One of my friends named a coworker. Another had a long-standing grudge with a "frienemy"to work out. I named Fred Phelps.
As soon as I said it, I remembered a truth that I've let slip into the deep forgotten recesses of my jumbled mind. I felt convicted about the whole thing later and decided to give myself a refresher course on the lesson.
One of the things I think the average Christian forgets - and I include myself in this - is who, exactly, our enemy is. In Scripture, the only enemy I see for the Christian is Satan. There is talk about people making themselves enemies to God; but that is His prerogative, not ours.
Le 19:17-18, Mt 5:43-47, Mt 22:36-40, Jn 13:35 and 1Jn 4:20 are just a few of the passages that clearly state the Christian imperative to love people. Even the people we think are our enemies are people we are called to love!
Why? Because Jesus died for them just as much as He died for me.
Allow me to backtrack for a minute.
When I was about 18, I began to discover that a lot of what I had been told about the Bible wasn't so. Things I had regarded as fact for the preceding 4 years turned out to be little more than denominational opinion and speculation. As I discovered more truths about the Bible, I developed a general frustration with the state of Christendom and the ignorance a lot of people had about what Jesus taught. I found myself at odds with teachers at my Christian high school and people I came to regard as "churchy-folk" - believers who were steeped in church culture, but didn't spend time reading the Bible for themselves. The more I learned about all I'd been missing, the more annoyed I became with people who propagated the misconceptions I'd bought into.
By the time my friend Bri yelled at me in December of 2010, it wasn't unbelievers I had a hard time loving - it was believers. I had no patience for anyone, theologically. I was merciless in my criticism of people who held what I thought of as unbiblical views, or did un-Christ-like things. I boasted about how annoyed I got with televangelists - because, let's face it, a lot of them don't read their Bibles very closely.
We were at Denny's, Bri and I. The plan had been to meet with a bunch of friends and hang out until we got bored. Bri and I were the only ones who showed up. We talked for a good long while about a bunch of different things.
At one point, Bri asked me about my plans to be in ministry one day and why I hadn't started at a Bible school yet. I explained how I had misgivings about Bible school because I had encountered too many people who'd gotten a bunch of letters after their names and come away with little more than strong opinions. I also bemoaned the churchy-folk I'd have to deal with. I even said that I sometimes hated associating myself with a lot of other Christians because they've so perverted the message of our faith.
After a short silence, Bri gave me a verbal lashing for my unmitigated arrogance.
She asked me if I actually thought I'd be the only one at that school who was earnestly seeking God. She pointed out that my lack of love for my fellow believers, because of their unloving deeds was hypocritical, at best. She asked what made me think I had all the right answers - that my understanding of Scripture was somehow infallible, or that I wouldn't learn anything valuable from people who'd made it their profession to teach on the topic. She brought me down off my high horse in a most merciless fashion.
When she excused herself to use the restroom, I sat back and thought, "She's absolutely right."
That night, I began re-working my attitude about the Church; I also developed a small crush on that girl. (We later went out for about five minutes, but decided we were better at being friends.)
Since then, much of my growth in faith has been about learning to love both truth and people - two pieces of the Christian walk that are often at odds with each other. I've also learned a lot about loving the Church - understanding that we are all broken people trying to serve God; and we all get it wrong sometimes.
Back to the present...
Sometimes, it feels like we have enemies everywhere - people who sit opposite us in political spheres, people who put the worst possible picture of our faith on TV, people who hate us when we try to help, people who want to control or illegalise what we consider important freedoms or regard God as a joke.
There are times when my enemy is the crazy driver ahead of me or the loud customer at work.
When I see the Westboro Baptists spreading their lies,TV preachers selling magic handkerchiefs or people saying you're not "really" saved until you do this or that extra thing that isn't "believe in Jesus Christ", I want to explode. It seems like my enemies sometimes wear cross necklaces and lead worship.
The beautiful truth about all this is: I'm mistaken. When I find myself face-to-face with an unbeliever, I'm not facing an enemy, but someone Jesus loves. When I talk with believers, I am in fellowship with siblings.
Even when I see believers acting like idiots, I have the opportunity to help them sort it all out (Mt 18:15-18). I also have a responsibility to love them and forgive their misdeeds (Mt 18:21-22). I also know that, when I make a fool of myself, there are plenty of believing friends to hold me accountable.
So, no matter how frustrated and embarrassed I am by his behaviour, no matter how badly I believe he's missed the plot of our faith, it's not my place to deny this truth: Far from being the enemy, Fred Phelps in my brother.
I don't get to judge him (Ja 4:11), because Someone better at judging has already handled the case (Ja 4:12). I don't get to hate him, because Love, Himself is my boss (1Jn 4:8). I don't need to worry about what will happen to him, because my only task is to love God and love people as best I can (Jn 21:22).
All the rest is just petty sibling rivalry.
-isaac
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