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When Good People Do Bad Things, Part Three

(Note: This is the third of three articles on the subject of "When Good People Do Bad Things.") 

A wise individual once said that “Renewing your church is like remodeling your house…”  If you’ve ever remodeled or attempted to remodel a house you can guess what’s coming…  “Renewing your church is like remodeling your house: it will take more time, cost more money, create more stress and make a bigger mess than you could ever have imagined, but in the end, it’s worth it.”  Having done a bit of home remodeling and been deeply involved in the renewing of several churches, I can testify to the truth of this statement.

One of the hard, messy aspects of renewing a church is coming to grips with the bad behavior of good people, including ourselves. Churches aren’t devastated by the Devil alone, he must have assistance from the inside.  Churches can only be left in need of remodeling by way of the bad behavior of, usually, good people.  This is a hard truth to face but we’ve been wrestling with it honestly in this series of articles.  We’ve seen that good people sometimes do bad things because: (1) they are deliberately defiant, (2) they are self-reliant and weak, (3) they are guilty of envy, selfish ambition, rivalry, jealousy or pride, (4) they stoop to cowardice, compromise or worldliness, (5) they are ignorant or immature.  This brings us to a sixth reason why good people sometimes do bad things.

(6) Sometimes good people do bad things because they confuse unity with uniformity.  In one sense of the term, church unity is an unassailable reality:  “…in Christ, we who are many form one body…” (f/Romans 12:5). But to work out that unity in actual practice we must, as the Apostle Paul commanded in Ephesians 4:3, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” So on the one hand, our unity is absolutely unbreakable; in another sense, it’s as fragile as our feelings on a bad day.

But our unity, which is to be celebrated, embraced and preserved, isn’t uniformity.  The New Testament idea of unity is organic and spiritual and it includes and allows for diversity.  We are one family, but think of how diverse your extended family is.  We are one body, but think of how diverse your body parts are from each other (while sharing the same DNA).  God’s intention has always been to create, in His masterpiece, the Church, something the world tries to create but cannot succeed at producing: diversity within unity; unity within diversity. We are to be all kinds of human beings divided by many things but united spiritually in one body and acting in sacrificial love for each other, for God’s glory.  While we are to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace, we are not commanded to enforce a phony, external, imposed uniformity.  Ironically, our attempts to create unity through uniformity destroy our unity!  Here are three areas in which well-meaning but mistaken Christians do this:

· Some try to create uniformity on moral issues.  Romans 14:1 through 15:7 is the Bible’s most complete text on this subject. The key words are at the beginning and end of the passage:

“Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.  One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.  The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him…Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” Romans 14:1-3, 15:7

In between these key verses Paul talks about what we eat, what we drink and the holy days we observe.  Nowhere does he try to bring Christians into uniformity of practice on any of these issues. He doesn’t even tell us his opinions on these subjects.  Always the goal is to bring Christians to unity in spite of their diversity.  If you’re in or have been in a church which has tried to produce uniformity – through restrictive covenants, written or unwritten lists of rules, shaming, etc. - instead of grappling with the timeless principles of this passage for preserving unity, maybe it’s time to “dig in” to this important and neglected passage and “dig out” the God-ordained way of handling our differences.

· Some try to create uniformity on doctrinal issues.  This is not a simple matter because Scripture does emphasize the need for uniformity on the most basic doctrines of the faith.  The challenge we have faced for 2,000 years is knowing which doctrines are “fundamental” to our faith and must be adhered to and which are more peripheral and negotiable.  This is a big subject which evokes strong feelings in many but consider two passages from II Timothy as a guideline for a balanced perspective. 

“What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” II Timothy 1:13,14

By a “pattern of sound teaching,” Paul seems to be alluding to a catechism, a standardized course of instruction which Timothy had heard Paul teach repeatedly which was to be guarded like a treasure and passed on to the next generation without being contaminated.  There are truths which we cannot stray from without endangering the gospel itself.

