Have you ever seen or heard a non-Christian speaking about God or the Bible, perverting the message and twisting the words in a way to make it seem ignorant, bigoted and completely unbelievable? Is it a Facebook post where someone is arguing that Christians are hateful and unloving based on our biblical worldview? How do you feel when you see that? How do you react to it? Does it make you mad? Do you lash out and put them down for their ignorant point of view? Do you point out their lack of understanding? Do you jump into attack mode or do you remain silent and move on?
It can be hard to have your core beliefs attacked and not get upset, have somebody degrade the very foundation of your life and not lash out. The problem is when we do that, we are clearly forgetting a very important message that was shown to us in the Bible. I remember recently, within one week, I had two people on Facebook post the same exact picture on Facebook. The picture was a church marquee that said “Remember Satan was the first to demand equal rights.” The only difference between the two posts was that one was being put on Facebook by a conservative Christian with mostly like-minded friends and the other was being posted by an atheist liberal also with like-minded friends. I read the comments on both posts and they were extremely different. The Christians while they laughed a little at the sign they understood the intended message, but the atheists made fun of the churches ignorance and said that it was simply hateful. The Christians understood it as a poorly worded warning of what will occur when you attempt to make everything equal, ignoring the order that God has put in the world, while the atheists assumed the church was calling everyone that wanted equal rights Satanists.
I was surprised one simple picture was able to get completely different results. The Christians understood the message but the people that quite possibly needed the message the most were completely repelled by it because they didn’t understand it in the least. I was intrigued by the results of this accidental social experiment my friends had unknowingly conducted. However, I realize those results were already predicted thousands of years ago when Jesus said, “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive” (Matthew 13:14)
I suppose I never fully understood what it would look like for people to actually be blind to the truth.
God tells us that non-believers will love the darkness and hate the light. (John 3:19) Actually, in 2 Timothy 4:4 we are warned, “They will reject the truth and chase after myths.” So why was I so surprised that the reactions to the picture were so different? I trust God and I trust what he says is accurate. I suppose I never fully understood what it would look like for people to actually be blind to the truth. I realize that the message on the church sign was not as powerful or even comparable to the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but the reaction to that sign does a lot to reveal why people react to the Gospel the way they do. They aren’t just saying what they say to be difficult or get under your skin they honestly can’t see the truth there.
Would you be mad at a 4 year old for not understanding Calculus? Would you yell and insult a 9 year old because they couldn’t comprehend bio-mechanics?
So if they are completely blind to it and unable to comprehend it then that begs the question how can we be mad at them for their lack of understanding? Would you be mad at a 4 year old for not understanding Calculus? Would you yell and insult a 9 year old because they couldn’t comprehend bio-mechanics? No, because we don’t expect children that young to understand such complex things. We realize that they need to have more experiences and their mind needs to develop before they will be able to understand these more complicated ideas and theories. Our education system is designed to allow for this. Younger children are given far less intensive assignments than what you will see in a college course, because as a society we would never expect college level work from a 1st grader. So the question is: why do we expect the blind to see Jesus?
What do you think would happen if you yelled at a young child for their inability to understand advanced mathematics and science? I’m not a child psychologist but I think we can safely say the child would be hurt, their confidence damaged, and they would more than likely grow an extreme bias against whatever subject you were trying to teach them. In fact, they may even develop distrust for anybody that tries to teach them that subject assuming they will all react the same way. Because of their lack of confidence, they may find it hard to learn even once they are older and able to comprehend more complex ideas, because in their head they will feel like they are too stupid to understand it. I would like to submit the idea that the same may be true for people that are attacked for their inability to see and understand Jesus.
God never leaves us without hope and without grace.
