Responding to "15 Things Jesus Didn’t Say"

An article has been floating around facebook the last couple days called “15 Things Jesus Didn’t Say” and I wanted to make some comments on it. I have two general comments and then I wanted to address each of those 15 things specifically.

My first general point I want to discuss is the format of the article. It’s catchy, hip, and leaving itself wide open to misinterpretation and confusion. I’m sure it was easy to write and it’s the kind of thing that gets you a lot of casual glances and “likes” but I found it to be lazy, at times confusing, and a bit insulting to scripture. If you want to talk about Jesus, talk about Jesus and what did and said. Don’t make up a bunch of things he didn’t say, and then imply that he would agree with your diametrically opposed position because he didn’t say those stereotyped, straw man arguments when very likely the truth isn’t at either extreme end of the spectrum. In general it’s just so unclear that I had to make up my own conclusions about what he was trying to say.

My second general point is on the whole idea of “Red Letters” (Oh how I miss thee DC Talk). I believe the words of Jesus are incredibly important, some of the most important in human history, but I do not believe they should be exalted above the rest of scripture. The basis of the article seems to be that since Jesus didn’t say something it isn’t true or important, but what about the rest of scripture? Maybe the author didn’t mean to imply that Christ’s words are more important than the rest of scripture but I think it happened anyway. The Bible tells us that ALL Scripture is God-breathed, not just Jesus’ words. So while I might love reading his words and find fulfillment from them, they are no more authoritative for our lives today then the commands found elsewhere in scripture (obviously excluding the ceremonial law of the OT which is fulfilled in Christ, though I would point that that does not make the ceremonial law valueless, only no longer binding, we can still learn from it and be reminded of Christ’s life and death by it).

So now let’s look at these things Jesus didn’t say, I'll put his statements in red and my responses in black…

“For God was so disgusted with the world and you that he gave his one and only Son.”

God loves the world. I don’t know a church that doesn’t believe this deeply. God IS however disgusted by sin, as he is holy and by definition cannot be party to or part of it. Evil is repellent to God, and as fallen beings we therefore need to be made clean. Praise God for the atoning work of his son in this. If we are in no way shape or form abhorrent to God, then why do we need the Jesus whose words the author is implying are so important?

“I have come to bring you a new religion.”

I have yet to figure out the hatred a lot of people have for the term religion. Maybe in their minds it has come to mean hypocrisy, empty platitudes, or a way of making yourself feel better. But that’s not reality, and if we’re going to have the “religion” conversation we really should use the dictionary definition, in which a religion is an organized way of relating to God. In which case…. Ummm, yeah he actually did. He took us out of the law-covenant of the OT into his death/resurrection based covenant of the NT, which by definition seems to me to be a new way of relating to God.

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have correct theology.”

I get this one. Some folks put way too much emphasis on being right and nowhere near enough on being loving, kind, gentle, humble, and good. So I get it, but Jesus also said that we should know the truth and that it would set us free. Whether I believe that Jesus is the only way to God or just a prophet pointing to Allah matters. So maybe it doesn’t matter as much as some people like to think it does, and maybe some folks do need to focus more on the practical everyday ministry side of their faith rather than the intellectual side. But what you do practically, is determined by what you believe, so I gotta say that theology definitely DOES matter, even if not as much as some might think.

“If anyone would come after me, let him disparage all other religions and their followers.”

Some Christians do make it their business to look down on members of other religions, which is wrong, but I don’t think for the reason the author is implying. We shouldn’t look down on members of other religions because the grace we have received is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, and too many of us decide we’re allowed to boast of it. That said, if the author really does care about Jesus’ words, I feel like he seems to be intentionally forgetting “I am the way and the truth and the life NO ONE comes to the Father except through me”. While we shouldn’t look down on members of another faith in any circumstance, if we believe Christ is who he said he is, then we believe we are following the one true God, and we need to be able to say that in order to witness to those of other faiths.

“If you love me, you will regularly attend a church of your choice… within reason.”

I have trouble responding to this one because I don’t understand at what he’s trying to poke fun. If he’s saying going to church isn’t a necessary part of the Christian life, then he’d wrong, and should read the New Testament some more, because a ton of it is about making the Church work. This is where my “red letters” comments comes in, because I feel like he’s using something Jesus didn’t say to invalidate the rest of the New Testament.

“Blessed are the tithers for they shall be called the children of God.”

I’m not a tithe guy, that said, it’s pretty obvious throughout Jesus teaching that large portions of our income should be used to support others believers in times of distress and provide for the poor and hungry. It seems this is an implication that giving of our money isn’t important, which is not remotely true (as Jesus talked about money more than any other single topic). I mean for goodness sakes, between sacrifices to God and gifts to the poor the average Jewish farmer was supposed to give somewhere in the vicinity of 50% of his income away, and we’re complaining about ten?

