Modern Day Pharisees

[GaryK]

Fed up? Is Jesus "fed up" with sinners? Doesn't "fed up" make it mostly about our feelings about them? Does Jesus encourage his followers to be "fed up" with the world? Grieving is appropriate and biblical, I think, but it's a different thing.

I'll just be very frank with you Boot. This is the kind of stuff that makes it very difficult to get anywhere in a conversation with you. To imply that my usage of the term "fed up" with ideologies is the same thing as being fed up with sinners is beyond the pale and wrong. Please take back that insinuation.

[Soloist]

The "brood of vipers" is, of course, the Pharisees and Sadducees. Jesus did not talk this way about the people that the Pharisees and Sadducees condemned. That's striking.

And "all Cretans are liars" is about the people insisting on circumcision, people who claim to know God, who are teaching the "Jewish myths" and "merely human commands of those who reject the truth". I agree that this is an example of very harsh language. It's not aimed at Gentile believers, it is aimed at those who insist they should follow Jewish religious practices.

So it’s not appropriate to talk about worldly sinners this way but it’s perfectly okay to talk to religious sinners this way? Is that what your argument is?

[Sudsy]

“Depersonalising people”? What do you call calling someone a “brood of vipers”, much less “all Cretans are liars”?

Someone without sin. Jesus. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

Those who are primarily into casting stones are not advancing the Kingdom of God. Their churches are not growing with new converts from unchurched backgrounds. They seem to be lacking a compassionate concern for the lost.

[Bootstrap]

The "brood of vipers" is, of course, the Pharisees and Sadducees. Jesus did not talk this way about the people that the Pharisees and Sadducees condemned. That's striking.

And "all Cretans are liars" is about the people insisting on circumcision, people who claim to know God, who are teaching the "Jewish myths" and "merely human commands of those who reject the truth". I agree that this is an example of very harsh language. It's not aimed at Gentile believers, it is aimed at those who insist they should follow Jewish religious practices.

So it’s not appropriate to talk about worldly sinners this way but it’s perfectly okay to talk to religious sinners this way? Is that what your argument is?

I was simply taking the two quotes that Josh gave and providing the original biblical context for those examples.

I'm not sure that I know when it is appropriate and when it is not. I suspect a lot of this has to do with jurisdiction. Jesus had jurisdiction to speak to the Pharisees. Paul had jurisdiction to speak to these sins in the church for which he had pastoral authority.

And I think that's related to this question: what is the sin of gossip, which the Bible calls out as an important sin? If we are talking at length about the sins of other people we don't even know, with vivid language, and getting "likes" from others who chime in, I suspect that looks a lot more like gossip than like what Jesus and Paul were doing.

[ken_sylvania]

Did Jesus have more jurisdiction to speak to the Pharisees and Sadducees than to speak to the publicans and adulterers? Did He have more jurisdiction over the Syrophoenician woman than over the woman at the well of Sychar?

I may be wrong, but I think the distinction in how he spoke to people correlates more with their attitude toward their sin than it does with whether they were Pharisees or not. Although Jesus had some very cutting words to use even with regard to seemingly repentant people.

[Soloist]

I think that self reflection is a better plan then making general comments directed at unnamed people who most of us know who is being referenced anyway.
Either way, a Matthew 18 model would be better then snide comments.
Have you tried addressing who you think is in sin?

[Bootstrap]

I'll just be very frank with you Boot. This is the kind of stuff that makes it very difficult to get anywhere in a conversation with you. To imply that my usage of the term "fed up" with ideologies is the same thing as being fed up with sinners is beyond the pale and wrong. Please take back that insinuation.

Gary, I did not mean to imply that you, personally, are fed up with sinners and unwilling to treat them with honor. I am sorry that this felt that way to you.

Perhaps it would be helpful to clarify what I meant by what I said?

Here's what you said:

I have not detected that people on MN talk about sinners and current issues and use dramatic language in order to lift themselves up. I think it's possible to have other reasons for using dramatic language that are not Pharisaical in nature. My sense is that a lot of the dramatic language being used on MN has more of a connection to the way certain sinful ideologies are really being promoted in society right now and some people are simply fed up with it and are out to expose it.

I really don't think that's holiness in action.

I don't think Jesus calls us to be "fed up" with either sinners, ideologies, or the world. "Fed up" is about my negative feelings. Jesus doesn't call us to be "fed up", he calls us to be holy. I don't see these threads focusing on how we, as Christians, should relate to the sinful world around us, how we can be the City on a Hill, salt and light. I don't see these threads focusing on how we explain the biblical world view or studying what exactly it is.

