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You Just Need to Forgive (Part 2)

Read You just need to forgive (Part 1) first. In that post we deconstruct common language gambits used by abusers such as “You just need to forgive”.


So Andrew, you appear to be saying it’s OK not to forgive. If someone sins against you and they haven’t repented you don’t have to forgive them, is that right? But what about Mt 6:12 or Lk 23:34 or especially Mt 18:35?

“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

What about those verses indeed? Forgiveness is God’s core business, so let us tread carefully. Let us see if we can find a way to help a person who has suffered abuse at the hands of another navigate this difficult path. Forgiveness is clearly a lot more than simply mouthing the words “I forgive you… I’m sorry I brought it up”. The question is how to get from here to there? How to move from a place of psychological and/or emotional trauma to “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”?

Some people can spend years trying to sort this out, and each person’s experiences, circumstances and journey is their own. Perhaps I can offer a few thoughts to help.

Motion towards forgiveness


Firstly, understand that the motion towards forgiveness is in itself an act of personal agency. Many people may feel that even one step towards forgiveness of a perpetrator is one step too many. But let’s reframe. The decision to begin motion towards forgiveness is something you are doing for yourself; it ultimately benefits you. And, yes, it’s the right thing to do too, but at the beginning helping oneself maybe all that we’ve got to motivate us, right?

Secondly, it is crucial to understand that it is not an additional measure of injustice to forgive a perpetrator. Rather, it can be a turning point in dealing with the hurt. It might feel completely counter-intuitive, but ultimately to forgive those who sin against us is the very best thing we can actually do. It is the wisdom of God, it is the example of Jesus, and it can be the moment that the door of the prison cell flings open. 

Learning


Thirdly, Jesus’ way is the way. He said:

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light (Matt. 11:28-30, NASB).

This is for all of you weary and heavy-ladened ones. Jesus invites us to learn from him. Learning is a process that can take a while – I mean how long did you go to school for? But when you graduate… you will find rest for your souls.. And don’t we all want that? You have to enrol in this learning process – that’s the taking on of the yoke part, but rest assured, the load is light.

Jesus is the one who is most concerned for your welfare. If you have encountered abuse in a church situation you may be thinking… “Well I don’t know about that… I feel like Jesus got me into this situation in the first place in that church of his”. Churches can certainly be awful places. Not everyone in church exhibits the true mark of discipleship that Jesus talks of:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (Jn 13:34-35).

But if you can accept that Jesus is the one most concerned for your welfare, then he is saying the best thing for you to do is to forgive those who sin against you. “Rest for your souls” sounds pretty appealing. Notice that the actions of the other person are still called “sin” – their sin, or “debts” – their debts. Your forgiveness does not change or minimise that or their culpability. 

That servant

Let’s do a study of the parable of the unmerciful servant in Mt 18:21-35.

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

This famous parable teaches masterfully on forgiveness. Peter, maybe having a frustrating day with someone,  asks Jesus how many times he has to forgive this person who is sinning against him. Evidently, Jesus has talked about this before to his disciples, so Peter is doing his best to put this new forgiveness teaching thing into practice, and reaching for the stars says: “As many as seven times?”

Jesus answers: “Not seven Peter. Seventy seven.” Or in some translations, seventy times seven. “You are out by an order of magnitude Peter”. That answer would instantly turn a light on in the mind of anyone familiar with the Torah. Let’s go to Gen. 4:23-24, where Lamech is boasting:

Cain and Lamech


Lamech said to his wives,“Adah and Zillah, listen to me;wives of Lamech, hear my words.

I have killed a man for wounding me,

a young man for injuring me.

If Cain is avenged seven times.

If Cain is avenged seven times,

then Lamech seventy-seven times

Same numbers right? What’s going on here? Well, in Genesis 1 and 2 we had an Edenic garden with no sin, no violence. In Genesis 3 we have the fall. Cain kills his brother Abel in Genesis 4. And now Lamech is totally out of control, wanting to visit vengeance on a disproportionate scale. Things are getting worse very quickly (5 generations), reaching the point that humanity’s thought-life was reaching the point that “that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Gen. 6:5), triggering a deluvian reboot.

The avenging of Cain being talked about here is God’s promise to Cain to protect him even in the midst of punishing him for the murder of Abel. God promised he would avenge Cain’s death seven times over to anyone who would think of killing him. God has the right to punish sin, and the seven times multiple is a significant deterrent (see also Lev. 26:21). 

It’s worth remembering that Cain’s sin was not murder alone, but that he stepped away from care of his brother. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is a rhetorical question from Cain, but that heart paved the way for self-justification of murder, for which actual justice was required.

