Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? (Galatians 4:16, NKJV).
Rally to Restore Truthfulness
It is easy to get along when you take a stand for nothing. When you not only don't straddle the fence, but don't go anywhere near anything that actually has the potential to divide. Moderation under the guise of liberal (the actual meaning of the word, not the political) tolerance is a good thing when it comes to non-essentials, but beyond that it collapses very rapidly. It has to.
Think about it for half-a-second. All ideas cannot lead to the same conclusion. Being for something necessarily means you are against it's opposite. A melody cannot play all available notes at once otherwise discord and musical chaos ensue; not symphony but cacophony. Commitment to an absolute is not insanity. It is, in fact, the only significant antidote to the gobbledegook of relativism.
The common media-blathered notion that evangelical Christians are extreme is, in itself, extreme. It is a broad-blush slander that would be upsetting if it had any meaning. If by "extreme" what is meant is "definite" than the word extreme is misapplied. If it means "not mainstream" than so what? What in the world does mainstream have to do with logic and rationality and evidential faith?
The Bible is crystal clear about the response Christians are to expect from the world.
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. (John 15:18, 19; 1 John 3:13, NKJV).
Yet despite that, our response to the world is to be steadfast in telling the truth with love and humility and NO compromise.
but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ--; Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another; in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, (Ephesians 4:15, 25; 2 Timothy 2:25, NKJV).
It's the NO compromise part that rankles. It's the definiteness that is offensive. It evokes a "how dare you think you know what's true!" response. But that kind of reaction DOES border on insanity. Why? Because if truth CAN be known (and it can), then touting otherwise is a disconnect from reality. And if someone claims knowledge of the truth, the sane response is to listen and evaluate, and compare what is claimed with what is proven and judge accordingly. Hatred is irrational.
But sadly, that is what the world is, irrational. Sin makes it blind and willfully ignorant. Consequently, it should be no surprise that the most egregious intolerance is disguised as professed tolerance, and the most anti-intellectual closed-mindedness is labeled the opposite.
So the answer to the question cited above is, "Yes." To those who do not love the truth, but love their own self-justifying sin instead, who love darkness rather than light, whose highest priority is to do what seems right in their own eyes, someone who speaks the plain simple truth of right and wrong IS an enemy. And the target of hatred.
But it doesn't matter in the end. We who know and love the truth are to continue to speak the truth with humility and love. Only God can change the heart, and maybe, just maybe, He will use one of us to do it.
Rally to Restore Truthfulness
It is easy to get along when you take a stand for nothing. When you not only don't straddle the fence, but don't go anywhere near anything that actually has the potential to divide. Moderation under the guise of liberal (the actual meaning of the word, not the political) tolerance is a good thing when it comes to non-essentials, but beyond that it collapses very rapidly. It has to.
Think about it for half-a-second. All ideas cannot lead to the same conclusion. Being for something necessarily means you are against it's opposite. A melody cannot play all available notes at once otherwise discord and musical chaos ensue; not symphony but cacophony. Commitment to an absolute is not insanity. It is, in fact, the only significant antidote to the gobbledegook of relativism.
The common media-blathered notion that evangelical Christians are extreme is, in itself, extreme. It is a broad-blush slander that would be upsetting if it had any meaning. If by "extreme" what is meant is "definite" than the word extreme is misapplied. If it means "not mainstream" than so what? What in the world does mainstream have to do with logic and rationality and evidential faith?
The Bible is crystal clear about the response Christians are to expect from the world.
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. (John 15:18, 19; 1 John 3:13, NKJV).
Yet despite that, our response to the world is to be steadfast in telling the truth with love and humility and NO compromise.
but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ--; Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another; in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, (Ephesians 4:15, 25; 2 Timothy 2:25, NKJV).
It's the NO compromise part that rankles. It's the definiteness that is offensive. It evokes a "how dare you think you know what's true!" response. But that kind of reaction DOES border on insanity. Why? Because if truth CAN be known (and it can), then touting otherwise is a disconnect from reality. And if someone claims knowledge of the truth, the sane response is to listen and evaluate, and compare what is claimed with what is proven and judge accordingly. Hatred is irrational.
But sadly, that is what the world is, irrational. Sin makes it blind and willfully ignorant. Consequently, it should be no surprise that the most egregious intolerance is disguised as professed tolerance, and the most anti-intellectual closed-mindedness is labeled the opposite.
So the answer to the question cited above is, "Yes." To those who do not love the truth, but love their own self-justifying sin instead, who love darkness rather than light, whose highest priority is to do what seems right in their own eyes, someone who speaks the plain simple truth of right and wrong IS an enemy. And the target of hatred.
But it doesn't matter in the end. We who know and love the truth are to continue to speak the truth with humility and love. Only God can change the heart, and maybe, just maybe, He will use one of us to do it.
