Relationships & Confrontation
If you want to confront someone else in the body of Christ, this is how you do it…
Convergence: March 15, 2007
Teacher: CJ Block
Based on the works of Gregory Boyd, Darrell Johnson, and Michael Frost
“Our fundamental sin is that we place ourselves in the position of God and divide the world between what we judge to be good and what we judge to be evil. And this judgment is the primary thing that keeps us from doing the central thing God created and saved us to do, namely, love like he loves.”
--Gregory Boyd
This is where we start…
We were always meant to love like God loves.
We were never meant to be judges (that’s why we’re crappy judges).
Judging offsets our ability to love: judging and loving are diametrically opposed.
John 17:13-25 – The Love Passage
Jesus says to the Father: you love them the same way you love me.
The love between the Trinity is:
Perfect. Unconditional. Eternal. Indescribable (Dawn breaks into song…). Uncontainable. Pure.
This has serious implications.
This is our foundation for dealing with conflict and criticism in the Body.
[book recommendation: Repenting of Religion by Boyd]
1 John 4:7-21 – Another Love Passage
But anyone who does not love does not know God—for God is love
…But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us.
[read that again: FULL EXPRESSION]
…If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen? 21 And God himself has commanded that we must love not only him but our Christian brothers and sisters, too.
What does this mean for us as believers?
We can’t even know God apart from love for each other.
[think: community, forgiveness, short accounts]
Johnson suggests that God loves us in such a way that his knowing himself is altered by his love for us...
We are empowered to love this way: the same way that God loves himself.
The Breakdown: The Tree
Love and judgment are always at tension.
At creation, we had the ability to love with the Trinitarian love.
When we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we were empowered to judge the difference between good and evil.
The problem is, we can’t balance love and judgment like God can.
“We cannot love and judge at once. Our knowledge of good and evil is always bent in our favor” – Boyd
[note: the one thing that Jesus judges the most and harshest: the judgers themselves]
The Model: Jesus on the Cross
when he was wearing the sin of the world,
when he was at the place to judge,
he chose to die.
His wrath against the sin was so great that his love for us was pushed to the limit of his own experience of death.
This is how God loves and judges.
It’s somewhat paradoxical. We don’t fully understand this. But, from what we do understand…
Some points to take home…
We are not able to know the difference between good and evil, but we can discern what will lead someone to a closer walk with God from something that will lead them away from God. It is not judgment to encourage someone to be loving, faithful, kind, etc.
When we judge people, we ascribe worth to them lower than our own. We set ourselves up as gods. Judging people is a basic form of idolatry, anti-love.
More Scripture: Romans 2:1-4 and James 4:11-12
God’s love: kind, tolerant, patient.
When we try to judge people, we do something for them that only God is equipped to do. This is a sign of distrust in God’s ability to judge and love at the same time. Unlike us, he can do both. We are only required to do one.
Judging someone else to be worse than you is to fill a gap in your heart meant for Christ. He is the only one that should be filling up your self-esteem.
Conversely, judging someone else as better than yourself is to judge yourself as worse. Again: that’s Christ’s job, not yours.
Judging people is a basic apple addiction, we keep going back to that stupid Tree.
Whether or not we think that judging is our right: our GOD is exactly the kind of God that when faced with the opportunity to judge, chooses to fight temptation, die a humiliating, grace-filled, painful, innocent death on a God-forsaken cross.
The original lies at the Tree in Eden were that God was untrustworthy, so humans could become God and live forever.
In fact, the truths which undid these lies were their polar opposites: we were revealed as untrustworthy, so God became human and died.
Remember: the ethics of the New Testament are not prescriptive laws, they are descriptions of who we are. We are kind, gentle, and self-controlled when we stop believing the lies about who we are not.
Erasing the line between “in” and “out”
Remember when we described Convergence as interconnected spheres instead of an in-group/out-group?