On the other hand, look at this warning (and there are several similar statements in Paul’s letters to church leaders):

“…Warn them before God against quarrelling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen… Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know that they produce quarrels.” F/II Timothy 2:14, 23

History bears this out; Thorough teaching of the clear and foundational teachings of the faith produces unity; undue attention to our less vital beliefs or even “stupid arguments” (Paul’s term!) damages our unity in our zeal to create doctrinal uniformity.

· Some try to create uniformity on issues of judgment. Good and spiritual people are going to disagree when facing decisions which are not “cut and dried” Biblically or morally.  Many have a hard time accepting this, believing that two spiritually “in tune” people can’t possibly disagree on who to hire, when to fire or any other subject.  This view is the source of the insistence, found in many church constitutions, that church boards can’t decide anything without complete unanimity. 

In my opinion, this position assumes a level of guidance from the Holy Spirit that the Bible does not promise and leads to needless dogmatism and strife.  “God has shown me that we must hire this man now.”  “Oh yeah?  The Spirit’s telling me that we should do no such thing!” I once admonished a fellow church leader to “Please stop acting like you’re Moses, just descended from Mount Sinai, every time you have a proposal.”

Consider the famous disagreement between the Apostle Paul and his friend and former mentor Barnabas over their young co-worker – and cousin to Barnabas - John Mark (Acts 15:36-40).  Barnabas wanted to bring John Mark along on what we call their “second missionary journey.”  Paul, citing Mark’s return “home to Mama” from their first journey, didn’t want to bring the slacker along.  The dispute resulted in Paul and Barnabas going their separate ways. The text says absolutely nothing about which of the two leaders was “right.”  God continued to bless both of them and John Mark ended up reconciled to Paul (Colossians 4:10) and writing the book of the Bible that bears his name.

In my opinion, the “split,” though probably uncomfortable for all, resulted in the multiplication of the work and perhaps, the best possible outcome for Mark: Paul’s rejection of him was an unpleasant but necessary lesson (Paul was the “bad cop”); Barnabas’ acceptance of him was the encouragement to return to God’s service (Barnabas was the “good cop”).

Here’s a final reason why good people sometimes do bad things:

(7) Sometimes good people do bad things because they are reacting to other people doing bad things.  Biblical examples of this are legion: consider David almost murdering the fool Nabal or Peter whacking the ear off of a soldier who was only doing his duty.  In his rashness, Peter was responsible for damage which Jesus had to repair, a scenario repeated every day (Jesus having to repair our damage!).

In our churches this is all too common.  A good person does a bad thing, followed by a reaction from another person doing a bad thing, followed by another…and another…and another. We hear about the blowup and ask, “Whose fault was this?”  “How did this happen?” It’s eerily similar to our marriage problems and playground scuffles: “He hit me first!”

In our sinful humanness, we want to blame the other guy and we’d love to blame one person: the one with the black hat (we’re wearing white ones). But life isn’t this simple.

In accident investigation it’s called convergence. When an airliner crashes and kills hundreds, the investigation usually finds a convergence of causes, not just one villain.  There is almost always human error, converging with bad weather and mechanical malfunction – sometimes something as simple as a burned out “idiot light.” It’s the same way in our churches; there is seldom one culprit who caused the disaster.

The Biblical principle is simple and tough and wonderful.  With the resource of the Holy Spirit – see Galatians 5:22,23 – none of us have to react.  The Christian life as depicted in the New Testament is wondrously proactive; never reactive.  We have the power to do right, no matter what anybody else is doing.  Every command of the New Testament is a promise because of the grace of God and the Spirit of God. We are each responsible for doing right.  I teach “no excuses Christianity,” do “no excuses marriage counseling” and “no excuses church conflict resolution.”  Thank God that He has given you the power to do right instead of excuses for doing wrong!

This means that if Fred and Ethyl and Pastor Smith and Deacon Jones all sin against you, they’re responsible before God for their sin.  But you don’t have to react.  Christian psychologist Dan Greene says that “You can’t control what others do to you or what others do to others, but you can control what you do to others.”

