Hopefully by now you have got the idea that I believe love to be the key to true discernment. The problem is that many have seen “love” as a weakness when it comes to discernment. This means that we have seen judgement without compassion, and labelling anyone we disagree with as a “heretic” or “unsaved”. There was a mock dictionary in the 1990s which pretended to translate Christian terms into plain English. The definition of saved was “Uses the same Bible as me”. This may seem like a bit of heart-lighted fun, but there is a painful truth in this. Around the same time there were false acronyms for different translations of the Bible, with the RSV (Revised Standard Version) being “really special version”, the GNB (Good News Bible) being “Got No Brains”, the NIV (New International Version) being the “Nice Intelligent Version” or “Necessary In Vineyard”, and the AV (Authorised Version) being the “Ancient Version”. This said more about the snobbery of those who used certain translations of Scripture rather than any strengths or weaknesses of that translations. I say snobbery as these terms were not used in jest, but as a tool to judge the “spirituality” of someone. Tracts were written demonising those who would prefer the NIV over the AV, and other minor issues. When we get to heaven judgement will not be based on what version of the Bible or what hymnbook we used, but on our relationship with God through Christ and the fruit of that relationship – fruit in both our lives and the world around us.
This judgement spirit, rather than discernment, has been seen throughout history. In the 1990s the alarm was raised about the pollution of the church by pagan spirituality, Hinduism, and occult practices through the New Age Movement. This was, and still is, a needed concern as we see pseudo-Jewish occultism through the Kabbalah, and other practices seeping into the prophetic movement. But many of those who sounded the trumpet to warn the church moved from the role of watchmen to watchdogs and then to hounds that barked at shadows. The reason for this was two-fold. Firstly, they came to believe that only they had the insight to tell what was heretical and what was not. Secondly, they lacked love. This led to those who were also warning about the New Age, but were not as rabid in condemning people who had a heart for social justice, world mission, or nuclear disarmament, being dismissed and slandered as “false teachers”. Around the same time we saw pioneers of movements such as inner healing, prophecy, intercession, and spiritual warfare being labelled as “New Agers”, “false prophets”, “Balaams”, “Jezebels”, “witches”, amongst other terms – including those who supported the “Toronto Blessing”.
Today we see this around the polemics concerning homosexuality. Too many groups exist which claim to be moving in discernment and to be prophetic voices which are moving in hate not love. They are playing into the hands of a liberal media through their anger fuelled rhetoric. Nowhere is this more true than on social media than Facebook. I am aware that a number of leading voices, including a high-profile theologian, who have had their accounts suspended for their comments describing homosexual acts as sexual perversion. I know others, with just as high profiles, who have made similar comments but who have not been suspended. The question is why? Could it be that rather than scoring theological points, or needing to be right, those who have not been sanctioned have been more concerned about lost souls and sharing the love of Christ? Yes, some of this have been suspended, but this is not such a regular occurrence where many of the polemicists relish in the fact that they have been banned – especially as it shows Facebook, Twitter and the other groups to be “anti-Christian”.
Let us look at how Jesus dealt with someone caught in sexual perversion, the woman caught in adultery. This woman, but not the man she was with, was dragged by a baying crowd into Christ’s presence. The religious leaders attempted to trap Jesus by asking him whether the woman should be stoned to death in accordance with Mosaic Law. Jesus challenged the crowd “let the one who is without sin throw the first stone”. Slowly the crowd started to leave until Jesus was alone with the woman. Asking the woman if there was anyone left from the crowd to condemn her the woman replied there was no-one. What Jesus next said shows his love, but also shows Godly judgement “Neither do I condemn you, but, go and sin no more”. Jesus first silenced the polemicists, the angry crowd, by holding up a mirror to their own lives. Paul does this in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 9 where homosexual acts are listed alongside drunkenness, idolatry, anger, theft, adultery, murder, and heterosexual immorality. In the Mosaic Law homosexuality is listed alongside adultery, incest, fornication, and bestiality. This list is the mirror to our lives. We stand as condemned as anyone else in any of the listed sins if we are unrepentant. James states that someone who has broken one Commandment, whether that be theft, adultery, coveting what your neighbour has, or murder, has broken them all. Many of the people who are banned from social media, and, I am afraid, get most media time, are known for their angry response, in this the mirror of Scripture would place them amongst the baying crowd.
The one who could condemn the woman did not. Jesus, the one without sin, declared that he did not condemn her. While those who discern without love would be in the crowd with stones in their hands, those who love without discernment would, as we will discuss in the next chapter, have us stop as this statement of Jesus. Jesus, though, does not stop there. He has more for the woman, he wants more for the woman. It is this discernment of the woman, who she is, her hurts, her situation, her story, that leads him to place the challenge “go and sin no-more” before her.
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