Amplified vengeance and amplified forgiveness


So Lamech is twisting what God had said to Cain. Lamech is pursuing a path of amplified vengeance. Back to the parable, and we can now see that Jesus is flipping Lamech’s amplified vengeance into a teaching about amplified forgiveness. Any bystander hearing that story for the first time would have been jaw-droppingly indignant at the actions of the unmerciful servant – freshly forgiven an impossible debt of squillions, but in the next moment strangling his fellow servant for a measly hundred days wages. The fellow servants in the story were outraged also and reported the gross injustice to the master. The unforgiving servant was himself thrown into jail to be tortured until he repaid the original debt, which of course he would never be able to do.

Wrapping up

A few points here: 

  • Ongoing unforgiveness is a prison and is a kind of self-inflicted torture. Don’t lock yourself into one. If you do, you still have the key to get out any time you want.
  • The context in Matthew is about our relationships – in church or otherwise. It is good to remember we are our our brother’s keeper. If one persecuted you (e.g. are abusive), they are clearly way off the mark. However you can still be like Jesus, love them and pray for them as enemies (Mt. 5:44) as he taught.
  • God will take care of the justice part, and there will be justice (Mt. 18:5-6). Vengeance is not our job, it’s God’s job, and He does it perfectly in this life or the next. Jesus promises accountability for things people say to us, but also for what we say:

“But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Mt. 12:36-37)

  • Forgiveness is really a letting go of the desire to execute our own vengeance. 
  • In the parable the forgiveness was for a debt. It is possibly helpful to remember that as we move towards forgiveness of another, what we are saying is that that person is a debtor to us. A debtor. They owe us something. They have taken (dignity, freedom, respect etc.) and have not repaid. They might not ever do it. The only thing we can personally control here is our decision to release them from that debt and in so doing free ourselves from the whole wicked contract.

I hope these thoughts are helpful for you in starting motion towards forgiveness. Difficult journey but a freeing one.

Part 3 of this topic is coming soon where we will look at how the Psalmists pour out their incredulous anger and pain to the God who seems far off. We will learn to lament.

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You just need to forgive (Part 1)

You need to forgive and move on. Right? Or maybe it’s actually very wrong. Someone has said terrible things to you, accused you, treated you harshly, possibly spiritually abused you in a church setting and now you are being told to forgive your perpetrator, because, … you know, forgiveness is what Christians are supposed to do. 

This scenario has played out on more than one occasion . It’s common! So how to deal with it when it comes your way?

The first thing to recognise is that this kind of language is very simply an extension of the original abuse. It is a simple bid to excise the perpetrator from any repentance or restorative action. It’s a lot easier to trundle out these seven words than to perform any serious introspection. Hey, if it works five times out of ten it’s worth it. If it works one time out of ten it’s still worth it. Avoiding accountability for actions has a big payoff. 

But, holy smokes… the carnage. The damage. The destruction. The trauma. For. years. There is a very cynical, carnal, demonic play going on here. ‘If I can just put it back on them to grapple with their not so-well-informed notions around their need to forgive, I stand a pretty good chance of manipulating up a leave pass.” See it for what it actually is people. I hope this article fleshes out a framework for you to deal with these manipulative and abusive calls for “forgiveness”.

Even God can’t forgive without repentance.

God, who by nature is the very definition of love (1 Jn 4:8) requires atonement for forgiveness of the wrong to be possible. The gospel declares this price was  paid by Jesus on our behalf because we simply don’t have the readies. And from our part, we have to at least apprehend that fact and completely re-orient – otherwise known as repentance.  So, any idea of “forgive and move on” didn’t work with God, so perhaps it doesn’t need to work with you either.

If your brother or sister sins against you (Lk 17:1-5)

Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.

“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!

The first thing to notice here is that Jesus is on the side of the stumbler. If someone causes a follower of Jesus to stumble (one of the little ones), Jesus takes detailed notice of that. He expects that this will happen, but he is extremely unhappy with the perpetrator. Drowning would be a better end for them. That is how Jesus feels about someone who causes another to stumble.

So, what to do about it? Well, here Jesus invites you to rebuke them, to turn them back. The language here is “what you are doing is not right”. If someone sins against you they have violated someone created in the image of God. This is an affront to the owner of the image, which is why the owner is giving the authority right here in this passage to rebuke the perpetrator. Your job then is to forgive, if they repent. It’s conditional. “If” is a conditional word. This is what Jesus is saying. Until they repent, they are owing a debt.