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in Heaven after the earth goes up in flames and destroyed.”

I do agree that we should focus on being Christians while we’re here, but Paul said he LONGED for heaven, and multiple books of the Bible spend time talking about the new heavens and new earth. Now we shouldn’t focus on that so much that we become ineffective on earth, but I actually think the American church has FORGOTTEN in many cases that we are looking forward to a future reality and thus we end up holding too tightly to this world, therefore making us ineffective.

“You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor,’ which means the people with whom you attend church and relate to in your Christian sub-culture.”

I’m okay with this. The evangelistic nature of our faith isn’t doing so good in America today, we totally need a wakeup call on this.

“In my Father’s house there are a limited number of rooms. But no worries, there is plenty of room in Hell.”

I don’t know if this is trying to advocate universality of salvation or saying that Christians condemn too much or trying to make some other point I don’t get. I agree Christians focus too much in general today on what we’re against instead of what we are FOR. That said, Jesus talked about hell more than Paul did, and Jesus said that he’s the only way to heaven. I don’t see how you can claim to value his words and then make this statement. In addition, the Bible says that the road to heaven is narrow and the path to damnation is wide, implying that the statement more people will go to hell than heaven is factually correct. Just sayin’.

“The kingdom of God has come!… Well, not exactly. I mean, not completely. Let’s face it, the really-real kingdom comes after we die. Hang in there. It won’t be long.”

Once again, Jesus and the other NT writers talk about heaven and about the new heaven/earth often. I don’t see how you can continue to claim a value for scripture without seeing the now/not yet tension throughout the New Testament. It’s pretty clear that yes, Christ has defeated the power of sin and death, and yes, his kingdom has begun, but it’s also clear that his kingdom isn’t complete yet. Unless you think natural disasters, wars, famine, hate, and disease are part of the end game here. In which case I don’t really know how to respond.

“And you will know the truth and the truth will make you superior to all the other simpletons who never learned Greek or Hebrew.”

I’m fine with this one too. I’ve been guilty of feeling superior to other Christians because of my academic knowledge on Christianity. Thankfully God has really blessed me with elders at my church who with no formal theological training are very close to God, incredibly wise, and incredibly caring. They’ve really helped to keep me humble and remind me that my academic pursuits mean diddly squat to my holiness and commitment to God.

“You are the light of the world… well… in a sinful-filthy-scum kind of way.”

Yet again, this seems to evidence a complete disdain for the New Testament now/not yet and the doctrine of the sinfulness of man. I don’t even know what to say, if you think you’re a perfect Christian, more power to you. I’m gonna stick with the “I’m messed up, I’m broken, I still make mistakes, but I’m also beautifully and wonderfully made and am being remade into the image of my savior” camp.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you a checklist of things to do and not do in order to remain in God’s favor.”

Agree that our salvation has NOTHING to do with our works. But a lot of folks in the author’s (I’m assuming, like I said I can’t get a real read because of all the snark) camp of thought seem to have a “I’m good enough as is and so I don’t need to change” mentality. I really don’t see how this one and the one above fit together at all. Paul specifically says that we are NOT to just keep doing evil. We aren’t perfect that’s for sure, but does that mean we should just give up on being as Christ-like as we can?

“For God so loved the world… you know like theoretically… as in, God loves the big ‘W’-world. But when it come to you specifically, that are quite a few things that would need to change for God to actually and specifically love… or even like… YOU.”

I have never in my life encountered a church that DOESN’T preach God’s great love for mankind and for individuals. It’s one of our popular doctrines. I feel like if you’re opposing something, it should be something that actually exists.

“He appeared to his disciples over a period of 40 days and spoke about how to incorporate his life and teaching as a 501(c)3, and go into all the earth to build mega-churches in his name.”

I’m not the biggest fan of mega-churches, anyone who knows me can tell you that, but I don’t think this is really about mega-churches, it feels like it’s more about the (for lack of a better word) business-itizing of the church. On one hand, I agree. I totally get that a lot of folks treat the church more like a country club or a for-profit venture. But at the same time, why not organize churches in a way that allows them to use as much of the funds they receive doing ministry as possible, rather than giving it to our bloated government to squander (not trying to make a RvD comment, I think we all agree our government as a whole needs help).

In the end, it seems like this was a post designed to get some likes from a group who has severe bitterness towards the church as it currently looks in America, and that is was often neither true to Jesus’ own words or the words of the entirety of Scripture.

