
A number of Christians do not know how to do grace.
Yeah, for the most part
But there are non-legalists who don’t do grace either. These’d be the people who don’t realize we’re saved by grace, and think we’re instead
And lastly, there’d be the Christians who do realize we’re saved by grace.
But while they’re happy to apply grace to themselves, do they apply it to others? Nah; not so much. They’re like the dude in Jesus’s
Matthew 18.22 KJV - Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Unless you’re a really bitter, vengeful person, with very little love in you,
Too few Christians recognize grace is
But people love to make exceptions,
Ingrates and evangelism.
I’ve written before about how
So do ungracious Christians hinder the gospel? Not really. In fact they actually spread it. Ungracious churches attract ungracious pagans.
Y’see, if you’re a bigoted, judgmental, angry, self-righteous sort of Christian, and you encounter other bigoted, judgmental, angry, self-righteous folks, it’s a lot easier to get ’em to join
Yeah, it’s both a blessing and curse. (A “blurse,” to use Reddit’s favorite term for it.) Pagan ingrates are getting an introduction
Of course in an ungracious church, problems and booby-traps abound.
DEFICIENT GOSPEL. The teachers in that church are gonna go out of their way to avoid any scriptures which tell us ingratitude and judgmentalness are unchristlike. Instead they’ll quote plenty of scriptures,
out of context of course, which endorses bad behavior, and makes it sound like God feels the very same way.Hence you’ll get a very askew picture of God’s kingdom; one which drives way too many Christians to despair and
apostasy andnontheism. ’Cause if they’re gracious than God is, why follow him?—it’d be better if he followed us, right?ESCALATION. Humans love to play games of one-upmanship, and this is all too true of judgmental people. It’s not enough for them to disapprove of sin; they feel they gotta disapprove of sinners. It’s not enough to disapprove of sinners; they gotta hate sinners. It’s not enough to hate sinners; they gotta punish sinners. It’s not enough to punish sinners; they gotta exterminate sinners. And so on.
Hence all the ungracious Christians who start with, “Yeah we’re agreed they’re sinners and going to hell,” then ramp it up to, “…and we gotta drive them out of our town, and country, and pass laws against them.” And it’s back to people who think sinners are ruining America, so let’s purge America of sinners.
Hence they get into politics. Lotta ingrates in politics, y’notice.
HYPOCRISY. Christians sin. Duh. We shouldn’t—and when we do, we have Christ Jesus, who forgives all, and forgives everyone.1Jn 2.1-2 But ungracious Christians do not forgive all, and certainly don’t forgive everyone; and you’re seldom to never gonna trust them withyour confessions. ’Cause at best they’re gonna demand some kind of ridiculous, lengthy “restoration” process which guarantees everybody in the church is never wholly gonna trust you again; and at worst you’re disfellowshiped and gotta find another church.So the sins hide. And to convince everyone you would never, ever commit such sins, you gotta emphasize how greatly you’re against them. Even overemphasize it a bit. A little too much.
INTOLERANCE. Once the Holy Spirit gets through to one of ’em, convinces that person of the necessity of grace, and they start showing compassion to the very people their congregation has damned… very quickly will they get accused of going liberal, get ostracized, and get driven away.
Yeah, there are a lot of ingrates who don’t understand there’s a difference between grace and liberalism. Grace says, “That needn’t get in God’s way, nor mine.” Liberalism says, “Go ahead and do that! You do you.” (Libertarianism does that too; they’re not as dissimilar a view as most people think.) Grace doesn’t judge, but neither does it pretend there’s no such thing as sin, nor that sin has no consequences. If you can’t tell the difference, you clearly don’t understand grace.
And ingrates are, true to form, not gonna understand what gracious Christians are doing, and drive ’em out as if they’re endorsing sin. They feel they have to.
They can’t permit even the appearance of evil among them; they have to be “holy.”They, and the Pharisees who were seriously bugged by
Jesus eating with taxmen and sinners, would get along great.
While these misbehaviors might offend you (and me; I grew up around ’em), there are plenty of people who love this kind of thing. People who are outraged that their churches aren’t political enough, or don’t “speak out against sin” enough, or aren’t angry and judgmental and “holy” enough. People who want a church who endorses their ungracious behavior; a pastor who not only never tells them it’s wrong, but even tells them it’s righteous… and conveniently ignores all the scriptures which tell us it’s not.
I’m not thrilled that they attract ungracious pagans, and turn ’em into the same sons of hell they are. But it still presents a useful opportunity for the Holy Spirit. So there’s that.
