Jesus punched right, and so should Christians
Which way should Christians punch?
Not physically, of course; the question is, where should we direct our public indignation and rebukes? Overwhelmingly, the conservative evangelical church (in which I count myself) has chosen its tribal enemies in politics and the culture wars as its targets — the woke left. Liberals. Democrats.
Hardly ever is it the right wing — other Christians and conservatives — even when they do some of the very things we lambaste the left for. When we do, it’s greatly muted compared to our outrage toward the other side.
Not only do we refrain from calling out our own camp when it’s warranted, but some on the Christian right have explicitly stated that we should never publicly point fingers toward our own tribe: “No enemies to the right,” they say. Their mindset is that political and cultural victory is so important that we should never say anything that could undermine that objective.
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Our fingers are always pointed away from us. But like several other aspects of this movement, the Bible teaches the exact opposite. In Scripture, we consistently see that God directs His people to focus their serrated edge on their own tribe. On themselves.
The prophets
While the prophets of the Old Testament did include the Gentile nations in their warnings of judgment, the vast majority of their condemnations were of their own nation of Israel. This was for two reasons:
God revealed Himself to Israel in several ways that He didn’t for the Gentiles. He gave Israel the covenants, the law, deliverance from slavery, spectacular miracles, judges, kings, prophets, holy Scripture, the promise of a Messiah, and His very presence in the tabernacle and the temple. He gave them a relationship with Him. That only multiplied their condemnation when they rebelled, apostatized, and committed the abominations of the pagan nations around them. Unholiness is made all the worse among people who are called to be holy.
Secondly but no less seriously, Israel betrayed its calling to be a witness to the Gentiles. Their holiness was supposed to testify to the holiness of God. But how does it reflect on God when His people don’t think enough of Him to obey Him? When they decide they’d rather live like the pagans? Of all the sins Israel committed, perhaps the worst was that they misrepresented God. This is why Jesus overturned the moneychangers’ tables in the temple; that made the religion of Israel come off as money-grubbing and cruel to the poor.
Both of those reasons go for Christians today. We serve a King who rose from the dead. We’ve received the fullness of God’s revelation to humanity. We’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit. But all of that is portrayed as impotent when we live no differently than unbelievers. At least they’re not hypocrites.
That’s why our sin is worse than theirs, and why we must be least tolerant of it in ourselves.
Jesus
This is taught further in the preaching and example of Christ.
Of course, there’s the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus said:
1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7)
The rest of the chapter makes clear that He’s not forbidding all judging, but He’s teaching how not to do it: hypocritically. Our own eye must come first. Otherwise, what business do we have judging anyone else?
Jesus practiced what He preached. Throughout His ministry, His harshest invectives were directed toward the Pharisees, chief priests, and other pious religious leaders of His own nation. He also rebuked His own disciples. He didn’t bash who we would bash — wanton sinners, tax collectors, and the godless foreign oppressors. Jesus didn’t overturn the Romans’ tables. He punched right.
Even when He was told of a deadly Roman atrocity at Israel’s holiest site, He didn’t condemn the wicked perpetrators; He warned His Jewish hearers — His tribe, His countrymen — that they were the ones who needed to repent (Luke 13:1-5).
Related: How Jesus reacted to an oppressive, godless regime
The principle behind all this is taught in the previous chapter, through a parable in which two kinds of servants are punished for misbehaving while their master is away. The ones who knew the master’s will received a worse beating than those who didn’t, “for everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required” (Luke 12:48). That’s why He and His disciples held His own people more responsible for His death than the ignorant Romans who crucified Him.
That’s why the Lord is more strict with those who bear His name, and so we must be. “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God … us first” (1 Peter 4:17).
The epistles
The idea of holding our own house to higher account is further taught in the New Testament. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about a shocking sin in their own midst, and he warned them not to keep company with those who commit such abominations — if they claim to be one of them:
10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner — not even to eat with such a person.
12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.” (1 Corinthians 5)
Our priority is explicitly clear: Judge those on the inside. Put away the evil from among ourselves.
Paul reasons earlier in that passage, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” The lesson is that our own sin is far more of a threat to us than anyone on the outside. It’s a creeping, insidious cancer. It craftily seduces and corrupts us, like Balaam did the Israelites when he couldn’t curse them. Therefore, our unrelenting vigilance and take-no-prisoners war, if necessary, must be against our own leaven.
The apostle also reiterated the principle of misrepresenting God when he wrote, “You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For ‘the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,’ as it is written” (Romans 2:23-24, paraphrasing Ezekiel 16:27).
The name of God is our most valuable possession. That is what we must protect at all cost. Even if doing so humiliates us and we suffer. Even if it undermines our culture warring and political aspirations. Even if churches and big-name ministries fall. Our witness and our holiness are worth more than our nation, our families, our very lives, and since the most dangerous threats to those things come from ourselves — our worst enemies — that is where we must punch hardest.
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