow themselves to become disciples of popular opinion as opposed to living as cross-bearing, countercultural disciples of Jesus.

“The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.”2

It is never our repentance that causes God to be kind to us. It is only God’s kindness that causes us to repent

In his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says that Christians are a light to the world only to the degree that they stand out as different from the world. The world does not thirst for a religious imitation of its often-outraged self. Instead, the world thirsts for a different kind of neighbor, the kind that embodies in a most life-giving, countercultural fashion the following “Peace Prayer” from Saint Francis. May we learn not only to recite these words but to live them. Because gentle talk, if not accompanied by a gentle walk, will get us nowhere. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love. Where there is offense, let me bring pardon. Where there is discord, let me bring union. Where there is error, let me bring truth. Where there is doubt, let me bring faith. Where there is despair, let me bring hope. Where there is darkness, let me bring your light. Where there is sadness, let me bring joy. O Master, let me not seek as much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, for it is in giving that one receives, it is in self-forgetting that one finds, it is in pardoning that one is pardoned, it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.