In this series of three articles we’ve considered seven reasons why good people do bad things. That’s a lot of reasons and represents a lot of human failure. It’s not pleasant to face the sheer enormity of our failure is it?  The good news is that every real Christian has been justified – pronounced eternally innocent in God’s court of law – is completely accepted and dearly loved by God.  Christians who “mess up” and help create the convergence which leads to the “crash” of a local church are still loved, still forgiven and in many cases, still grow up to become truly Godly people.

If you are a good person (a Christian) who has done bad things, humbly accept your forgiveness – for without the grace of God we will never do anything but make messes - get up, dust yourself off and get back into worshipping, growing and serving in a church full of forgiven but foolish people. 

When Good People Do Bad Things, Part Two

 

Note: Elsewhere on this website is an article called, “When Good People Do Bad Things.”  The following is part two (to be followed by a part three).

 

I was in the sixth grade and it was my eleventh birthday, November 22, 1963.  As we were ending our physical education class, the next roomful of kids came pouring into the tiny, elementary school gym/lunchroom/auditorium, everyone shouting at the same time about the President of the United States being shot.  It was a long, strange day.  I received a six transistor radio as a gift, but all I could get was news about the assassination; no “Top 40” music at all.  Before falling asleep I actually cried over the “brokenness of the world,” though I wouldn’t learn that term for many years.

 

Nine years later I was a twenty year old, zealous, hungry, new Christian.  I had found out that “bad people do bad things” because of sin and I had also learned that born-again Christians were people who had received the love of God Himself into their hearts and shared that love with each other.  I walked into a real, evangelical Christian church for the first time and absolutely fell in love with the place.  I remember thinking: “Wow!  These people love God, they love the Bible, they love each other. This is what it’s supposed to be like in a real church!”

 

About a year later, now a busy and joyful worker in this congregation, I found myself in a business meeting that “blew my mind.”  Men and women who, I thought, loved their pastor like I did, were standing up and making accusations against this man of God who had become like a second father to me.  Within a few weeks the church had split, right down the middle.  Bad people doing bad things I could understand; good people doing bad things was harder to handle.

 

That was a long time ago.  In the ensuing years I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to know about good people doing bad things to each other.  In the first article in this series we explored three reasons why good people do bad things.  The following are three more.  My prayer is that you are helped in understanding all of us and you are helped in forgiving and reconciling with brothers and sisters who have done wrong.

 

(4) Sometimes good people do bad things out of cowardice, compromise or worldliness.  In Galatians two the Apostle Paul tells a sad little story about his friend, the Apostle Peter.  In the early, early church, almost everyone was a Jewish Christian.  These folks had a hard time adjusting to the idea that Gentiles (non-Jews) could put their faith in Jesus and be justified – pronounced eternally innocent - by God, without coming through the “vestibule” of the Law of Moses.  By the grace of God – see Acts 10 and 11 - Peter was actually one of the first to understand the new way in which God was dealing with mankind. 

 

During a visit to the dynamic, ethnically mixed church at Antioch, Peter – understanding his new freedom from the law - mingled freely with the Gentiles who were coming to Christ.  But when some legalists - Jews who thought that there was no salvation apart from circumcision and law keeping – came from the “mother church” at Jerusalem, Peter, in fear of them, wimped out and compromised by separating himself from the Gentile Christians, sending the whole Antioch church into confusion about the true nature of the gospel!  He virtually was denying the faith with his cowardice.

 

It was about this same time that Paul and his friend Barnabas were sent out by the same church – Antioch in Syria (Acts 13) – to proclaim the gospel and start churches.  With them as their “helper” was a younger man named John Mark, a relative (some say a cousin) of Barnabas.  This was the same man who would later write the Gospel that bears his name.

On the island of Cyprus the threesome immediately ran into some tough, strange, scary, occultic opposition, which Paul met head-on with great courage.  From Cyprus the missionaries sailed to what is now the nation of Turkey and headed north into the highlands of the Roman Province of Pamphylia.  Many scholars believe that they headed inland and up to higher ground because Paul had contracted a disease, possibly malaria, which left him with a permanent vision problem, his “thorn in the flesh” of II Corinthians 12:7.