Further to this, Mt 18:17 encourages us to point out to the perpetrator their sin against you:

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. (Mt 18:15-17)

The Biblical advice here is to go and point out their fault. This is language such as: “when you said/did x to me you have sinned against me/acted unlovingly/were harsh with me” etc.

Again, Jesus sets the expectation that this may not work the first time, but at least you’ve said it. 

Step two is to take one or two others with you for a second encounter. You are revisiting the same charges in this meeting as this still an unresolved matter. If still unresolved, go wider again to the community. If still unresolved you are under no obligation to fellowship with them or be near them. Hopefully church discipline will come into play in solidarity. 

All very well in theory I know. But what if this person is a spouse or a church ministry leader of some kind and it’s not so easy to get away from them? There are no simple answers here. You may have to leave for a time, but get good, trusted advice before doing that. There is a consistent teaching here on the importance of speaking directly to the perpetrator and stating their specific sin. This of course can seem like an impossibility, the cost of the blow-back might seem too high. Perhaps write a short letter. Again get some trusted advice if you can. Shouldn’t be this hard of course but toxic situations are not absent in churches unfortunately.

Restitution

Restitution is a very clear concept found in the Old Testament. Exodus 22 talks a lot about this concept.  For example: 

Anyone who steals must certainly make restitution, but if they have nothing, they must be sold to pay for their theft. (Ex 22:3). 

Wow. This restitution thing is hard core. There is no getting away from it. Sell yourself if you have to, perhaps you will learn not to do it again.

In Leviticus, restitution is linked with their guilt offering. So, someone has stolen or extorted something, or lied. They must make restitution- pay it back plus 20% on the day they present their guilt offering. This action pre-supposes repentance. You are not going to accept the responsibility and cost of the guilt offering if you have not repented. And you are not going be able to simply “go quietly” with hush money. You have to publicly declare you acceptance of personal wrong-doing AND make restitution at the same time if you are the perpetrator.

While we are in Leviticus it is worth noting that if you kill an animal you must pay restitution. If you kill a man, you must be put to death. (Lev. 24:21). This goes to the point of the gross offence of laying a hand on the Lord’s image-bearer noted above.

This concept continues on in Numbers:

The LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any man or woman who wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the LORD is guilty and must confess the sin they have committed. They must make full restitution for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the person they have wronged. (Num. 5:5-7).

Again notice the link between wronging another person, confession and admission of guilt by the perpetrator, full restitution plus damages to the person they have wronged.

What about Matthew 5? (And Matthew 6, and Matthew 18)

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Mt 5:14-15)

See also Mt 6:14-15, and Mt 18:21-35 – Parable of the unmerciful servant.

It could be argued, and likely has been argued, that restitution, public confession and so forth are Old Testament teachings that no longer apply, and that now, in the New Testament, you “just need to forgive” 490 times.

Yet, somehow that interpretation doesn’t feel quite right now does it? So, where are the Scriptures and what is the argument in the New Testament then?

In 1 Cor 5:10-11 Paul is dealing with the case of the unrepentant man who is sleeping with his father’s wife while happily continuing in fellowship with the church. This is a bridge too far as Paul writes:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. (1 Cor 5:9-11). 

But Paul, shouldn’t you be forgiving this person? Well, apparently not. What he is advocating is that any one inside the church claiming to be a brother or sister, but sexually immoral, greedy, idolatrous, a drunkard or a swindler don’t need to be in that fellowship. Why? Because they will cause harm. Reputational and/or actual harm.  The required action is for them to repent, and the clear withdrawal of fellowship helps them to move in that direction.

You’re just bitter.

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. (Heb. 12:15)

You bitter trouble-maker you. Your bitterness will defile many it says. But maybe your unresolved feelings are not the same thing as what this passage is talking about. Manipulators are great at performing sleight-of-tongue pivots on words. Watch out for that. 

The previous verse has just been saying:

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Heb 12:14). 

If Heb 12:15 is to apply to you, then Heb 12:14 applies to them right? Is every effort being made here to live in peace and be holy? Every effort? Any effort? Is there unholiness going on here? 

As to what the bitter root actually is, see Deut 29:18:

Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.

So unless you are actively in the business of worshipping other gods and luring others away to do the same, your feelings of deep injustice don’t really meet the Heb 12:16 criteria.

In your anger, do not sin. (Eph 4:26)

You shouldn’t be angry you know. It’s not Christian….

Except for the fact that the founder of Christianity got angry over justice and abuse issues himself:

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me. (Jn 2:13-17)

You guys shouldn’t be doing this here. Get out!

 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. (Mk 3:5)

I want to heal this guy and you don’t.

God got angry too (Heb 3:10-11)

Sometimes anger is warranted. Just don’t get there too quickly:

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (Jas 1:19-20)

Jesus cares about injustice, because he is God and that is God’s heart too.