The Sovereign Grace Issue

I don’t know how many of you have been following the recent troubles of the “Sovereign Grace Ministries” denomination, or even know what it is for that matter, but I’d like to say a few things on the subject, so I will provide a short background.

In 2011 one of Sovereign Grace’s founding elders, a member of their board of directors, left the denomination and released more than 300 pages of documents (including his personal notes, e-mails, and memos) alleging that the denomination’s leadership was guilty of hypocrisy, spiriabuse, and inordinate love of its own reputation. The denomination and church leaders who supported it immediately responded, primarily by denying the vast majority of the allegations. There is another issue that has popped up in about the same time frame, but this is the primary issue I would like to discuss, the allegations by this former ministry leader and others, and conversely the response of Sovereign Grace Ministries.

As a guy who has admired Sovereign Grace’s music and teaching from afar (but has no personal connection to it), but who also has a deep belief that we are sinful human beings who mess up and need to confess it, both to God and one another, I believe I am in a unique position to look at both arguments. In the end, I found that I could no longer trust either of their responses in regard to each other due to a number of factors on both sides.

The Detractors

The primary detractor of Sovereign Grace is the elder who left, Brent Detwiler. The most popular internet detractor would be an anonymous blog called “Sovereign Grace Survivors”. I’ve read through about 20 Detwiler posts as well as 40-50 pages of the documents he released upon his resignation from SGM, as well as 30-40 posts on the SGS website. My conclusion from reading all of these is that they essentially disqualified themselves from argument legitimacy to anyone outside the denomination because of three factors: bitterness, tinted glasses, and a strong martyr complex.

Bitterness – After reading post after post on both Brent’s website and the SGS site I found that many were similar in composition. Insert accusation X against a SGM leader or church, tell a story illustrating accusation X, exposit on how terrible the leaders of SGM are for allowing said accusation to happen. My issue with this isn’t so much the format but rather the way that it is executed. Over and over I found myself depressed by the extreme twist of bitterness coming from those expressing their hurt and disappointment. Bitterness, as opposed to those other feelings, is by definition characterized by intense anger and hostility. I found repeatedly (not in all posts, but in most) an extreme sense of loathing and hatred towards SGM and a complete lack of forgiveness for them. Often this presents itself when it seems a post is not attacking sin, or evil, but a person/organization, it truly seems to me like many of SGM’s detractors have forgotten who the enemy is (Satan, sin, evil) and replaced it with a more personal one (C.J. Mahaney, SGM, etc.).

I want to say to any detractors who might read this that I understand this, I really do. When I was young a church fired my parents for trying to tell the truth to the congregation (the board had been acting illegally in their business practices and my Father found out). They proceeded to black ball us when other churches would call for references, lying and saying that we were asked to resign for negligence or inappropriate behavior rather than for ratting on the board, causing us to live on food stamps for two years. I was bitter about that for more than 7 years, and I only realized in college that (since it was an affluent church) it had created in me a personal distrust of anyone wealthy. So I understand, I really do, and I don’t want this to sounds like I am condemning you. But at the same time, I can’t take anything you say without a grain of sand when it’s so clearly colored by bitterness and a lack of forgiveness. I wouldn’t have been the person to ask about that church because I was clearly biased, and the same goes for most of you and SGM. This leads to point #2.

Tinted Glasses – Maybe this one is just an outsider looking in and not getting the full view because I don’t know the culture, but I often would read a Detwiler or SGS post and walk away going “huh?”. Specifically, there were a number of “reactions” or “reviews” of how a SGM sermon, book, statement, or interview testified to SGM’s overall attitude or abuses. I found every single one to be confusing and unhelpful because in every single post it seemed the writer was responding not to the content of the sermon/article/etc. that he was reviewing, but rather to the piece that he/she had wished had been written for them to critique. Often I would look at the quote they put forth, then their response to the quote, and wonder if they had even read the same thing I was reading, because their response to it made no sense and often critiqued what they thought the writer/speaker was implying, rather than what he was saying. If you want me to take your reviews seriously, I need them to be reviews, not rants disguised with a quotation or two and a title that resembles that of a recent sermon/interview/article.

Martyr Complex – This one is more subtle, and it’s the one that I feel the least confident in, so if you are a detractor and think I’m wrong about you on this one, I very much could be, but check for it anyway, it never hurts to self-examine.

Often in reading detractor posts, along with the sense of hurt and bitterness, there seems to be another sense that often comes with those, and that’s a kind of “woe is me” feeling. Often in SGS posts and occasionally in Brent’s (I apologize for not referencing specific posts, I can go back and find them for you if you want, just let me know), I feel like the writers believe that they are heroes tragically suffering for the Cross. This often confuses me when it ends up in the same article as the bitterness and misrepresentation discussed above. 