 

Apparently, Satanic opposition and sickness were not what John Mark had in mind when he had signed-on with the missionaries.  He went home.  All the way home to Jerusalem where it is believed by some that his mother, a “woman of means” owned the house with the “large, upper room” where the Last Supper was held and the church was born.  In other words, to put it bluntly, Mark went home to mama.

 

We could go on and on of course with stories like these, from the Bible and our own experiences.  I could tell you about my cowardice, compromise and worldliness and maybe you could tell me about yours.  My point is that we all do these things at one time or another on our rough and tumble path to spiritual maturity.  Good people – like Peter, Mark and the rest of us - do these things.  We fail to share our faith when we have wonderful opportunities to do so. We marry or divorce for the wrong reasons.  We “go with” the wrong side in church splits. We side against our church’s leaders when they are justly and lovingly disciplining a family member of ours.  We get mad at leaders and change churches because we are admonished in love regarding our sin.  Even we pastors get mad and change churches when we probably shouldn’t.  God in His grace doesn’t let go of us, however.  He works with us (and on us). He forgives, restores and many of us wobbling, wandering saints end up as pillars in churches. Since God doesn’t give up on us, maybe we should be a little slower at giving up on each other.

 

(5)Sometimes good people do bad things because they are ignorant or immature.  The recipients of the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians thought they had a really “cool” church.  They bragged about it.  They had lots of spiritual gifts in their church, with signs and wonders in abundance.  As Greeks, some of them had a lot of highly valued knowledge.  They also would have told you that they had lots of love, thinking that their toleration of church members living in sinful sexual relationships was a sign of their open-minded acceptance of diversity.

 

Paul the Apostle who had started this church (I’m not sure he wanted to admit it) had to sit down and tell them that they were babies in Christ: carnal, immature, proud and loveless.  In their childishness they had compared preacher with preacher, talking about which was the most gifted and knowledgeable, even thinking they were capable of judging which preacher was accomplishing the most for eternity. (As I write I’m blushing to remember the conversations around the coffee shop tables back in my Bible college and seminary days.)

 

Getting back to the Corinthians, in their evaluation of their leaders and teachers they were looking no deeper than the level of the flesh.  They were no more able to discern between the godly man and the ungodly man than the ungodly man himself.

 

To make matters worse, the Corinthians were clearly responsible for their own immaturity.  They had learned the truth without letting it change their lives.  They had sought the gifts of the Spirit but had never submitted to the moment by moment control of the Spirit and the transforming work of the Spirit which would have brought them to maturity.  They were good people (see I Corinthians 1:1-9) doing bad things because of their ignorance and immaturity.

 

The Corinthians are not that much different from the rest of us are they? Thank God if you haven’t succumbed to some of the more blatant types of carnality that characterized the Corinthians – neither have I – but I’ve done plenty of foolish and childish things, some of them while parking in the pastor’s parking space! Just like you and the Corinthians, I have some precious memories and I also have some really embarrassing memories. God is the only real hero of church history and His kingdom marches on in spite of – to paraphrase Martin Luther - “the stumbling service of His saints.”

 

As you shake your head over the behavior of some of your so-called brothers and sisters in Christ, remember what God can do.  Aren’t you glad that God is so forgiving?  Aren’t you amazed at His ability to grow “babes in arms” into truly mature, godly Christians? 

When Good People Do Bad Things

Over the past few years, several television networks have broadcast reality shows with names like, “When good pets go bad,” “When animals attack,” or “When nice dogs bite.”  The common denominator in these shows is the perplexing problem of seeing normally docile, loveable animals turn mean and ugly. 

