Be Constructive Of Your Criticism In Response To Sin Or Improper Doctrine
Word-of-the-Day: ‘(8) Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. (9) Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. (10) If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. (11) Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work.’ (2 John 1:8-11)
The Apostle John, the son of Zebedee and brother of the Apostle James, was, along with his brother, a bit of a firecracker, having been called Boanerges, or ‘Sons of Thunder’. This moniker likely described their demeanor of being direct and to the point; brutally honest and speaking freely on what they thought, and what they desired.
Their parents likely had this demeanor as well, as their father, Mr. Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade and thus had to be no-nonsense when it came to catching fish and then selling them to vendors or on the open market. Their mother, Mrs. Zebedee (whose name is thought to be Salome), also was no-nonsense, likely due to having to deal with her husband and her two sons and the need to develop a thick skin and the ability to push-back so she didn’t get used as a doormat.
Mrs. Zebedee demonstrated this when she approached Jesus regarding her two sons and their position within the hierarchy of the Apostles with Jesus. We read in Matthew 20:20-28 her request that John and James be seated at the two most prominent seats next to Jesus when His kingdom is established. One item we can take from this request is that the simple act she did this, approaching Jesus and talking to Him was unusual for this time. Women were not supposed to talk to men, especially men who were not their husbands, unless they were addressed first. This can be explained away, however, as Jesus knew her through His relationship with her sons, and perhaps she felt she could be more open to talk to Jesus than other men.
More importantly is Jesus’ response to her inquiry. He could have simply said, ‘No, that ain’t happening – period.’ and been done with it. Or, He could have done what many of us do and said, ‘Let Me think about it’ and hope it would be forgotten. The first response would have been proper, as He could not tolerate human intervention in setting up His hierarchy of His Kingdom, to give in to a request to assuage feelings. The second response would have been an attempt to avoid hurting the feelings of Mrs. Zebedee in the short term, at the expense of hurting her feelings (and those of her sons) later, especially if they were not destined to sit so prominently in the seating arrangements God already had made.
Jesus never was ambiguous, and never tolerated sin or tried to assuage feelings over the Truth of His gospel and the Word. But He also never tried to talk in such a manner, for the most part, that was so bluntly honest that would turn someone against Him. He did not tolerate evil or wrong thinking, but he did not ever speak confrontationally (save for that one time with the moneychangers) but with constructive criticism, so others could learn. Jesus truthfully provided Mrs. Zebedee that her sons would indeed follow Jesus down the path of persecution, but that their positions in His eternal Kingdom solely rested upon Father God Himself (Matthew 20:23).
This response was direct and Truthful, and displayed no tolerance for the ‘wrong-think’, yet was constructive for the sons and the other Apostles to understand that the main focus they should have is not what the pecking order is in the Kingdom, but is the work they are doing for Kingdom sincere. They should not be focused on being served, but serving. In this lesson, Jesus gave them not only the right answer, but also gave them why it was the right answer.
Even in the one confrontational event He had recorded in the Gospels, Jesus (as He was whipping the moneychangers with a cord) exclaimed the reason for His actions were due to their evil doing, turning the Temple’s courtyard into a ‘den of thieves’. It is entirely likely, with the aid of sanctified imagination, that He tried to peacefully communicate with them their wrongdoing, and only as a last resort used physical confrontation to get his point across – the proverbial spiritual 2×4 across their head (or the actual whip across their back) to get their attention when talking wasn’t enough.
We mistake tolerance as a Christian virtue, as confrontation in any degree is heavy-handed and violent. But the Apostle John, in his second letter to Believers, reiterates the lesson He learned; that tolerance of evil is not Christian. His response in 2 John 1:8-11 is indeed ‘no-nonsense’, and taken separately from the rest of 2 John’s 13 verses, could be considered ‘brutally honest’, certainly not wrong but also not necessarily Christ-like.
The first eight verses of 2 John give us the true nature of John’s actual approach – to use another of Jesus’ lessons, ‘Love One Another’. We are not to tolerate teaching that are absent of the lessons of the Scriptures or people who are not of God, and we should never accept their improper teachings, but we can be constructive and give these people criticism in a manner that they may listen, to better accept your ‘no’ and understand why you are not accepting them or their teachings.
Be intolerant of sin, but be constructive in your criticism of why you are intolerant to those who are committing the sin, giving your response out of loving and caring of that person enough to tell them that they are wrong and sinful, so that they may listen and understanding, even if staying in disagreement. It may allow them to go and consider their words and actions, and come back to seek the Truth.