They could easily grow bitter and resentful of Christians and Christian thought. In fact, in most conversations with atheists I have been involved in, the ones that spoke the loudest against Christianity typically were the ones that felt the most wronged by Christians. As their resentment grows and the rhetoric becomes increasingly bitter, they will grow even more immune to the truth. I know it may seem cruel to have people who are blinded to the truth suffer for eternity if they don’t find the truth, but God never leaves us without hope and without grace. The Bible tells us that if we seek God with all of our heart we will find Him. (Jeremiah 29:13) The opening of our eyes is really up to us. If we choose to seek out the truth, if we really want to know it, God will no longer be hidden from us, which is why we need to check how we react to their disbelief. Much like a kid who never wants to learn calculus because somebody degraded them for not understanding it, some atheists may never be willing to seek the truth because they were degraded and attacked by too many Christians for an ignorance that they couldn’t really help at the time.
However, if you really stop and think about it, their blindness to the saving grace of Jesus Christ isn’t really maddening; in fact, it is very sad.
I know that it is really easy to get frustrated by some of the things that non-believers try to say about Christianity and Christians. However, if you really stop and think about it, their blindness to the saving grace of Jesus Christ isn’t really maddening; in fact, it is very sad. Unless they choose to seek out that truth and have a life-changing experience for God, they will never get to experience the love and grace you get to experience every day. They will never get to see the true beauty of God’s creation like you do. They will never get to know what it feels like to have an all-powerful God fighting their battles for them. Instead, they will face the world alone, with no greater purpose and blind to the true beauty in the world. The last thing they need is somebody getting mad at them for the all the wonderful things they are missing. They need somebody that will show them some grace and share a little love. So instead of being repelled by Christianity they will be intrigued by it. Instead of resentment, we can implant a growing curiosity that will eventually lead them to seeking out the truth, which will finally grant them the ability to see the truth.
The last thing they need is somebody getting mad at them for the all the wonderful things they are missing.
On the other hand, maybe instead of saying anything mean, you choose to just remain silent. You don’t want to get into an argument and you don’t want to get involved, so you just stay quiet and wait for a new conversation to start. You may think that you are doing a good job, because you aren’t making them mad or adding on to the bad experiences they have had. But the truth is what you are doing is just as bad if not worse. The first person saw something wrong and tried to fix it, they were just misguided in their attempt. You saw something wrong and chose to just leave it for the next person, because you didn’t feel like it was worth the effort. You decided that somebody’s Eternal Salvation wasn’t worth your time and energy. I understand that isn’t the exact thought that you had and that it surely wasn’t your intent to choose somebody else’s eternal damnation over you being a little uncomfortable, but that’s the result. We need to be aware of that result. We need to understand that as Christians it is our job to act. Jesus suffered and died to bring grace and hope to the world. We should be willing to at least suffer a few uncomfortable moments to help those around us see the truth.
It takes light to eradicate the darkness and salt to preserve the meat.
We can’t be willing to just sit around and complain about how there are so many standing against Christianity, but not be willing to speak up and try to lead people to Christ. After all, we are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. It takes light to eradicate the darkness and salt to preserve the meat. I just heard a powerful sermon by Jonathan Evans when he spoke about this: if salt is meant to preserve meat and the meat spoils, it isn’t the meat’s fault because that is what meat does. It is the fault of the salt because it was never attached to the meat. Well, if we are the salt of the earth and the earth is decaying, it is not the fault of the world; it is our fault because we are not attached to the world to preserve it.
…light can’t help but be noticed in the darkness.
We can’t sit in silence and still claim to be acting as the light, because light can’t help but be noticed in the darkness. We can’t sit by and watch as our society decays and pretend to be the salt of the earth, because salt preserves the things that it is attached to. We can’t get mad at the blind man for not being able to see any more than we can get mad at a 5 year old for not understanding calculus and we can’t blame the world for its decay any more than we can blame food for spoiling when we don’t take the steps to preserve it. We have to step up and take some responsibility. We have to show grace, we have to show love and we have to speak up. We have been given a job to do by God and if we aren’t willing to do it, we really don’t have anybody to blame but ourselves.