You are less likely to judge someone if you stop trying to determine whether they are “in” or “out”.
In a centered set, everyone is “in”. You are less likely to judge someone if you are not trying to determine whether on not they are “in” or “out” compared to your standards.
2 Guiding Questions: Matthew 18:15-35
What is a sin against me?
How did Jesus treat pagans and tax collectors? Love.
Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
“No!” Jesus replied, “seventy times seven!”
Convergence: March 15, 2007
Teacher: CJ Block
Based on the works of Gregory Boyd, Darrell Johnson, and Michael Frost
“Our fundamental sin is that we place ourselves in the position of God and divide the world between what we judge to be good and what we judge to be evil. And this judgment is the primary thing that keeps us from doing the central thing God created and saved us to do, namely, love like he loves.”
--Gregory Boyd
This is where we start…
We were always meant to love like God loves.
We were never meant to be judges (that’s why we’re crappy judges).
Judging offsets our ability to love: judging and loving are diametrically opposed.
John 17:13-25 – The Love Passage
Jesus says to the Father: you love them the same way you love me.
The love between the Trinity is:
Perfect. Unconditional. Eternal. Indescribable (Dawn breaks into song…). Uncontainable. Pure.
This has serious implications.
This is our foundation for dealing with conflict and criticism in the Body.
[book recommendation: Repenting of Religion by Boyd]
1 John 4:7-21 – Another Love Passage
But anyone who does not love does not know God—for God is love
…But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us.
[read that again: FULL EXPRESSION]
…If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen? 21 And God himself has commanded that we must love not only him but our Christian brothers and sisters, too.
What does this mean for us as believers?
We can’t even know God apart from love for each other.
[think: community, forgiveness, short accounts]
Johnson suggests that God loves us in such a way that his knowing himself is altered by his love for us...
We are empowered to love this way: the same way that God loves himself.
The Breakdown: The Tree
Love and judgment are always at tension.
At creation, we had the ability to love with the Trinitarian love.
When we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we were empowered to judge the difference between good and evil.
The problem is, we can’t balance love and judgment like God can.
“We cannot love and judge at once. Our knowledge of good and evil is always bent in our favor” – Boyd
[note: the one thing that Jesus judges the most and harshest: the judgers themselves]
The Model: Jesus on the Cross
when he was wearing the sin of the world,
when he was at the place to judge,
he chose to die.
His wrath against the sin was so great that his love for us was pushed to the limit of his own experience of death.
This is how God loves and judges.
It’s somewhat paradoxical. We don’t fully understand this. But, from what we do understand…
Some points to take home…
We are not able to know the difference between good and evil, but we can discern what will lead someone to a closer walk with God from something that will lead them away from God. It is not judgment to encourage someone to be loving, faithful, kind, etc.
When we judge people, we ascribe worth to them lower than our own. We set ourselves up as gods. Judging people is a basic form of idolatry, anti-love.
More Scripture: Romans 2:1-4 and James 4:11-12
God’s love: kind, tolerant, patient.
When we try to judge people, we do something for them that only God is equipped to do. This is a sign of distrust in God’s ability to judge and love at the same time. Unlike us, he can do both. We are only required to do one.
Judging someone else to be worse than you is to fill a gap in your heart meant for Christ. He is the only one that should be filling up your self-esteem.
Conversely, judging someone else as better than yourself is to judge yourself as worse. Again: that’s Christ’s job, not yours.
Judging people is a basic apple addiction, we keep going back to that stupid Tree.
Whether or not we think that judging is our right: our GOD is exactly the kind of God that when faced with the opportunity to judge, chooses to fight temptation, die a humiliating, grace-filled, painful, innocent death on a God-forsaken cross.
The original lies at the Tree in Eden were that God was untrustworthy, so humans could become God and live forever.
In fact, the truths which undid these lies were their polar opposites: we were revealed as untrustworthy, so God became human and died.
