Getting a moral relativist to tie himself into a pretzel takes all the skill of shooting a great big fish stuffed into a tiny little barrel. If there is no transcendent moral standard then it isn’t morally wrong to believe there is a transcendent moral standard. If everyone is morally free to do whatever he wants then it is not wrong to disregard someone’s preferred pronouns, not wrong to mock those who advertise their preferred pronouns, not wrong to kill those who have preferred pronouns. “No one ought to judge anyone else” is, with no sense of self-awareness, a judgment on those who judge.
Of course moral relativists, like marriages with two boys or two girls don’t actually exist. Subject their statement, “You can’t impose your standard of right and wrong on others” to truth serum and it comes out, “You can’t, but I can, impose your standard of right and wrong on others.” Consider abortion. We have been told for decades now that a woman has a “right to reproductive freedom.” Let’s break that down. First, reproductive freedom. No one that I’ve ever heard have has sought to take away a person’s liberty to reproduce. What they really mean is a woman has a right to kill her unborn child.
Now let’s look at “right.” Where does this purported right come from? If there is no transcendent moral standard then there are no rights. If there is a not transcendent moral standard, say for instance, a Supreme Court decision as a moral standard, then it can change. “A woman has a right to kill her unborn child” may be true if we mean by right “is not subject to prosecution under Roe v. Wade.” If Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court, is the source of this “right,” however, it can be overturned. No Roe. V. Wade, no “right” to kill your baby.
This is how those who support the murder of the unborn reason. Roe v. Wade gave me the right. Therefore you cannot take away the right. What though if before Roe those opposed to the murder of the unborn said, “This court has not granted the ‘right’ to murder the unborn. Therefore the right doesn’t exist.’” Anyone whose god is the federal government, whatever branch or combination of branches must say of their god, “That feds giveth. The feds taketh away. Blessed be the name of the feds.”
Reason, however, has never been the strong suit of the pro-abortionists. The heart has bloodlusts that reason knows not of. That bloodlust, we can expect, will spill beyond the unborn as first Roe is overturned and then states forbid the practice. I am no prophet but I expect that what is coming will make the Summer of Unrest a few years ago look like a Sunday School picnic. People who will not be constrained from slicing up babies will not be constrained by the niceties of public discussion and debate. They will seek to burn it all down.
More than once I’ve been asked- “Do you ever get angry with God?” Intellectually it’s a silly question. Emotionally it’s easy to understand. Hard times are hard, and we all know He determined our days before we were born (Psalm 139). All it takes, however, to get our heart in line with our mind is to remember who God is and who we are.
I don’t get angry with God. He doesn’t owe me anything but His wrath. But that’s not why He ordains hardship in my life. He gives it to me because He loves me. Hardship is neither punishment nor permission. It is a gift from Him.
Paul tells us that it is right and appropriate, in times of hardship, that we should mourn. Every day is not a day full of sunshine. Hardship, though it be for our good and His glory, is still hardship. And so we mourn. But, Paul tells us, we do not mourn like the world. They mourn without hope, while we mourn with hope.
There is an immediate and sound deduction we can reach here. Why would our mourning differ from the world around us? We know where we are going. We know what end is in store for us. Any sadness or hardship that we experience is, on any appropriate scale, brief and mild. Our suffering, after all, cannot be compared with the eternal weight of glory. The suffering of those outside the kingdom is but a prelude, a small taste of an eternity of agony. Our suffering, on the other hand, is but a speed bump on the way to Glory Road.
What we must not miss, however, is the reason for our different ends. Our grief is infused with hope not merely because we have a bright future. Instead our grief is infused with hope because of our past. We look forward, in the midst of our grief, in hope, because we look backward, in the midst of our grief, with joyful gratitude. My future is bright because the wrath that I am owed has already been spent. The difference is in the cross of Christ. Whatever sorrow God calls me to go through, He calls me to go through for the express purpose of remolding me into the image of His Son. Every hardship exists to make me more like Jesus.
Stephen, we are told, while he was being martyred, saw heaven open up. He beheld the glory of Christ, as He stood, a Witness for this witness. The joy was not merely that Stephen would be found innocent. The joy was not simply that Stephen would be with Jesus. The greatest joy was that Stephen knew that what he saw, that he would become. John, remembering that we ought not to mourn as those who are without hope, gives us this greatest hope, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears, we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). He knows the plans He has for us, plans to give us hope and a future, a future so grand that eye hath not seen or ear heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man.
May we be blessed with the courage to believe His promises, even in the midst of hardship. May the world witness us, the witnesses of Christ, as we attest to His goodness, through mourning with hope. May they behold His glory, as we move from mourning to dancing.
The Apostle Paul writes to the church at Corinth “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (II Corinthians 6:14). The text at least ought to raise the question in our minds. Would Paul’s admonition here preclude close, personal friendships with those outside the kingdom? To answer properly we need only to answer this question- is such a friendship being bound together? Is it a partnership? Is it fellowship?
This text, for instance, clearly forbids believers from marrying outside the faith. There is no human relationship more tightly bound than husband and wife. I would suggest in turn that this text does not preclude us from doing ordinary business with unbelievers. I am not bound together with my internet service provider. I am not in partnership with my mechanic. I am not in fellowship with the dairy farmer who provides my family with milk. Where it gets tricky is in between these two extremes. Can a Christian doctor share a practice with a non-Christian? And can we have close personal friendships with those outside the faith?
