Value of the Month: Be Gracious with Criticism
What if someone criticizes you and it's not a valid complaint? Do we have any examples from the Bible that deal with this?
Yes, we have a plethora. (insert "The Three Amigos" clip here. Come on Jason, you KNOW you love it!)
We have numerous examples of the Pharisees interacting with Jesus. They almost always criticize Jesus for something. The Pharisee's first critique of Jesus in Matthew was obviously not valid, and Jesus responds kindly:
"When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, 'Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?' On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" (Matthew 9:11-12).
Notice Jesus clear tone here, he explains what he's doing, kindly, and continues to eat with tax collectors and sinners for the next 3 years! So let's apply that to our life, if it's not a valid critique, move on with your life. Don't worry about it.
That's easy to understand. Case closed. But...
Look at what happens towards the end of the book of Matthew. Notice how Jesus' tone eventually changes toward the Pharisees. After criticizing Jesus over and over throughout the book of Matthew, Jesus finally lets them have it:
In Matthew 23, Jesus pronounces 7 woes on the Pharisees, saying things like “You snakes! You brood of vipers!" (Matthew 23:33). And Jesus goes ON and ON with this. He cleans their clock about everything from their teaching style to the way they dress. Ouch.
I don't completely understand Jesus' response to the Pharisees here. I'm not sure how to apply that to my life. Any ideas?
1 comment:
Jesus knows more than we know for one thing. These were leaders who were supposed to be in charge of God's Temple and God's people who were deliberately and willfully misleading God's people. I think that vipers was an obvious reference to Satan similar to Jesus' stormy rebuke to Peter.
I think Jesus' answer in your first example shows compassion to the misled, misguided tax collectors but a stinging rebuke to the misleaders, the Pharisees. I imagine the scene with Jesus looking over the congregation of sinners when he says "the sick" with compassion in his eyes and Jesus staring in the faces of the Pharisees with the terrifying authority of Almighty God when he says "the healthy."
As far as application for us, I think there is a missing aspect in our treatment these days of willfull false teachers. They deserve strong rebuke from church leaders and don't get it very often. When I say strong, I mean You Brood of Vipers strong.
However, I think it is a response that is almost exclusively the province of church leaders to other leaders (religious, political, judicial, business, etc.)
In a word, I think we the church have grown way too soft in a pendulum swing response away from the ridiculous, misguided abuses by the church in earlier eras such as burning at the stake, etc.
Another thing to keep in mind is that he is referencing the Pharisees as a group just as there are condemnations of all manner of nations in the prophecies. Even though there is stinging rebuke of the Pharisaical Council, its mores and its behavior, Jesus taught and led a remnant of the council (ie. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodmeus and probably others) just as there is a believing remnant in condemned nations like Tyre and Edom.
Post a Comment