Jesus! Be Nice!
I have to get something off my chest. It's been bothering me for some time now. I apologize if I come off as a cynical know-it-all in this blog but it is my one place I feel safe to express my frustrations and anger, especially with American Evangelical Christianity (God, I hate that term). There is no one that is going to completely misunderstand me and get mad because of the 'fear of change', there is no one that is going to argue with me without ever trying to see my point of view and there is no one that is going to claim I am not a christian because of some things I believe (ok well maybe the last one might happen, but I'm ok with that).
Getting to the point... If you're going to school for ministry you get fed a lot of information and most of the time it just goes in without ever being processed because there is just so much of it. This field loves to cram as much information as possible in you without giving you the opportunity to reflect on it (not saying this is a bad thing, it's just is the way schools work now). The positive side of this is you end up with alot of head knowledge with facts, figures, and models; the negative side is you're not completely sure how it all fits together or even how to apply it to real life. As it fate would have it, a piece of information slipped into the relfection area of my brain and guess what? I didn't like the results.
The line I read was "Always give generous praise to those around you". Something didn't seem right, usually I will just keep reading because of the massive amount I need to get done but this time I decided to ponder it. Did Jesus contantly heap praise on his disciples? Well I dont see much evidence of it in the gospels or the letters. In fact most the letters were written because people were screwing up not doing well. So why do all these different books and people keep telling me the same thing...give out praise to people. A word of warning: I will probablly swing this pendulum pretty far in the other direction to prove a point.
Here is my hypothesis: a simple answer...because we all love praise from each other, so if we give it we'll get some back. It's true but is it really Christian? The Bible says to exort and encourage but I dont find any reference to heaping praise on each other. John even talks about the Pharisees loving the praise of men more then God (12:43). In Ephesians we are told to "live for the praise of Christ"...not man (1:12). In 1 Peter we are told "govenors are sent to praise those who do right", but we still have not been commanded to dole out praise (2:14). 1 Thessalonians tells us to "encourage and build up one another" which is close and is probably what is being perverted.
I think it's nessecary to distinguish between praise and encourage. Here are the three definitions given by webster for encourage : 1. to inspire with courage, spirit or hope 2. to spur on 3. to give help or patronage to. I wish I knew Greek but I don't so English is what I am going to work with. Here is the definition for praise: 1. to express a favorable judgement of 2. to glorify by attribution of perfections. Hopefully my point is starting to become clear. We like to choose praise over encouragement because it makes us feel good, wanted, accepted, warm n fuzzy, important...it pets our ego and boy do we love to purr. I don't think this is what the author ever intended in 1 Thess. However I think this is what the authors intended in Ephesians and John, they knew the dangers of petting the ego, we become addicted to it.
I'm advised to pet the ego of the volunteers so they'll stick around, not because the B-i-b-l-e tells me so. If anything I find more passages warning people of the consequences of thier negative actions. Pastors arn't supposed to do that now-a-days, they are supposed to smile and be nice. "Lovely solo during the offering Sally", "Great job on that prayer Tim"...thats what you'll usually hear after a service. I don't know if there is anything inherently wrong with saying those things, but I think we've come to expect them so much now that we are seeking the praise of man and not Christ. Jesus called Peter Satan...SATAN!! He also called him out when he asked "Why'd you doubt?" and lets not forget when the Zebedee brothers were looking for some praise and asking Jesus to let them sit at the right and left hand in Jesus' kingom Jesus answered, to be first you must be last, NOT "Hey you know, your doing a great job being a disciple, you really are, I enjoy having you around but right now I just can't tell you that, keep on working hard and we'll see". And the disciples were supposed to be living for the praise of Jesus!!
Leave the praise for Jesus people. Encourage and admonish one another, not glorify.
posted by NJ Lawyer @ 9:17 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Actually i would disagree with your new phrase also "Always willing to give and share favorable judgment to those around you". Should i really be willing to give 'favorable judgment' to someone who doesnt deserve it, am i the one that should even be ready and 'always willing' to take that authority on? I tend to think not. I didnt mean to put too much emphasis on the 'words' so i apologize if i did that, i was talking more about the principle. Words are just words, empty without context, they arent neccesarily evil or good just letters put together. I recgonize that in the authors heart every motive behind writing that may have been godly so i wasnt attacking the authors heart or meanings behind the words as much as what i observe around me, the quote was just a jumping board into it. But anyways, the whole point was that we dont have the right to glorify each other and this is what i see happening in churches and especially the 'christian' music industry. How much are we willing to pay to attend a 'worship' concert? (altho the words christian and industry may be incompatible and it scares me that we have no problem saying them together) Thanks for the comments guys, i love opinions.
Hey Drew, I like reading your posts and this one got me thinking. Especially when you said this:
"He also called him out when he asked "Why'd you doubt?" and lets not forget when the Zebedee brothers were looking for some praise and asking Jesus to let them sit at the right and left hand in Jesus' kingdom, Jesus answered, to be first you must be last, NOT "Hey you know, your doing a great job being a disciple, you really are, I enjoy having you around..."
I think when Jesus asked Peter, "Why do you doubt?" that made Peter think and I think it encouraged him in a way. I think Jesus made Peter think that he could be changed and doubt less. I think what Jesus said to Peter stirred up his heart and encouraged him. I do not think Jesus had the intention of scolding Peter, I think he wanted to challenge him. When someone challenges us it's kind of way of encouragement, saying, "You can do it, but somethings are going to have to change."
I think if we praise someone, we hardly make them think, we merely make them feel good. In otherwords, we are not challenging(encouraging them) we are just telling them how great of a job they did.
If that makes sense.
it makes a lot of sense bill. I actually think you summed it up better than me. I liked this line too, "You can do it, but somethings are going to have to change." That sums up alot of the times God speaks to me.
youve sucked me into this conversation now, which is really off topic from the post but i dont care. I dont see a problem with the lights and stuff esp for chapman since he is entertainment, i dont really think there is anything inherently wrong with entertainment, but there is legitimate and illegitimate forms of it for christians. I felt like it was pretty legit, not really my style tho. But the bowing was a bit much for me and i agree they couldve done a different song at the end. I also think Chapman is from a different era too, where christian music was just starting to get big, so maybe hes still stuck in those days were now we've come to realize the phonyness of being christian "rock stars". Not that hes horrible or anything jsut that weve learned from a few of our mistakes, without them we would probably still trying to be rock stars.
i need to write more posts with ! in the title, it seems to cultivate comments. J, when i wrote 'really off topic' i didnt mean 'really' as in far off, more like if you replaced it with 'actually', but i agree its a branch off it i guess. But my post was about self-evaluation (i.e. look at yourself first or even your own church) not so much the christian culture scene. The discussion is here now cause i made an off comment about the 'christian music industry' but i was criticizing us for paying so much to go, not what they neccesarily do. There is a place to critically look at a ministry but that wasnt what the post was originally about. Im not trying to dissuade you guys from your 'discussion' just letting you in on why it isn't the same thing as i was talking about in the post. I'm enjoying reading your ongoing debate. And i figure youll have something to say about what i just said...always do =).
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