When Pastors are Wolves

For the past few weeks, Christians have been castigated, especially by some Christian pastors, for shouting and being unkind toward unbelievers. The echo of “Jesus would not act this way” has resounded in the cultural sanctuaries, drowning out the Christian message of sin, repentance, and salvation in Jesus Christ. And rightly so! The Olympics opening ceremony and the follow-up women’s boxing controversy of allowing humans with XY chromosomes to pummel women with XX chromosomes are something every Christian pastor ought to publicly condone.

Social media has been aflare since the Olympics opened with its mockery of the Lord’s Supper with transvestitism, and the Greek god Dionysus busting through the table to perform a pseudo strip tease. Correctly expecting Christians to be naïve, some Christian pastors came out of the woods, growling at their parishioners, “This was not a parody of the Lord’s Supper! Quit jumping to conclusions and looking to be offended!” Of course, it wasn’t. Recall Paul’s aphorism that “we are . . . ignorant of schemes” (2 Cor 2:11b; NASB). Even Jesus taught “do be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt 10:16).

Never mind the fact that the opening ceremony was a resurrection of the cities Sodom and Gomorrah, growled the pastors. “Jesus would welcome anyone to his table!” they shouted, wryly showing their teeth. Oh, yes, of course! Remember when Jesus approached the woman at the well with pure gentleness and timidity, ignoring the fact she had had five husbands? Or recall when Jesus told the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin more. .” Or recollect the time when Jesus made a scourge and drove out those who were oppressed by the moneychangers in the Temple, calling on them to quit being so judgy and mean.

Oh Jesus! The exemplar of self-sacrificing, agape love who withheld the call to repentance because he knew people already have an innate sense of their wicked ways! He who has ears let him hear the words of Jesus: “, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

And, certainly, let all Christians remember that rebuke and the call to repentance are only for religious leaders. Christians are never, ever to call out or rebuke an unbeliever’s sin because Jesus never did this. Except when Jesus rebuked and called Gentiles to repentance while he ministered in the cities of Tyre, Sidon, and the Decapolis, and when he spoke to the woman at the well, the adulterous woman in John 8, the Syrophoenician woman, and when he rebuked his own people at Nazareth, Chorazin, Besaida, and Jerusalem, and all those other times Jesus rebuked people and called them to repentance, which are not many. None of those numerous instances count. Just the times when Jesus confronted the religious leaders.

Remember Christians: Jesus did not come to save “the lost.” That is offensive and drives the unchurched away. He came to be nice, gentle, and to love (and love is love, by the way). He made (and continues to make) sinners a part of his kingdom and church first, hoping they would eventually come to the conclusion that maybe they need to repent (unless, of course, you are born a certain way). This is the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Remember what the twentieth century theologian H. Richard Niebuhr once wrote concerning the true Gospel:

“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”

Do not think Niebuhr’s words were a commentary on classical liberal theology. No, no, no. It was a statement of the pure Gospel revealed in Jesus Christ! So go and love likewise. Call out the hypocritical so-called Christians who bring the Gospel into disrepute by their unloving attitudes and who cry out for repentance and forgiveness of sins. And remember what Jesus said about pastors who really love their church family:

“Beware of self-proclaimed Christians, who come to you preaching repentance for the love of the lost and who look like innocent sheep, but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15).