Holier than Jesus but Worse than Jonah
These last three years, I’ve spent most of my energy starting and shepherding a church. This has left me considerably less time to write or to even keep up with the broader evangelical movement (small mercies, I know). But this past weekend, I was reminded how anemic American evangelical theology is. I spend most of my time running in Reformed circles, and we argue about a lot of things, but there is at least a baseline of biblical knowledge. What I saw on Saturday was a shocking biblical ignorance.
Far too many American evangelicals use the standards of cultural “niceness” and political correctness as the primary lens for determining what is right and wrong. They use modern winds of doctrine to interpret the Bible. In this way, they fashion an idolatrous wood statue of Jesus that wouldn’t survive even an elementary school-level reading of Scripture. Lord, have mercy.
Christians are called to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:5), but instead, we bind Christ to our every cultural whim. We pretend to be holier than Jesus. Such towering arrogance leaves us ripe for a fall of epic proportions. In short, too many evangelicals act as if they are holier than Jesus, but they are in reality worse than Jonah. Let me explain.
The Setting
On Saturday, our state association of Baptist churches met to debate, and hopefully approve, a public Call to Repentance to the State of Minnesota. This statement called both the citizens and leaders of Minnesota to repent and find forgiveness in Christ. The statement was in response to the recent passage of laws that expanded abortion and transgender evils in our state. Minnesota is now one of the most progressive (read wicked) states when it comes to these issues, including allowing infants born alive to be left for dead and treating parents who believe in biological realities as abusive. Up is down and right is wrong in our state.
At the meeting, the Call to Repentance did not have enough votes to pass. There were some, with whom I disagree, that opposed it for understandable reasons. My critique is not directed at them. Yet, many of the reasons given by others for their opposition illustrate larger problems in the American church. The vacuum created by our biblical ignorance has been filled with compromise and cowardice in the face of cultural pressure.
Pretending to be Holier than Jesus
At the meeting, an ignorance of Scripture was displayed in many ways. Several concerned parties argued that “confronting sin publicly” is “unloving.” Preaching against sin in public is not only “unloving,” but it won’t work and will only lead to “closed doors.” It was argued that Jesus wouldn’t do such things. If you make such sweeping moral statements—that public calls to repentance are inherently unloving and wrong—and if Jesus did those very things, then you are claiming a moral standard higher than Christ. You’re pretending that your holiness exceeds God’s.
To be clear, the Bible shows both confrontation and mercy in the ministry of Christ. We are to hold these things in tension, affirming both eating with sinners and public calls to repentance. Scripture is full of examples of public declarations of the gospel, including calls to repentance.
We have the public confrontation of sin from Moses to Pharoah. The prophets are filled with similar acts. In the New Testament, we see the preparatory public preaching of John the Baptist commanding the people to repent (Luke 3:7-9). The church itself was founded by the giving of the Spirit and a public sermon calling the people to repent (Acts 2:38). The book of Acts is full of such public preaching and calls to repentance including Stephen in front of an angry mob (Acts 7:1-60), Philip in Samaria (Acts 8:4-8), Paul in the marketplace of Athens (Acts 17:17), and many more. One could say public calls to repentance were an essential ingredient of the early church’s witness. To label such acts as inherently “unloving” is to display a shocking ignorance of Scripture.
But what about Jesus? Did he ever preach in public? The Gospel of Mark records the first words of Christ’s public ministry as a public call to repentance, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (1:14-15). From time to time, Christ taught in synagogues (Luke 4:14-15), but much of his teaching occurred in the public square, at the beach, in the hills, or the courts of the Temple. Jesus’ custom was to teach crowds in public (Mark 10:1). Everything from the Sermon on the Mount to his Seven Woes to the Scribes and Pharisees was done in public (Matt. 5-7; Matt. 23). In the Seven Woes to the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus publicly accuses, rebukes, and confronts the wicked leadership of Israel. Was he unloving? He does the same to the crowds in John chapters 6-8.
If public confrontation is inherently unloving and sinful, then Jesus was unloving and sinful. If such confrontations “don’t work,” then Jesus’ ministry was a failure. If Jesus was worried that publicly rebuking the Pharisees would prevent opportunities to reach them, he certainly didn’t show it.
To put it plainly—we act and reason like we are better, smarter, more strategic, and holier than Jesus. When we do that, we are in essence accusing the Holy One of sin. May it never be! Thus, some evangelicals are either ignorant of the ministry of Christ as found in Scripture, or they are completely beholden to the political correctness of our day as the standard of conduct. Thus, they have an alien standard setup over and against the example of Christ, the prophets, and the apostles. We have carved a false image of Christ that excludes the true Jesus from our midst.
Worse than Jonah
After the public Call to Repentance was defeated, I drove home processing what happened. The story of Jonah came to mind. God tells the prophet to go to Nineveh and publicly confront them over their sins (Jon. 1:1-2). It’s almost like calls to repentance are a part of the God-given method for reaching the lost. After being regurgitated, Jonah is forced to be back on mission and preaches one of the most succinct messages of condemnation you’ll ever find, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jon. 3:4). Jonah makes no offer of forgiveness or mercy just the threat of judgment. Yet, the message still worked. They repented, “And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them” (Jon. 3:5).
Why did Jonah refuse to go and preach repentance to Nineveh in the first place? Jonah tells us in his complaint to God, “That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jon. 4:2b). Jonah knew God. Jonah knew the power of calling people to repentance. Jonah believed God would save. We don’t. Jonah’s silence was motivated by his hatred of Nineveh. He wanted them to be left in their sins so he remained silent. What does that say about our silence?
Jonah believed in the power of God to save through faithful calls to repentance. We don’t believe in that power anymore. We refuse to speak publicly because we don’t believe God can save through it. Jonah knew differently, so he ran. We don’t even have the faith of Jonah. We are worse than the prophet who had to be swallowed by a fish to obey.
Like Jonah, who displayed his hatred for Nineveh in refusing to announce God’s judgment, we display our apathy and unbelief by refusing to speak clearly to a dying world. Do we even want them saved? Jonah fled to Tarshish, but we flee to hide behind the walls of the church and a supposed secularism. Then we try to dress up our unbelief in the name of a formless and impotent love that doesn’t resemble the love of Christ. We claim to be holier than Jesus, but we are worse than Jonah.
If revival is to come to our land, and I pray that it does, we need to fix our biblical ignorance, cut down the false idol of Christ we’ve made, stop caring about the Pharisaical righteousness laws of our day, and begin preaching the gospel of repentance and faith outside the walls of the Church. To that end, all faithful ministers must pour out their lives knowing what Jonah did—the call to repentance is an act of love, mercy, and essential to evangelism. As evidenced throughout Scripture, public rebuke is a powerful instrument in the hand of our gracious God. If the church cannot speak against our current evils, then the world is left without a faithful witness. How great our apathy and lack of faith must be!
Levi Secord
February 1, 2024
