What an astute question. I’m happy to take a try at this, but please understand that it is just that, a try. In my view Jesus, in telling us to turn the other cheek is in fact talking to us, and He is talking about us. That is, we are given in the Sermon on the Mount instructions for living in light of the coming of the Kingdom of God. This certainly has profound impact on how we deal with the world outside the church, but even more so with those inside the church.
It may be easy to miss this ironically, in light of how well we’ve been taught this. That is, because we have rightly been taught to see the church as a body, as a family, we are not used to seeing parts of that body as enemies. Truth be told, our own experience demonstrates that reality. We have tussles in the church all the time. Our calling, in light of that reality, is to suffer long, to rather be wronged than to take our brother to law, to turn the other cheek. When we are wronged inside the church, we are to exercise patience, and demonstrate compassion even on the brother who has wronged us.
This may, of course, spill over into our relations with those outside the kingdom. Here is an example. The state claims ownership of more than half of all that I produce. While the state surely has the right to tax me to provide those services that it is called to provide in Romans 13, to provide for defense of persons and property against aggressors foreign and domestic, it does not have a right to tax me for whatever it wishes. Note that Samuel warns Israel that the king like all the other nations that they are asking for would tax them at the rapacious rate of ten percent. What would I give to be taxed at only ten percent of my income. That said, my calling is to live as much as is possible in peace and quietness with all men. I know that my prosperity is in God’s good hands, not the state’s, and so while I may speak prophetically against it, I do not resist this evil. I quietly and peacefully render unto Caesar far more than he is due. My suffering in this regard is a trusting in the Lord.
On the other hand, this same Lord has called me to protect and defend my family. The evil-doer who breaks into my house at night isn’t a brother who is slandering me. Neither is it the state coming to tax me more. This is a man intent on harming my family unlawfully. Though both are harms to my family, I do not know if he is coming for my stereo or my child. He will meet resistance from me as God’s law requires.
Remember that within the space of two verses, in Proverbs 26, we are told first to not answer a fool according to his folly, then told to answer a fool according to his folly. Wisdom determines when to do what. In like manner Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego all fought hard to repel the armies of Nebuchadnezzer when the invasion came. And then, they faithfully served the king when the invasion triumphed. Hope that helps.
All is not actually fair in love and war. And the enemy of my enemy is likely not to be a trustworthy ally. Some years ago I had the occasion to speak to a group of pro-lifers on ministering outside abortion mills. My desire was to explore how the gospel is what is needed at the gates of hell. I wanted folks to understand we are not there to protest, to affirm, “We oppose what you are doing. We are offended, and we insist you stop.” Neither, however, are we there merely to plead that we can meet their immediate needs, that if they will not abort, we will ensure their life is good. Rather we are there calling sinners to repent, to trust in the finished work of Christ alone. The need of the “gospel” isn’t some vague expression of the tender love of Jesus. It is instead the call to repentance, and the promise of forgiveness by His shed blood. If we cannot speak of His blood in the killing fields, where can we?
As part of the meetings at which I spoke the movie Babies Are Murdered Here was shown. It’s an outstanding movie, and can be seen here. Before it could begin, however, one attendee cornered me to express his concerns with the movie- he liked it generally, and even wanted to show it at his church, but felt he couldn’t because the film was “anti-Catholic.” Suddenly, the simple “co-belligerency” argument grew more complicated. It has been my conviction that I am happy to work with anyone who opposes abortion. Not long ago I spoke at a local March for Life with the local Roman Catholic bishop, and felt no guilt whatsoever. I would, indeed, march with Satanists for Life if such a group existed. But there is a great difference between marching and preaching. When we preach we preach the gospel. And Rome preaches a different gospel. I cannot, I will not, set aside the life-saving message of Christ in order to fight a consequence of our sin, no matter how dreadful and evil.
Trouble is we are often so focused on our enemy that we lose sight of who our friends are. That they hate the ones we hate may be a good sign, or a bad one. Maybe they hate my enemy because they are in competition with him. Maybe they hate my enemy for not hating me more. Maybe they hate my enemy because I have lied about him, and if they knew the truth, they’d hate me.
We are on dangerous ground when we judge people on the basis of their friends. We are on still more dangerous ground when we judge them on the basis of their enemies. Our loyalty, from beginning to end, needs to be toward Jesus, for His Word, and with His people. We need to stand with those with whom He stands. We need to set aside our alliances, our parties and our cliques, and learn to judge with wisdom. We need to understand that when we sidle up to the enemy of our enemy, we have just made friends with a maker of enemies. We will be next.
