Cruel to be Kind

11.06.12

Galatians 4.16 16 So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? NASB

Sometimes the truth is inconvenient. Sometimes the truth is hard and sometimes it feels harsh. The truth is freeing, but the process of becoming free from the overgrowth of one’s own viewpoint, is sometimes very difficult. Many people would rather live in the bondage of their understanding than do what it takes to be free and stay free: freedom – they reason – is just too hard.

Truth and error both lead to an end. There is work to be done in both truth and error. The problem often lies in the fact that error is like conventional wisdom and because it is more commonly held its acceptability is more embraced. In other words, because many more people accept error, it is valued because of its broad appeal: everyone believes that. But not everyone is right.

Why would the Letter to the Galatians be included in the canon of the Bible? Why aren’t there just a bunch of success stories in the Bible of people who believed and overcame life because of their belief? Why would there be a letter from a supposed leader and evangelist sternly dealing with a bunch of folk who were intimidated by groupspeak? Because it’s real, and it happens all the time; the world is full of the tenets of humanity, and sometimes the weight of those tenets is just too heavy to fight against. We’d rather die than switch…

Paul addressed the evil of what was being pushed onto the Galatian Church: you earn your salvation by working hard for God and impressing Him with your progress. It isn’t about what God wants – it’s about what you do. Such is the depth of error and the arrogance of men who will not simply become God’s friends and seek to build a relationship with Him. They don’t want a relationship of vulnerability and risk, they want to be in control and show God who’s boss.

And the disciples of such thinking are a dime a dozen. They’re everywhere! The disciples of such thinking are in your church – you may be one. Maybe God is too difficult for you to get along with. Maybe reading the Bible is just too hard! Maybe God is gonna send you off to the Congo and you’ll get malaria. Or maybe God is just toying with you and just when you think everything is going to be okay, He’s gonna sucker-punch you like He did to Job. Maybe you can work out your own salvation by just being good and keeping your bad language and white-lies controlled… everyone tells a few whites lies – it isn’t really lying anyway – it’s just shading the truth.

Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? One might think that because telling the truth – one of the greatest acts of love – is sometimes very painful. You’ve got to be cruel to be kind…in the right measure. Hey, even laughing hard is enough to get someone to quit laughing.

Paul confronted error with truth and seemed not to have received a reception with open arms. People don’t like being told the truth especially when they’re so comfortable in error. Galatians is in the Manual under the heading of: Great Experiences in Discipling. Sometimes when confronted by the truth a disciple turns back and says, my former life wasn’t so bad.  Let’s not do that. Let’s not fear God and what He has planned for us. Let’s not be comfortable in fine-fitting but worthless error… let’s not, okay?