Back to Ephesians 4 now. The full passage is:

Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. 

and do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Eph 4:25-32)

So many points here:

  1. Again the need for truthful feedback, although difficult, is clear (4:25).
  2. In your anger do not sin is a quote from Ps 4:4. It speaks of trusting God and deep reflection. Must get to the point of control over the anger. Not even passive aggressive speech needs to pass your lips.
  3. Don’t let the sun go down. Don’t let it fester. Deal with issues promptly. Same day if possible. (Eph 4:26)
  4. Don’t give the devil a foothold – best done by keeping accounts short and using frank communication. (Eph 4:27)
  5. Actual repentance is required, on everybody’s part. (Eph 4:28). 
  6. Watch the speech! What people say is important. If there is abuse coming your way that person is in violation of this verse. The command here is to build others up not tear them down. But same goes for you too (Eph 4:29)
  7. This kind of stuff grieves God. It’s serious. (Eph 4:30)
  8. Get rid of the bitterness and the rage, the slander and the malice.Get rid of it. Again, if it’s coming your way, the fault lies with perpetrator. They need to deal with whatever sinful motivation is producing this kind of behaviour. (Eph 4:31)
  9. What relationships should be looking like: kind and compassionate. Everything else is an aberration. (Eph 4:32).

A final word

Jesus was deprived of justice, he knows what it is like:

In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.

Who can speak of his descendants?

For his life was taken from the earth. (Acts 8:33)

 Nonetheless the cornerstone of his kingdom is justice:

But about the Son he says,

“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever;

a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;

therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions

by anointing you with the oil of joy. (Heb 5:8-9)

What we are looking for here from abusive perpetrators is repentance that leads them to want to see justice done.

See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. (2 Cor 7:11).

So, the next time you are expected to “just forgive” an unrepentant, gain strength and conviction from these Biblical teachings. Rebuke calmly and frankly. God is on your side.

Next: You Just Need to Forgive (Part 2)

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Bottom-up Unity

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph 4:11-13)

So if there are unity problems in your church (or churches), maybe it’s related to not doing this well enough!

We know Paul is serious about unity in the church (Eph 4:3). If we took a guess at his top three priorities, based on his activity, they could well be:

  1. Preach the gospel.
  2. Plant Churches.
  3. Keep said churches unified. 

In this passage he lays out a blue-print for achieving goal #3. Christ has given people with teaching gifts to the church to equip the people in those churches. This activity  builds up the body until it becomes unified and mature. (Eph 4:11-13)

What this means is that unity must be built from the bottom-up, not from the top-down. If the people aren’t taught properly it is impossible for unity to exist. The primary role the leaders have is to do the equipping. They can have unity meetings with other leaders for sure, but there will be no actual unity without it existing throughout the membership of the whole church.

We have all seen and heard the rancour that can occur in the political world. Disunity in the electorate is often-times a completely desirable goal for some political operators. 

Features include having no universally accepted standard of acceptable debate. People vilifying and slandering one another. No standard of truthfulness is required – say whatever you want in the moment, true or not – the news cycle moves on much more quickly than the fact checkers. People speculate about the motivations of others. It can seem difficult to get politicians to face the spotlight in a serious media interview. Straw-man arguments, bare-faced denials, lies and distraction are the tools of the day. Concepts of honour, decency and equal time seem quaint. The market place of ideas looks more like a pawn-shop for alternative facts.

Why the political illustration? Because it shows what you can get if your people aren’t equipped with godly motivations or godly rules of engagement. The passage itself paints a picture of what can happen if you’re not careful. You will be: tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. (Eph 4:14)

The image is a frightening one. Hapless sail-boat in a violent storm, taking in water, miles from land and starting to sink. And the protagonists are scary people too – cunning, crafty, deceitful,…and motivated.

So, how to avoid all of this? By placing an intentional focus on equipping the church to be able to defend themselves and advance the quest for unity at an individual level. This type of equipping does not come from a one-shot seminar series. It’s an open-ended, ongoing process with an end-goal of the whole church attaining to the measure of the fullness of Christ. I think that’s Paul way of saying that this work never stops.

What should be the subject matter of this teaching then? The first thing the passage mentions is “knowledge of the son of God”. An ever-increasing and deepening acquaintance with the person of Jesus Christ – his heart, his character, his teaching, his way of life, how he dealt with different kinds of people, his strength, his compassion, his love, his courage. 