 

In my work as a redevelopment pastor I’ve encountered a somewhat similar situation in churches: troubled, perplexed, confused, discouraged Christians who have witnessed some really disturbing behavior from brothers and sisters whom they had thought were really good people.  I’ve seen believers quit serving, quit growing or even “quit the church” altogether because of their confusion and discouragement.  I’m also happy to say that I’ve seen believers and churches come to grips with the devastation they’ve experienced and move onward and upward for God’s glory.   I’ve found that understanding why good people do bad things can really help.  The following are three reasons. More will follow in subsequent articles:

 

(1) Sometimes good people do bad things because they are deliberately defiant.  In the book of I Corinthians we find the apostle Paul writing to a church that was full of good people (see 1:2-9), some of whom were doing very bad things.  The worst thing he mentioned was in chapter five verse one, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife.” That this man was a bona-fide part of the Corinthian church is evident from the fact that Paul commands in verse two that he be “put out of your fellowship” and in verse thirteen, “Expel the wicked man from among you.”

 

This begs the question of whether or not this man actually was “a good person.” In the New Testament a “good person” is one who has been regenerated (or born again) and made (II Corinthians 5:21) “the righteousness of God.” In I Corinthians chapter six, verses nine through eleven, Paul implies that, should this man not repent of what he was doing, he will be demonstrating that he was not a real, genuine, justified believer, which would make him a bad person doing bad things, not a good person doing bad things.

 

But it is possible that he was a real believer because while the believer is justified (pronounced eternally innocent in God’s court of law) and regenerated (made into a new person at the very center of his being), he is still saddled with the power of sin within him and therefore capable of doing some really bad things. I’m sorry to say that a Christian who is not filled with, empowered by, walking in, or in step with the Spirit (I think all these terms mean the same thing) is capable of just about anything that the unbeliever is capable of, though not on an ongoing basis.

 

Our response to the deliberately defiant believer (or professing believer) should begin with humility, because however “spiritual” we may be, look or feel on a good day, we are all capable of doing vile things.  This truth ought to drive us to our knees exclaiming “it could have been me,” where we re-present our bodies to God, because we so desperately need the Spirit of God to control and empower us.

 

Our response should also be one of outrage – Paul “breathes” it in I Corinthians five and six – because our professing brother has brought disgrace to the name of Christ.  Paraphrasing J.I. Packer, God is jealous for His name so we must be zealous for His name. It is right, not self-righteous, for us to be upset about anything that gives a “black eye” to the name of Christ.

 

Finally, our response toward the deliberately defiant professing brother should be one of compassionate action.  Sooner or later, this person is going to suffer for his sin and we are no more worthy of God’s love than he is.  Following the command of Galatians six, verse one, we need to join other caring Christians and “get in the face” of this person to try to rescue him from his sin.  What we must not be is weak, passive or defeatist in the face of such sin.  The spirit of the “church discipline” found in the Bible demands that we confront destructive behavior in the church with the same “calm, assertive” behavior with which Cesar Milan (the Dog Whisperer) confronts the most aggressive canine: “No dog needs to be ‘put down;’ no dog is too much for me to handle; any dog can be rehabilitated.” If Cesar will put himself at risk to “redeem” dogs, surely we must put ourselves at risk for the sake of people!  Here’s a second reason why good people do bad things:

 

(2) Sometimes good people do bad things because they are self-reliant and weak.  This may sound surprising.  You would expect me to write “self-reliant and strong.”  But the Christian is a creature who is weak when he is self-reliant and strong when he has a desperate dependence upon God. As the proverb puts it “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18).  Wisdom dictates that we live in the spirit of the great old hymns, “I need thee every hour” and “Spirit of God, descend upon my heart.” 

 

On a plaque in a cabin where I enjoy monthly retreat days is a great prayer: “Dear Lord, So far today I’ve done alright.  I haven’t gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or over-indulgent.  I’m thankful for that.  But in a few minutes God, I’m going to get out of bed. And from then on, I’m going to need a lot more help.  Amen.” It’s funny, but it’s also theologically “right on.”