I definitely understand that you feel hurt, but there are people all over this world who are literally dying in order to proclaim Jesus’ name, and you seem to think that you’re greatly suffering by standing up against hypocrisy, or more often, against a church model you believe to be flawed. Suffering for the gospel, and specifically dying for the gospel, is martyrdom. Having a few people say bad things about you because you disagree with their church isn’t. It just seems to me like the threshold for “persecution” in the SGS/Detwiler camp is extremely low, and while any level of persecution is wrong, there just seems to be quite a bit of inflating said persecution to make SGS/Detwiler look more “wronged” in the argument. Obviously I am not including in this those who claim to have gone through legitimate suffering in these situations.

On SGM

If you’ve been reading this and are an SGM apologist or member, you probably feel pretty good right now, but I’m afraid this is where I address SGM’s sin issues in this conflict, and I do believe there are some.

Relegating the Laity to Non-Involvement – This is an issue I have with SGM’s entire governing system that ends up filtering into this debate. SGM has a system of church government (originally unofficially, recently made official in their new church government policies) which gives little to no official role to non-ordained members of the congregation. In fact, it really seems that it separates the congregation into the members and the pastorate, the members who are there to learn and the pastorate to govern. This leads to a number of issues such as a sense of pride and untouchability amongst the clergy, a lack of accountability from anyone but the other pastors, and a general sense I could see growing in a congregation that they have no voice in policy and decision making. That said, this is primarily a review of the debate, and in terms of the SGM/Detractors debate, this system of polity makes it hard for me to trust then SGM statements because the only people who really know what happened are on SGM’s payroll. When the only people who know the truth all have their livelihood dependent on that truth not being TOO destructive, it makes it hard for me to not take everything said with a grain of salt.

Refusal to Address Specific Failings – Those of us who are in the ministry (should) know that mistakes happen. We are fallen humans who, until God completes the work he has begun in us, are going to continue making mistakes and sinning against God. I’ve recently been reading “Dangerous Calling” by Paul Tripp, and I think it does a magnificent job of laying out the dangers inherent in ministry and one of those dangers is locking up the things we’ve done wrong for fear of not looking good enough for our job position, or really even thinking that we need to NOT make mistakes in order to be ministers.

It has truly seemed to me throughout my reading of this whole debate that SGM and its leaders are terrified of admitting to specific failings. Truthfully, it doesn’t even seem like they want to respond in the negative to specific accusations! All of their confessions have been to “minor leadership failures” or “sins” or “difficulties”. There has yet to be an “I admit I messed up in this specific situation” type admission out of anyone in SGM. I know it’s hard to admit failure, please know that I do, I personally hate admitting my mistakes, but God is helping me to learn that it is a CRUCIAL part of any healing process and of our own healing after sin. I am sad that so few of the seemingly spiritually mature leaders of SGM appear to have learned this lesson.

General Closed-Door Nature of the Process – I’d like to share a story to illustrate my point here, the church I am part of recently went through the process of leaving the PCUSA and joining the EPC. Throughout the process I think the elder board of the church did a fantastic job of being as transparent as they possibly could with the congregation. I believe that this helped the congregation to have faith in the elder board’s decision and led to a nearly unanimous decision by the congregation to follow the elder board’s recommendation and vote to leave the PCUSA and join the EPC.

The SGM process of dealing with these accusations seems to me to be murky and unsure at best. What was the process of adjudicating the accusations by Detwiler? What is the process for dealing with the types of accusations brought by SGS? Why was it decided that Mahaney should step down temporarily, but then came back, but then went away again? I just don’t know because it seems like the “process” of dealing with this either didn’t exist (the deny everything and pretend it didn’t happen hypothesis) or was extremely internal and unregulated by the denomination at large. This is probably a symptom of a leadership that has the two previous issues I listed. If the leadership doesn’t have accountability from lay members and is unwilling to address specific issues, then I guess it would be pretty hard for them (or in their minds simply unnecessary) to be open about the process through which these issues were resolved.

Conclusion

My conclusion is that I honestly don’t know who to trust, who’s right and who’s wrong, or even what either side truly is angry about or defending themselves against. Detractors, I understand that you’ve been hurt by this whole issue, but if you want me to believe your side of this story it can’t be characterized by bitterness, bias, and a sense of being injured by the other side of the issue. SGM, I understand that you’re afraid of looking bad, but you HAVE to let your laity into your leadership structure, you HAVE to address the concerns brought forth by your detractors, and you HAVE to be honest and open about the processes through which you’ve reached decisions in these issues. Until both sides manage to improve on these issues, I don't know if it's possible for me, or anyone else from the outside, to know the entire truth of these issues.