Tactics: Speaking the truth in love. This does not come that naturally to many people, particularly given that matters of faith and identity are involved. We might even need a few role-plays to teach this one out. What does it look like and sound like to speak the truth in love? Again, familiarity with Jesus will help (Jn 4:1-42, Lk 7:40-50, Mk 10:17-22). How can someone know when to use both barrels (Mt 12:34) or when to walk away instead (Mt 15:14)? This kind of situational assessment ability is not gained in a day. 

Ongoing:  we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. Every respect. What would it take for everyone in your local church to become in every respect like Jesus? I think about this a lot in my own life, and I know I have a fair way to go yet! My question at this point is, is this even an agenda item in your church? If you categorised all the sermon points you have heard in a year, what proportion would overlap somehow with the “becoming like Jesus” idea I wonder?

The key to church unity is  serious and deliberate equipping of the whole congregation towards maturity in Christ. Because when this pursued, something amazing happens: From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph 4:16)

Unity is achieved because each part can do its work. And each part can do it’s work because each part has been equipped to do so. It even becomes self-perpetuating when it reaches the “builds itself up in love” stage.

Biblical teaching and preaching should not primarily seek to be motivational. Shouldn’t be shoddy, inarticulate or boring either. But it should be an out-growth of the project to present everyone mature in Christ, and in so doing ensure the strength, unity and effectiveness of the church in its mission to be God’s partners in ministering to our broken world. The motivation will come all by itself if this path is followed.

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Unburdened

This is an article I wrote several years ago. It has been available also on Douglas Jacoby’s website.

Perhaps the key differentiator Christianity has in the field of world religions is the unique concept of grace. In a world driven by competitiveness, performance measurement and the relentless march for increased return on investment and corporate profits, God’s grace and everything it affects is not well valued, simply ignored or even despised. Yet it is at the very core of our religion. If we have no other virtue as Christians, we must at the very least explain grace to the world in our actions, our words, and in our very thoughts. Yet we are far from this being the case. It is my contention that we have fostered a culture long on performance benchmarks but short on promulgating grace. In the quest for fast growth in our churches, the message of God’s grace has often been distorted, ignored or even hijacked.

The stage of world history is littered with the corpses of men and women who have been trampled in the quest for world domination of an ideology. Christianity, Islam, Communism, Imperialism, Nazism and so forth have all sought worldwide influence and impact. The leaders of these movements in their respective day were driven by the deep belief of the superiority and excellence of their cause. But of course the excellence or purity of a cause in the minds of its leaders is not a sufficient measure of its excellence overall. The human costs of spreading social, political or religious doctrine has been enormous. A curious paradox has emerged’in the pursuit of something so “high” as the pervasiveness of a guiding ideology, the results have been so “low”. The collateral damage of untold millions of wrecked lives did not appear to enter into the calculations. After all, the world was being won…

The word of God however seeks to protect mankind from all of this. Yes, the stakes are high -eternal salvation, but the central tenet that provides this salvation in the first place must not be betrayed in the achievement of it. Paul expresses it succinctly “If I have the faith to move mountains but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:1-3). World evangelism at the expense of love for the individual has proved to be a costly error. However apparently noble the mission may be, if it is one without true love and grace, it is in the final analysis and potential effects, no different to the worldwide spread of any other manmade ideology.

Many Christians in our churches today subscribe to a mindset of “burdened-ness”. They have been taught to equate a sense of spiritual acceptability or maturity with a notion of “feeling the burden” sufficiently. One’s burdened-ness can be measured by a blanket evaluation of one’s preparedness to “go anywhere, do anything, give up everything”. Any residual desire to place emphasis on other facets of life could be interpreted as not having an adequate love for the mission or the lost, or even as being ‘worldly’ in outlook. This dynamic is well recognised. The purpose of this article is to provide some Biblical help to embrace what I believe to be a state of heart and mind that God wants his children to have:’a state of being unburdened.

There is a pattern throughout both the Old and New Testaments, about the way God interacts with his people. What we find is a theme of God being all about being a lifter of burdens, not a placer of them.

GOD LIFTS BURDENS
(Num 11:11-17 NIV) He asked the LORD, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? {12} Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers? {13} Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ {14} I cannot carry all these people by myself the burden is too heavy for me. {15} If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now–if I have found favor in your eyes–and do not let me face my own ruin.” {16} The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. {17} I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.

Here we get an insight into how Moses was feeling as the leader of an ungrateful nation and people of God. He complains of the heavy burden he feels leading all those people. How does God respond to Moses? Does God admonish him to stop his whining? “Be more faithful Moses!” No! Rather God acts to lift the burden. It was a burden. No wonder Moses was feeling it’he was understaffed by a factor of 70!

