Ducking the Hard Topics

The Bible can be "problematic" for some people, but why is that?

I apologize for not getting this out sooner. A combination of having a lingering head cold, not being home a lot due to the kids being busy with school and work stuff, and I’ve got two of these in-progress and I wasn’t really sure which I wanted to work on and finish put me in a spot where I was just kinda stuck. But today’s livestream for my podcast¹ gave me the necessary inspiration to finish this piece.

As I’ve attended a more progressive church for a few weeks, and have previously written about, I’ve noticed a lack of depth with the messages. But in the last message I was in attendance for, it wasn’t just the lack of depth, but also the avoidance of some of the more challenging lines of scripture associated with the message. In fact, after hearing the way the pastor ducked around the real meat of the scripture, I looked back at previous weeks and found similar “omissions;” though where this message just blew past certain lines as being “problematic,” the others would start or end the scripture readings around those lines and not include them at all, or leave out lines that provide key context for the scripture being used for the message.

Here’s the reading that we’ll be covering:

³⁸ John said to Him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.” ³⁹ But Jesus said, “Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. ⁴⁰ For the one who is not against us is for us. ⁴¹ For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.

⁴² “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it is better for him if a heavy millstone is hung around his neck and he is thrown into the sea. ⁴³ And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. ⁴⁵ And if your foot is causing you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life without a foot, than, having your two feet, to be thrown into hell. ⁴⁷ And if your eye is causing you to sin, throw it away; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸ where their worm does not die, and the fire is not extinguished. ⁴⁹ For everyone will be salted with fire. ⁵⁰ Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” - Mark 9 : 38-50 (NASB)

So clearly there are some easy lines in this, and those are exclusively what the pastor took his lesson from. It’s why I said one of my key takeaways from the few weeks of attendance was “whoever is not against us is for us.” Verses 38-40 are easy! Don’t stop someone from doing something in Jesus’ name. Whatever they’re doing is for His glory and He’ll make a fruitful work of it. This is an easy lesson to preach on. If you really want to give it some depth from a more progressive perspective you can go in to some of what C.S. Lewis talked about in The Final Battle from the Chronicles of Narnia and service to our God through actions of those who are not Christians. I could have gotten something from that, and it seems like a logical step from a progressive viewpoint of Christianity (I am not suggesting C.S. Lewis was a progressive by any means, just that he has a unique view of some topics and I really appreciate his perspective on them). But, alas, the message didn’t really give anything of value outside of the exact words of verse 40 and then bringing it home in verses 49 & 50 that we need to be salt for one another and help keep each other seasoned in our walks with Jesus.

Which means, as you can see from what I left out in the summary of the message, there’s a big chunk in the middle that was absolutely glossed over. When reading the verses as he delivered the message, he sped up and shot right through verses 42 - 48, and then recapped them quickly by saying “these verses are often sort of problematic” and attempted to make light of and suggest Jesus was only jokingly suggesting that you should be physically purging the things that cause you to sin and stumble from your body/life. He actually said that Jesus was exaggerating the evils in life and that they obviously aren’t something so serious as to pose a threat that would require “utilization of archaic self-punishment” and then laughed about what a funny joke that was on Jesus’ part.

These particular verses are talking about sin and Hell and the necessity for us, as believers, to do whatever is necessary to avoid sin, because damning ourselves to Hell is a far greater cost than whatever earthly sacrifice we might be called on to make to remain holy and serve God. Jesus talks regularly about repentance. Progressives love to make a big deal of the time Jesus spent with sinners and the poor and the downtrodden; but they love to ignore the parts where he calls these people to confess, to repent, to change their ways and to “go forth and sin no more.” Verses 42 - 48 make total sense when you look at them and discuss them from that perspective. But taken out of the context of repentance and spun as “archaic self-punishment” and ducked entirely, he’s able to do the thing that progressive “christianity” does so well…preach the easy parts of scripture without calling on Christians to act on that faith and live out the hard parts. Especially the parts that call us to turn from sin and change our sinful ways.

This whole being a Christian thing isn’t meant to be easy. Everything about it is a call for us to deny our baser instincts, to die to the old creatures we are, and to become something purer and reconciled by God through Jesus. To turn away from the things that soil our souls and would damn us for eternity. To put in the work not just to say the right things, but to live the right way. Progressive “christianity” is selling love and prosperity without any of the repentance and change. It’s a lose weight quick scheme for your soul. And like all of those schemes that offer results without the work, what you end up with is an immediate high followed by falling back in to the same old routines that got you fat and miserable to begin with. Only this time, instead of it being your body that’s rotting, it will be your soul. There’s no quick, easy way to jump in to Heaven. You’ve got to show up every day ready to work. To live the life God has laid out for you. To fight and kill those inner demons. Even if you’re not cutting off hands and gouging out eyes, you have to be putting in the work and dying to that old self. Otherwise you’re just dying while you get your smiles and your feel-goods from a shallow-rooted faith that has born no fruit.

1. https://youtube.com/live/thg4JCvu0_Q