Though it’s not terribly dramatic, the answer, as usual, lies in wisdom. For 25 years I prayed for a beloved friend who, while he claimed to be a Christian when we met, soon left the faith. Our friendship continued and it continues to this day. We speak on the phone a few times each year, catching up on the news, and remembering our times together in the past. On the one hand, this relationship is “close.” On the other, it is not. I’m delighted to report that he has returned to the faith.
My life, day to day, is not caught up in his. My focus, day to day, is on the lives of my wife, my sons, and the work He has called me to. I have neighbors that are “friends” that are outside the faith, neighbors that I likewise pray for. There is nothing wrong with such friendships, as long as they are loose. But my soul can only commune with those whose souls commune with our Lord. Whatever we might have in common, in terms of the image of God, with unbelievers, we are defined by our faith.
Each Lord’s Day we remember that we are not just one local congregation. We remember that on that day we gather with all the saints around the world, the church militant. We remember that we are all lifted up into the heavenly places, to the New Jerusalem where we meet our Lord, and join together with the souls of just men made perfect (Hebrews 12: 22-24.) We remember that we join together with the church triumphant. We remember that we are one body, because we confess one faith. Our loyalty, our hesed, or covenant love, is for those within the body. We are indeed free to reach out to those outside the kingdom, remembering that such once were we. We are not free, however, to juggle our loyalties.
It has long been my complaint that no matter how big the buzz about the latest business book, the truth is that if the book has anything new to say, it is wrong. If it has anything true to say, it is saying nothing new. Back in the stone age The Peter Principle was one such book. Its startling revelation was this- people tend to be promoted to their level of incompetence. That is, Mr. Jones does job A well, and so is promoted to job B. He does job B well and is promoted to job C. He will keep being promoted until one day he finds himself doing a job poorly. So, business men, be careful not to over-promote.
There was once a far wiser man than Laurence J. Peter, the man who gave us the principle above. His principle was this. When confronted with incompetence of the most egregious kind in Peter’s denial of Him, He said, “But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” To seek to put this wisdom into management terms, the principle is this- those who fail in a peculiar way are well equipped to encourage others who are tempted to fail in similar ways. We have a special calling to recognize our own sins, even when we see them in others. First, we must repent of our own sins. We are to return to Jesus. Then, we strengthen the brethren. We let them know the temptations we are apt to face, and we show them the path to repentance.
Several years ago the church where I served went through some terribly rough times. God sent those challenges, I believe, at least in part to show me my own pride. He had blessed that body so abundantly, and though I gave Him thanks for those blessings, somewhere deep inside I came to believe that I was a source of those blessings. God painfully reminded me that such was not the case. Though pride continues to assault me, even as Peter’s instability showed itself again even after he denied our Lord, at least I can be more on my guard.
Of late being called in to minister to other churches and pastors. My counsel has, not surprisingly, followed the Peter Principle. That is, what we see time and again is pride. Whether pride makes elder A guilty of the sins elder B accuses him of, or whether elder B makes the accusations because of his own pride, or some combination thereof, pride goeth before destruction. We come face to face with the James Principle- For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing will be there (James 3:16). That’s both confusion, and every evil thing, in case you missed it.
My counsel? Watch out for pride, for envy and self-seeking. If you don’t see it in yourself, you’ve already stepped into confusion and self-delusion. Instead find it, and repent of it, fully. Then, go strengthen the brethren.
Of course I am. That is, if you define a narcissist as someone who thinks too highly of himself, who is blind to many of his own flaws, who is given to self-interest. Exhibit A- this blog piece. I ask the question. I answer the question. The question is about me. Case closed. That said, my goal in writing this isn’t to help you understand me better but to help you understand you better, and Jesus better. The truth is that with a definition as broad as the one I gave above we all are found guilty. I am a narcissist because I am an I, just like you.
If, however, the question is, does my behavior, mindset meet the standard set by the DSM-5, psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for narcissism, then the answer gets rather more complicated. First, to their credit, the creators of the DSM-5 acknowledge that they haven’t arrived at all truth. Which is why they have created 5 manuals already, with more on the way. Psychiatry’s assessments tend to be moving targets. Second, even if the standard never changed, it is less than precise and notoriously difficult to apply to actual people. Third, narcissism isn’t really a thing. It might work as a description of a behavior or mindset but it’s not a virus you catch. Am I then a narcissist in this sense? Of course not. And neither are you. Neither, I suspect, is anyone. It’s not an “is” thing. As soon as it becomes an “is” thing we’re back to our fallen nature, to sin.
Because of this equivocation on the word it has become a potent weapon in the hands of narcissists. Because we are all surrounded by selfish people, everywhere we turn, we can present anyone as a narcissist in the first sense, while hoping to lay the condemnation of the second sense on others all so, wait for it… the one we’re talking to will listen to us talk further about ourselves and feel deeper sympathy for us. Or to put it another way, we accuse others of abusing us with their narcissism to feed our own narcissism.
On the other hand, if instead of slandering someone with the accusation we are accusing someone to their face, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. I call you a narcissist. If you admit it, I win. I mean, how narcissistic do you have to be to actually admit it? If, however, I accuse and you deny, I win. Isn’t it just like a narcissist to be blind to his narcissism? Heads I win, tails you lose. Which is why we probably ought to expunge the word from our working vocabulary.
The Bible is clear when dealing with the hard realities of our sins. It clearly condemns us all for our propensity for selfishness. It calls on us to die to self, to not think too highly of ourselves, to esteem others above ourselves. Note, however, that it’s us, ourselves, not them, others. Narcissus got stuck looking into the mirror of the pond, utterly entranced by his own image. Let us instead look to the mirror of God’s Word, acknowledge our flaws, repent and be entranced by the beauty of our Redeemer. He died for narcissists like us.