Let us now examine a key passage in the New Testament. In Mt 11:1-30. Jesus had send out the twelve, and was now on a preaching and teaching tour of Galilee. John sends his disciples with some questions to Jesus. Jesus talks about John, and goes on to address his audience. There seems to be confusion reigning in this passage: John is confused about Jesus, the people are confused about John, and about the nature of the Kingdom of God. Cities that saw miracles are cursed. Worldly seaports and the byword of Sodom itself are lifted up. Religion has blinded the people, and God wants that turned upside down.

There is a common thread running through these incidents. Jesus is challenging the concepts and ideas people have about their religion. John wasn’t sure about Jesus it seems. Healing the sick, curing the lepers, opening the eyes of the blind was perhaps not what John was anticipating. Jesus corrected that notion with a Scripture. Then Jesus addresses the people. “What were you expecting with John? A weak and insipid religious guy? Or a wealthy tele-evangelist type? You got more than you bargained for didn’t you!’ It’s always easier to complain about the messenger than to embrace the message and change.

Jesus goes on to denounce the Jewish cities of Korazin, Betsaida and Capernaum. The Bible belt of the Holy land perhaps. Sodom would be better off? What was Sodom known for? Sodomy. Imagine the furore in conservative religious circles today if Jesus came preaching this!

Jesus thanks God for hiding the truth from the “wise”, and revealing it to the child-like. Soft hearts are needed for this message, not hardened religiosity.

As the true explanation of God (v27), we are encouraged to listen again to Jesus’ message rather than continue to stumble along blindly with deeply held traditional but off-centre religious beliefs. Grace? Are you really sure that’s what the gospel is all about?…

Then there is the key passage of all:

(Mat 11:28-30 NLT) Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. {29} Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. {30} For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.”

What are the burdens Jesus is talking about? Many people would quickly apply this passage to difficulties in their own lives: their busy job or difficult relationship perhaps. This might be possible, but the context of the passage as discussed above seems to demand that the application of these verses lies in the realm of one’s faith and relationship with God.

Consider also Psalm 146, referred to by Jesus:

(Psa 146:6-9 NLT) He is the one who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He is the one who keeps every promise forever, {7} who gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry. The LORD frees the prisoners. {8} The LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts the burdens of those bent beneath their loads. The LORD loves the righteous. {9} The LORD protects the foreigners among us. He cares for the orphans and widows, but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.

Jesus appealed to this Psalm when answering John’s questions. It portrays God as a keeper of promises, a freer of prisoners, and a lifter of burdens.

A true relationship with God is not about heavy burdens. Jesus makes this point clearly in his famous “woe to you Pharisees’ discourse:

(Mat 23:4 NIV) They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

(Mat 23:4 NLT) They crush you with impossible religious demands and never lift a finger to help ease the burden.

The religious world imposes burdens. Jesus states explicitly that he will lighten the burden.

A doctor working with leprosy sufferers in India wrote of burdens, stress and yokes:

Too much stress on ones body is detrimental. Conversely, too little stress also affects living tissue. Cells need exercise. Without it, they will atrophy’a condition common to anyone who has worn a plaster cast. I once treated an Indian fakir who had held his hand over his head uselessly for twenty years, as a religious act. The muscles had shrunk to nothing, and all the joints had fused together so that his hand was like a stiff paddle. Healthy tissue needs stress, but appropriate stress that is distributed among many cells.

Those principles apply directly to the stress caused by a joke on the neck of an ox. In the hospital carpentry shop in India, I helped fashion such yokes.

If I put a flat, uncarved piece of wood on an ox’s neck and use it to pull a cart, very quickly pressure sores will break out on that animal’s neck, and he will be useless. A good yoke must be formed to the shape of an ox’s neck. It should cover a large area of skin to distribute the stresses widely. It should also be smooth, rounded, and polished with no sharp edges, so that no one point will endure unduly high stress. If I succeed in my workshop, the yoke I make will fit snugly around the ox’s neck and cause him no discomfort. He can haul heavy loads every day for years, and his skin will remain perfectly healthy, with no pressure sores.

And now, I think I understand the strange juxtaposition of phrases in (Matthew 11:28-29). Jesus offers each of us a well-fitted yoke, of custom design. He does not call us to the kind of rest that means inactivity or laziness’that would lead to spiritual atrophy. Instead, he promises a burden designed to fit my frame, my individual needs, strengths, and capabilities. I come to him weary and heavy-laden. He removes those crushing burdens that would destroy any human being, and replaces them with a yoke of appropriate stress designed specifically for me. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” he says, “for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

We are to take Jesus’ yoke upon us. The promise is that the burden will be light. This flows from the yoke being one of custom design, tailored to fit the needs and situation of the individual Christian. Managing such an inventory of one-off yokes does not fit with any man-made system, but it is typical of the glorious variability we see throughout God’s creation.