Remember: the ethics of the New Testament are not prescriptive laws, they are descriptions of who we are. We are kind, gentle, and self-controlled when we stop believing the lies about who we are not.
Erasing the line between “in” and “out”
Remember when we described Convergence as interconnected spheres instead of an in-group/out-group?
You are less likely to judge someone if you stop trying to determine whether they are “in” or “out”.
In a centered set, everyone is “in”. You are less likely to judge someone if you are not trying to determine whether on not they are “in” or “out” compared to your standards.
2 Guiding Questions: Matthew 18:15-35
What is a sin against me?
How did Jesus treat pagans and tax collectors? Love.
Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
“No!” Jesus replied, “seventy times seven!”
posted by Jamie at
4:04 PM
11 Comments:
"God draws near to us in such a way as to draw us near to himself within the circle of his knowing of himself." - Thomas Torrance from Trinitarian Perspectives.
God is not aware of himself outside of his awareness of believers. Read the John passage again and again until you realize that believers are so bound with Christ that we are somehow embraced by the same love that is excersized between members of the Trinity. Read the 1 John passage to realize that it is this Trinitarian love that we are meant to have for each other. Perfect, eternal, communal love.
By
Anonymous, at 5:24 PM
question ---
you know when Paul sends letters to various churches and basically says - you should cast out these people from the church, because they are corrupting the church -- he's talking about sexual sin, false teaching etc..
where does that fall under judgment, because I agree, we suck bad at judging and need to concern ourselves totally with love ---
but there has got to be something what Paul, Peter, and I guess even Jesus when he was casting out the Pharisees (but he is God), were saying, but Paul and Peter were not god's... and yet to me what they said has logic, but is it not judging? or what?
I'm not trying to judge, sorry if I am, but to state the obvious question thats on some of our minds, when people are causing disunity in the church, and hating on each other, and its a repeating pattern, and there seems no signs of repentance and love --- should the church step up and deal with those people? dare I say even ask people to leave? wow, i said it, but i guess I'm just praying for a united church that loves on each other, and not just for the sake being all happy and all and safe, being in a 'safe' church sucks, its pointless, and the kingdom does not get advanced, but because with a united and loving church God can do great things to really change a city (look at me getting all passionate) -- but when its all hating, how can God use a hating church? (thats a rhetorical question)
By
Anonymous, at 11:14 PM
yeah um that a good question Josh.. im believer that we are suppose to judge the body!... but there are ways to do it like.. i believe did Paul not say "if you see a believer doing something wrong and dont do anything about it ... you will be held accountible for that... now i know is wasnt Jesus saying it.. it was paul but that like alot of thing if Jesus dosent say it should we listen to it? cause Paul dose say some wild things...but all writings paul wrote are his writing but...but are inspirted by God! we cant just take his writing like a gain of salt!
By
mrfetatanko, at 2:20 PM
I wonder if it is the heart behind the decision to confront or "judge" that doesn't make it judging. I think all to often in the church we can judge someone just for the sake of it. Or perhaps we do it because they are different from us or they make us uncomforatable. However, if I love that person like a brother/sister and see something in their life that is contradictory to what they claim their values are isn't it my place to come beside them and challenge them as I would my brother/sister? I know for me it's a total heart issue. I almost want to go to the extreme and say that unless I love someone else as I love myself I have no place "judging" them. Please feel free to completely contradict this and tell me I'm a heretic cause then I can learn something.
I also think that we should kick people named Paul out of the church completely.
By
Anonymous, at 11:13 AM
Awesome job on thursday corey. great topic....
Paul, I think you're on the money. Judging can be a word with many interpretations... judging the body with the heart of accountability is good, on the flip side, judging with the heart to comdemn would be bad?
By
Kris, at 11:59 AM
Sometimes I like judging. It makes me feel good (temporarily) until Corrie kicks me towards pursuing reconcilliation (and then I want to kick HIM out of the church ;) until I realized how selfish my motivations always are.