Thesis 64 We must believe we have the Pearl of Great Price.
There may well be many of them, but perhaps not as many as you might think. Though I was blessed to be a son, a student, an employee and a parishioner of my father, though I have read more than a hundred of his books, edited more than a thousand of his articles and listened to thousands of his sermons/lectures, only a few tidbits stand out as “unforgettable.” This is one of them.
“What if,” my father asked the crowd within which I sat, “Jesus were to come to you, look you in the eye, cup your chin in His hand and say to you, ‘I promise you that everything that will ever happen to you will be for your good’ how much peace would you have? I was young enough to, with no shame, and missing the point, confess that all I would have is peace. It was a beautiful picture, a glorious dream. Then he told us, “He already has, through His servant Paul, in Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
We worry about the wrong things, the very things that do not matter. The only real problem I have, Jesus has already solved. When He spoke the parable of the Pearl of Great Price His goal wasn’t to persuade us to give up all that we had, to pay for what He was offering us. Rather He was reminding us that everything He calls us to give up as we follow Him is the very stuff we would have sold just to be with Him. Whatever He takes from me in His providence is what I would gladly give up to have Him.
What though does this have to do with Reformation? Everything. As we have argued throughout this list of theses, the engine that drove the Reformation wasn’t Luther’s brilliant mind, but his valiant heart. And what drove that was his acute knowledge of his own need for the grace of God. When we realize that we already have the One thing that matters we are suddenly set free. The threat of the loss of our reputation means nothing if we’ve already given it up. The threat of the loss of our standing means nothing if we’ve already embraced our kneeling. The threat of the loss of our lives leaves us unmoved if we have already died to ourselves.
The Reformation did not happen because we needed to learn how we could be saved. It happened because we needed to know that we had been saved, and that nothing, including all the worldly power of the Pope of Rome could ever take it away. The same is true of the Pope today, of the mainstream media, of the powers in Washington DC, of the progressive lobby, of every enemy of the gospel. We are safe, secure. Better still, we have every reason to live in joy, content and confident.
There is as always, a struggle between an ostrich with its head in the sand and Chicken Little insisting the sky is falling. We are in the midst of a cultural free fall that has been going on for some time. The love that dare not speak its name has become the love that dares anyone to deny its legitimacy. The Obergefell decision by the Supreme Court in 2015 made homosexual “marriage” legal in all 50 states. On the one hand, this is culturally calamitous, a level of legal decadence unheard of in the sorry, sordid history of humanity. On the other hand, apart from genuine but isolated examples of suffering experienced by bakers, wedding photographers, and other businesses that cater to those getting “married” no great assault on the church has ensued.
The Equality Act may just change that. This bill, high on the priority list of the Biden administration, would add to existing law (including the 1964 Civil Rights Act) sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of “protected classes” of people. What’s wrong with that? Every Christian I know is quick to affirm that all humans bear the image of God, are due justice and should be treated with dignity and respect. So what’s the problem?
The problem is the marrying of the Equality Act with the scope and sweep of government. If, for instance, the government were not in the education business, the ideology behind the bill would not gain the force of law in the nation’s schools. If, for instance, the government did not take it upon itself to create public accommodation laws that strip businesses of their own God-given right to determine whom they wish to do business with, then the consciences of all involved would be protected. If, for instance, the government, through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission weren’t in the business of making sure people don’t get their feelings hurt at work, then we would be free to call boys boys and girls girls without fear.
The Equality Act is an atom bomb in the culture wars, providing for progressives total victory and for Christians status as enemies of the state. It is the final piece of the plan, that starts with asking for, and then demanding acceptance, followed by asking for denying acceptance to the opposing view and now, demanding that Christians, the Christian faith, God’s Word be deemed beyond the pale, the equivalent of neo-nazis and subject to legal sanctions for being so.
The folly of writing law wherein certain classes of people are afforded “protections” that other classes of people are not has come home to roost. The sheer fact that in a “free” country we can even speak of protected classes is shocking enough. That those classes now include the mentally ill, that the law requires we accommodate by pretending to buy into that illness is actually quite natural. Progressives have been playing the long game for a long time, while conservatives have been playing the surrender slowly game for a long time. This is where it all leads.
A day is coming, not in some misty future, but in our own lifetimes, when affirming out loud that homosexuals are not married, that boys are not girls, that sex outside a husband married to a wife is sinful will not only get you kicked off twitter, but will get you fined or imprisoned. The Equality Act is the “made to” in the “You will be made to care.” The question is, how much of the church will embrace the spirit of the age, and how much will cling to the Spirit of the Ages?
