Before we utter one more ounce of rage, let us turn to the bible for what God says...

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Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?" But He turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." And they went to another village. - Luke 9: 51-56 (NKJV)

It is such a shame that churchgoers are so easily manipulated to feel victimized and aggrieved. I so desperately want us to wake up and be able to discern when we are being fed a narrative designed to make us hate the very people, we should be bringing the gospel to. The lost are not your enemy beloved. Even if they are rude. Even if they are intolerant. Even of they are homosexual, or drag queens. Christians behave as if we came out from our mother's womb, as born again. We did not. Maybe we have convinced ourselves that the sins we see in the world today are somehow worse than the ones we were steeped in when Christ found us. Let me assure you, we were just as wretched. We were just as lost. Whatever righteousness we have belongs to Christ alone. Yet we often become so easily arrogant against people no better than we were.

I was hoping today that many Christians would take a big step back from the selective outrage merchants selling the opening ceremony from the Olympics as being some kind of purposeful slap across the face of Christianity. Instead, it seems that we have all doubled down on our victimization while the world laughs at us because we cannot tell the difference between a French painting of Dionysus and an Italian painting of the Last Supper. The world shakes their heads in disbelief because what we profess to be so upset about is a depiction of the Last Supper, which has already been parodied thousands of times. While the things of God are foolishness to them, they can easily spot hypocrisy.

Let us now turn to the bible because God has given us an example of this arrogance and hypocrisy at work within followers of Jesus, in the key verses above. We see Jesus come through a Samaritan village. Before getting into the text, we need to remember that the Samaritans were reviled by the Jews. They were hated. They were considered half-breeds filled with pagan beliefs. Sound familiar? So, when Jesus came through, it turns out the Samaritans rejected him. James and John, the "Sons of Thunder", put their nicknames on full display by asking if they should reign fire down upon the Samaritans and consume them. No grace. No mercy. No understanding of who Christ is. Just arrogance, hypocrisy and clear bias against the despised Samaritans. Jesus of course rebuked them, because they were serving only the own carnal flesh. If Jesus was watching the ceremonies yesterday do you honestly think He would lament that the church rebuke was not harsh enough? Or do you think He would rebuke us as He did the Sons of Thunder? We do not belong to a social club where we are skeptical of new members. Jesus came to save all of us, not just people we like. With these scriptures in hand, let us turn to commentary from Barnes' Notes on the Bible:

"Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of - You suppose that you are actuated by a proper love for me; but you know not yourselves. It is rather a love of revenge; rather revengeful feelings toward the "Samaritans" than proper feelings toward "me." We learn here:

1. That "apparent" zeal for God may be only improper opposition toward our fellow-men.

2. That people, when they wish to honor God, should examine their spirit, and see if there is not lying at the bottom of their professed zeal for God some bad feeling toward their fellow-men.

3. That the highest opposition which Jesus met with was not inconsistent with "his" loving those who opposed him, and with his seeking to do them good." - Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Amen. James and John thought they calling for fire from heaven from a place of proper love for Jesus but like Jeremiah reminds us, the heart is wickedly deceitful. They knew not that they were truly motivated by a lust for revenge. They were offended. They felt aggrieved and they were going to set it right. They were motivated by an improper opposition to their fellow man. It was not true righteous zeal at all. Jesus is rebuking them by saying they need to examine their spirit because if they did, they would find their true motivation lying beneath the veneer of self-righteousness they were operating under. We forget, as the Sons of Thunder did that day, that no matter how high the opposition Jesus faces, He never failed to love them. They were included in the people He knew He was going to die for. In the end, He only wanted what was best for them, you, and me.

Now overlay these scriptures and interpretations upon this fabricated offense from Paris. Perhaps many in the church who have been so outraged genuinely think they are coming from a place of love for Jesus but scripturally, we know this is not correct. Our deceitful heart lies to us about the offense and blames the people who need the love of Christ. The judgment that we are trying to visit upon them is not ours to wield. We have been told by political operatives and politicians that we should be offended. We have been sold a bill of goods by NAR grievance merchants. I am sorry but our motivation is pure carnality. Pure revenge. Pure bias. The people we have been conditioned to loathe are our fellow man and we should not so quickly forget that our position was once theirs but thankfully people still preached the gospel to us. Thankfully they did not actively try to call down heavenly fire upon us. If we dig deep, underneath the dominionist sermons and NAR twitter feeds that we allow to feed us, we would find that we are not really doing any of this for Jesus. How weak is the God you claim to serve that He needs you to defend Him? The people you think were somehow mocking you, deserve the same love that Christ displayed to the Samaritan village that day because He died for them too. We are still in the age of grace, yet we act without a sliver of it. Christ is coming back but until then, He still only wants what is best for you, me and the very people we are told are somehow beyond redemption.

Stop being offended beloved. Offense only serves the enemy. God did not ask us to defend His honor. He did not tell us to call fire from heaven down upon people we already have bias against, just because they are not where we are in terms of salvation. You are being used. You are being manipulated. There is nothing new under the sun. What happened yesterday is the same as the day before and the day after. People are lost and act like it. Like the Samaritans before them, they reject Jesus. The truly sad thing is that one the reasons is because we act like the Sons of Thunder. We act as if the fact that they are lost surprises us, offends us, and angers us. We know not what spirit we are of because our deceitful hearts have convinced us that we have righteous anger. We do not anymore than James and John did that day. We have bias. We have hatred. We have victimization. We have those things because we have bought them from the grievance merchants we allow into our lives. It is time we stop buying what they are selling.

Reverend Anthony Wade - July 28, 2024

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.