 

The brother or sister I’m describing now is not deliberately defiant of God’s authority like our friend above (1); this person is deceived by his own heart (Jeremiah 17:9), means well and does wrong, like Peter on the night of Jesus’ arrest and trials, denying Jesus three times, or like Paul’s description in Romans seven of himself at his worst, doing the very things he abhors. 

 

If we can forgive Peter and Paul for their failures – and most of us are pretty good at forgiving ourselves for our own – we can and must forgive the brother or sister (or even the pastor) in our church, who in a time of foolish, self-reliance, did or said something really stupid.

 

Since I’ve raised the subject, let me be frank about pastors.  We are human.  We ought to be the most godly of men but this is not always the case.  Pastors can get seriously depressed.  Pastors can get sinfully entrenched in power struggles and “slide into” sinful, reactive behaviors while thinking they’re “on the battlefield for the Lord.”  I know.  I’ve been there.  I wish I could go back and get a “do-over” on a resignation I did.  While totally convinced that I was doing it well, I can see now that in my “weak, self-reliance” I hurt some people with some foolish and unnecessary words. 

 

Ten years ago I led a completely independent church to join a fellowship of churches, in part, because I believe that pastors can get into some pretty sinful behavior without even knowing it.  Accountability to a church board isn’t always enough.  Sometimes we need a firm and loving voice from a church leader from outside our church to pull us back from the brink of disastrously carnal behavior.

 

Here’s a third reason why good people do bad things:

(3) Sometimes good people do bad things because of envy, selfish ambition, rivalry, jealousy or pride.  I find this truth to be rather shocking.  It’s an ugly truth to face.  As the Apostle Paul writes to the Christians at Philippi, he speaks about people in Rome, probably pastors, who are preaching Christ with some of the worst possible motives: envy, rivalry, selfish ambition and even the malicious desire to hurt Paul while he was in chains.  I think this means that some of these men were “ramping up” their ministries with Paul in jail, with the idea that they could take over the position of influence he had held.  Others may have hoped that Paul’s case would turn out worse for him because of the increased attention that was being paid to these “ladder climbing” preachers in Rome.

 

Here’s the awful truth as I’ve seen it: The best of us are capable of doing the best of all possible deeds, with the worst possible motives.  As if that isn’t bad enough, the best of us are also capable of doing the worst of all possible deeds, with the worst possible motives. 

 

From chapter two, verses three and four of the same letter, the Apostle’s pleas reveal more evil motives with which good people can take action, in the church: “selfish ambition” (the joy of being “a big fish in a small pond”), “vain conceit” (a desire to show off) and looking “only to your own interests” (“this is my Sunday School room” or “this is my slice of the budget”).

 

Even though he is writing to a vibrant church of which he has the fondest memories (1:3-8), Paul returns to the subject of bad behavior among the Philippians for a third time in chapter four, verses one through three.  Two extraordinary ladies in this church, fellow workers with Paul who had “contended at his side” in the work of the gospel were “on the outs” with each other. No issue is mentioned by Paul.  No sin committed by either of them is referenced.  Neither is a heretic.  It looks like a simple case of rivalry, an old-fashioned ugly, petty, power struggle. Somebody Paul calls his “loyal yokefellow” is urged to help these - apparently in some ways great - ladies to work it out. In contemporary language, Paul calls for mediation and pleads for all involved to demonstrate to all the sweet-reasonableness (a more literal translation of the word “gentleness” in verse five) of Christ.

 

Where have you seen yourself in this article?  If there are behaviors you need to repent of you can do so with joy, knowing that God will joyfully forgive, cleanse and grant you a fresh start.  Perhaps God wants you to respond to defiant, self-reliant (and weak) or carnal brothers and sisters around you with more humility.  Perhaps it’s time to forgive.  Perhaps God is nudging you to confront a brother in the loving spirit of Galatians six, verse one.  Aren’t you glad that God has forgiven you?  Aren’t you glad that He has promised the grace which turns every command of the New Testament into a promise?  Are you glad that, in His way and time, He can turn misbehaving Christians into real pillars in their churches