The thing about wanting to kick people out of the church is that we have to do the hard, messy, honest work of pursuing reconcilliation first. Most of the time we're too lazy to do this.
I wonder if the church like Jesus intended wouldn't HAVE to kick people out: there would be strong leadership, clear teaching, authentic community, and we wouldn't be afraid of offending people with the hard parts of the gospel. Maybe then certain people would leave the church on their own because they weren't comfortable. Perhaps we have so many fence-sitters in North American churches because we preach and live a watered down version of the gospel.
So, maybe it takes stepping back from our situation to find some answers to this question.
By
Jamie, at 12:15 PM
“Do not get involved in foolish discussions about spiritual pedigrees or in quarrels and fights about obedience to Jewish laws. These kinds of things are useless and a waste of time. If anyone is causing divisions among you, give a first and second warning. After that, have nothing more to do with that person. For people like that have turned away from the truth. They are sinning, and they condemn themselves.” – Titus 3:9-11
On one hand, Jesus says to treat believers who won’t accept correction like corrupt tax collectors and pagans, and on the other, Paul says to have nothing more to do with them. I’m going to have to side with Jesus, that treating someone like a pagan who claims to be a believer is the preferred course of action. All of Paul’s writings need to be interpreted through Jesus’ instructions. Also, don’t forget that Paul was giving specific instructions to Titus who is having a really difficult time with false prophets and poor leadership among the churches in Crete. Paul generalizes that, “The people of Crete are all liars; they are cruel animals and lazy gluttons. 13 This is true. So rebuke them as sternly as necessary to make them strong in the faith” (1:12-13). Paul’s instructions from then on are about how to encourage the faith through proper leadership. Read all of chapter 3 again. Paul’s focus is not on kicking people out, but on grace and good deeds. Removing someone from fellowship is an extreme case. We should seek to avoid that case. Let’s aim toward Jesus’ desires for the church and stop trying to figure out when it’s acceptable to do otherwise.
Jesus says that we should treat the unrepentant believer as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector. Practically that means they shouldn’t be in leadership, no one should take their teaching seriously, and we should love and welcome them as we do other pagans and corrupt tax collectors. For contemporary church, I would translate Jesus’ instructions in Matt 18 like this, “If someone in the church is unloving toward you, let them know and give them a chance to reconcile with you. If they don’t engage the opportunity to reconcile, go again with a trusted friend to give them another chance, your friend can help to keep both of you accountable for what you say. If there’s still no reconciliation, bring it up in public, in front of the whole church, and give that person another chance to make things right. Of course, doing this in front of the church also exposes you to the community’s thoughts on how you are handling the situation. If you have done all of this in love and out of pure desire for reconciliation and the church agrees that this person remains stubborn in their sin, it is obvious that they do not know the gospel, so love them with a gracious enduring eternal love that seeks to share the gospel with them, always aiming to include them in community and lead them toward the Kingdom.” These instructions are followed by the story of the unforgiving debtor. Not a coincidence. Be very careful what grievances you feel are worthy of public debate. You may be found to be the unforgiving one.
By
Anonymous, at 6:25 PM
Corrie...I'm really mad at you for this comment. Next convergence I'm going to bring it up...publically!
Bam...that just happened.
By
Anonymous, at 11:09 PM
paul,
"Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged." 1 Cor 13:5.
Do what ya gotta do, man. I trust the community.
By
Anonymous, at 12:03 PM
Paul- way to interfere with the flow of dialogue.
Corrie- way to bring it back to scripture
By
Anonymous, at 4:59 PM
Once again...People named Paul should be drummed out of the church. We disrupt things...it's our spiritual gift.
Corrie...I love you and think you're neat by the way. Super neat even. 1 Timothy 5:17...I smell a raise coming!
(I wanted to end with a scripture)
By
Anonymous, at 11:26 AM
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