[236 words]
How do you approach the sinful world in which we live? Are we content to coexist with sinful people or do we creatively confront sinners? If we are content to coexist nothing changes. But if we creatively confront sinners they may repent; they may get angry with us; and they may even persecute us.
Jesus was a master at creative confrontation with sinners. For example in Mark 12:1-12, Jesus told the parable of the vinedressers and when he finished the people “knew that he had spoken to parable against them.” Their sin in rejecting Jesus (the stone rejected by the builders) was made clear to them in the parable.
On another occasion Jesus creatively exposed hypocrisy by asking the question, “Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman…be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” His adversaries were “put to shame” by the question (Luke 13:10-17).
Jesus did not come to this world to coexist with sinners. He came to call us to repentance (Luke 13:3). And that required confrontation. Society calls for “peaceful coexistence” with sin. Jesus calls for creative confrontation as we “make disciples” and teach them to observe all things Jesus commands us to do (Matthew 28:19).
Do we seek to please men or Jesus?
Alton Norman
Owingsville church of Christ
Owingsville, KY