We however have sought to standardize Christianity and have taught or implied that everyone needs to perform to the same single standard in God’s kingdom. This teaching seems to be at odds with what Jesus is saying here. Jesus’ yoke is a snug fit, not an impossible fit.

If we take an area of spiritual activity such as evangelism for example, what we must acknowledge is that different individuals will have different evangelistic impacts throughout their lives. Some will influence many directly to become Christians. Others will influence only a few. Some may influence no one. The constant admonition to bear fruit evangelistically that has been a feature in many of our churches has produced an ill-fitting yoke on the necks of many disciples. Thy feel burdened, unable to measure up to this demand. Such burdens are not of God, they are of man and his programs. No wonder people feel burdened! They are not carrying Jesus’ load, but somebody else’s!

To add to this notion that God is a lifter of burdens, consider the following:

– (Psa 55:22 NLT) Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

– (Psa 145:14 NLT) The LORD helps the fallen and lifts up those bent beneath their loads.

– (1 John 5:3 NIV) This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

– (1 John 5:3 NLT) Loving God means keeping his commandments, and really, that isn’t difficult.

LEADERS LIFT BURDENS
What then does God expect of his leaders? There are many examples of both good and bad leadership to be found in the Bible. Let us look at two of the good ones: Nehemiah and Paul.

(Neh 5:14-19 NIV) Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year–twelve years–neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor. {15} But the earlier governors–those preceding me–placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that. {16} Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work we did not acquire any land. {17} Furthermore, a hundred and fifty Jews and officials ate at my table, as well as those who came to us from the surrounding nations. {18} Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people. {19} Remember me with favor, O my God, for all I have done for these people.

Nehemiah’s actions were in stark contrast to the worldly leaders that preceded him. He willingly forsook certain privileges available to him out of his reverence for God and for the sake of his people. The earlier leaders placed a heavy burden on the people, in the form of taxes. Encouraged no doubt by their superior’s attitudes, the assistants too lorded it over the people. Nehemiah however refused to be like that. Instead, he set a personal example by devoting himself to the work. Instead of dining off the backs of his countrymen, he fed 150 of them every night. He never made use if his rights.

What do we learn from the example of Nehemiah? Great leaders sacrifice for their people. Worldly leaders burden their people.

Let us turn to the example of Paul, perhaps best illustrated in his relationship with the Thessalonian Christians.

(1 Th 2:6-12 NIV) We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, {7} but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. {8} We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. {9} Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. {10} You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. {11} For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, {12} encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

(2 Th 3:8-9 NIV) …nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. {9} We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.

Paul writing to the Thessalonians, asserts that ‘as apostles they could have been a burden to them”. He means, they could have supported him financially while he was with them. But he chose to work night and day so as not to burden this fledgling church. Rather, he was determined to encourage, comfort and urge them as a father does his children. As it turned out, the Macedonian churches did end up supporting Paul financially as we see in 2 Corinthians 11:9.

(2 Cor 11:9 NIV) And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed. I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so.

Such example teaches powerful lessons. Paul didn’t want to be a burden to those he was preaching to. His example taught The Macedonian churches (of which Thessalonica was one) well. We learn that after Paul had moved on from there, they were spectacularly generous despite their severe poverty (2 Cor 8:1-2). There seems to be a strong link between people’s willingness to give financially and the leaders willingness to not take advantage of it.

Time and time again we see godly leaders determined NOT to burden their people, but to serve them.

WE ALL LIFT BURDENS

Serving and burden-bearing leaders are not sufficient for a healthy church however. What is required is that we all become burden lifters in our relationships with one another. This will be a major cultural shift for some, but a Biblically mandated one.

One of the greatest burdens we routinely face in our spiritual lives can be in dealing with our sin.

(Psa 38:4-5 NLT) My guilt overwhelms me’it is a burden too heavy to bear. {5} My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins.

Paul talks of vulnerable women, burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by many desires (2 Tim 3:6), a spiritual condition not limited to women necessarily.

Sin can be a big deal to people. We are all familiar with the power of sin and guilt. It stops people from coming to church or reading the Bible. This is Satan’s home turf. When people need the succour of spiritual encouragement, they feel more driven to avoid it. It is like saying “I am too sick to go to hospital”.