And I think it's really helpful to ask what exactly words like fed up and expose mean and how they relate to things that Jesus is actually calling us to. Those are words you regularly see in viral political talking heads. They aren't words I see in the mouth of Jesus. I don't think these words describe what Christians should be mostly about.

I think some of those posts really do target specific people quite personally, by name, people who are not here to defend themselves, with broad accusations that may or may not be true. In fact, some of them turn out to be clearly untrue, but the memory lingers on. And these are often people who are also being targeted in social media. That kind of social media can promise to "expose", with broad emotion, and I think it has a certain prurient appeal, which is why it goes viral. And I suspect that some of the same content that goes viral in worldly social media is viral here for the same reasons. We are, after all, human, and subject to the same temptations as others.

That's the context in which I said this:

Expose it? Is sin so well hidden in America that we need to expose it? And do we have the inside scoop on the sins of people we have only heard of third hand? Is it news to everyone that LGBTQ is an issue in the United States so that we have to remind ourselves regularly? Aren't there other sins, often among our own churches, that are much better hidden? Do we want to start "exposing" THOSE sins here? Would we do that with the same vigor that we use to "expose" sins of strangers we have never met?

When Jesus and the prophets exposed sin, whose sin did they focus on?

Fed up? Is Jesus "fed up" with sinners? Doesn't "fed up" make it mostly about our feelings about them? Does Jesus encourage his followers to be "fed up" with the world? Grieving is appropriate and biblical, I think, but it's a different thing.

I think we see Jesus and Paul primarily telling people how to seek first the Kingdom of God. They don't dwell on pointing out the sins of others. There was PLENTY of sin to point out. Emperor worship. Pagan gods. And the pagans were running the country. Plenty of sexual abominations back then, too. And yet, we don't see Jesus speaking that way. When Paul addresses sexual sin, he uses far less dramatic language than I see here, and he is never depersonalizing people.

What I don't see much of is:

1. Asking how we, as strangers and aliens in this world, live our lives in holiness and love.
2. Asking how we explain Jesus to a world that is far from him, and how we reach out to people.
3. Asking how we explain the biblical view of things like sexuality to those who do not understand.
4. Asking how we make sure that we show the same love and compassion for others that Jesus did when we reach out to sinners.
5. Asking how we can invite God to show us our own sins and to make us holy.

Those questions aren't the ones we talk about here. But I think they are some of the central questions for Christians who seek first the Kingdom of God.

[GaryK]

I'll just be very frank with you Boot. This is the kind of stuff that makes it very difficult to get anywhere in a conversation with you. To imply that my usage of the term "fed up" with ideologies is the same thing as being fed up with sinners is beyond the pale and wrong. Please take back that insinuation.

Gary, I did not mean to imply that you, personally, are fed up with sinners and unwilling to treat them with honor. I am sorry that this felt that way to you.

I didn't take it that you were implying that about me.

Here is the sentence in which I used those phrases.

My sense is that a lot of the dramatic language being used on MN has more of a connection to the way certain sinful ideologies are really being promoted in society right now and some people are simply fed up with it and are out to expose it.

Why did you make my statement about sinners rather than the sinful ideologies I mentioned?

[Bootstrap]

I didn't take it that you were implying that about me.

Good. I wasn't.

Why did you make my statement about sinners rather than the sinful ideologies I mentioned?

I think I said that fairly clearly here:

I don't think Jesus calls us to be "fed up" with either sinners, ideologies, or the world. "Fed up" is about my negative feelings. Jesus doesn't call us to be "fed up", he calls us to be holy. I don't see these threads focusing on how we, as Christians, should relate to the sinful world around us, how we can be the City on a Hill, salt and light. I don't see these threads focusing on how we explain the biblical world view or studying what exactly it is.

And I think it's really helpful to ask what exactly words like fed up and expose mean and how they relate to things that Jesus is actually calling us to. Those are words you regularly see in viral political talking heads. They aren't words I see in the mouth of Jesus. I don't think these words describe what Christians should be mostly about.

I think some of those posts really do target specific people quite personally, by name, people who are not here to defend themselves, with broad accusations that may or may not be true. In fact, some of them turn out to be clearly untrue, but the memory lingers on. And these are often people who are also being targeted in social media. That kind of social media can promise to "expose", with broad emotion, and I think it has a certain prurient appeal, which is why it goes viral. And I suspect that some of the same content that goes viral in worldly social media is viral here for the same reasons. We are, after all, human, and subject to the same temptations as others.

You may feel that people are always talking just about ideologies. I don't.

And even when we are talking about sinful ideologies, how should we do that, as Christians who want to follow the example of Jesus? How is that different from the kind of thing that goes viral among worldly people on social media?

[Szdfan]

I’d like to hear specifics about what people here are doing in real life to expose sinful ideologies. What does it mean to expose these things?