Sin in our lives is certainly a burden. Some however, are over-burdened with “imagined sin”. Every act or thought is put under the microscope and examined for the slightest trace of sin. ‘You’re not submissive enough, faithful enough, bold enough, humble enough, committed enough. Sin, sin ,sin ,sin, sin, sin!’ This type of thinking has also been a feature of our church culture unfortunately, and needs to be reversed.

As Christians, we need to take sin seriously, but not neurotically. Mark 9:42-45 shows that we must deal decisively with the causes of sin, yet we do not see a continual scrutiny on the sin in people’s lives in the pages of the New Testament.

As an example of this, the apostles had a great opportunity to spell out moral requirements to the Gentile churches when they circulated the letter that bore the landmark outcomes of the Jerusalem Council in the mid first-Century. What we see however is just four sins mentioned!

(Acts 15:28-29 NIV) It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: {29} You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

The focus was not on burdening people, but on freeing them. The name the sins to avoid and then encourage them by saying ‘You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell!’ They didn’t berate the point. The apostles did not want to burden the people turning to God. We shouldn’t either.

Finally, the Bible has some advice for us in our relationships with one another, in dealing with sin in each other’s lives.

(Gal 6:1-2 NIV) Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. {2} Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

The first lesson here is that if you are not spiritual, perhaps don’t get personally involved. But more importantly, we are taught to restore your brother gently. Some of us are more likely to burden people down than to effectively restore. We draw ourselves up to our full height: “Brother, that’s a disgusting sin. How could you. You need to go away and repent. You make me sick.” Such words spring from a false notion of God’s attitude toward the sinner. The ‘go away and don’t come back until you repent’ school of theology is not of God. It does not reflect God’s graciousness and it carves out a deeper foothold for Satan.

We are to restore our brothers gently. Draw him in. Build him up. Point him to God. Carry his burden.

CONCLUSION
The message of the gospel is good news. It is unburdening news. God is a lifter of burdens, not a placer of burdens. Our teaching and our example need to reflect this strongly. We have some work to do in our churches to reverse an ingrained mindset that is the opposite to this. It starts with our individual relationship with God and view of God as a burden lifter. It requires leaders who are prepared to be burden-bearers and it ultimately devolves to how we interact with one another on an individual level as channels of God’s grace, mercy, love and peace.

(Mat 11:28-30 NIV) “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. {29} Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. {30} For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

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Connection

 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 1:18-19)

Think about what it would be like to be completely connected with God, with our spouse, with our kids, with our wider family and friends. We would know with certainty how we fit into the fabric of those around us. We would feel totally loved, totally secure, totally certain about the point of life.

Problem is however that many of us suck at connection! Awkwardness,  uncertainty or self-absorption get in the way. And what is the motivation anyway? It takes a lot of effort to connect with people,  and our overtures may not always be well-received. For some of us, connection may simply be outside of our lived experience – disconnection, violence and dysfunction may have been the norm for us growing up. 

Yes there are many barriers, but isn’t connection something we all still crave? We may not say it out loud, but the desire we each feel for connection is inside all of us. It is  a universal need. It’s what it means to be human. A deep longing inside all of us, but as we peer into that particular well, many of us see that it is far from full, and we have no idea where the bucket is.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is written to a church in which members were struggling to properly connect. There were two groups in this church – Jews and Gentiles. They came from very different religious and cultural backgrounds (Eph 2:11-22). Old ways of thinking and cultural differences died hard. So much so, it could be said that this was the number one problem, not just there in Ephesus, but in the first century church as a whole. 

Yet God has done his bit (Eph 2:14-16), and paraphrasing Ephesians 4, Paul is saying: 

”C’mon guys – think about it! How many bodies are there? One. How many spirits are there here? One. Lords, faiths, baptisms? One. Are you getting it? … How many groups should there be in your church then? Multiple choice question: one… or two? “

They needed to connect… with God and with each other.

So much for the theory lesson. How’s this actually going to work?

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 1:18-19)

The number one New Testament problem is to be met with the number one New Testament solution – love. Starting point  for them was to be rooted and established in love. Some digging required! Breaking up some rocky ground maybe. Deliberate spiritual gardening… getting to being rooted and established in love. 

Paul’s number one prayer for them was that they would be able to come to an understanding of just how massively cubic Christ’s love for them is. To really know it. Even though the extent of it is actually unknowable. Why? So they can be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.. Now that kind of filling sounds like you don’t have to bend down very far at all to get a drink from that well.

And so, when you have resources like this to draw from, cross-cultural unity doesn’t seem like such a big problem any more. 

So, connection, that thing we all crave, doesn’t happen by accident. We must be individually deliberately determined. Intentional. Could be as simple as setting up a coffee or lunch with a friend. Make a time. Spend some time. Connect.

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