By Jessica Brodie
Have you ever heard the saying, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”? There’s something to be said about a sweeter touch when it comes to getting along with people, drawing them to you or your point of view, or simply helping them appreciate your perspective and enabling them somehow to relate to you.
Sweetness, kindness, and general niceness are attributes I’ve always held dear. I don’t believe from reading Scripture that Jesus was always particularly “nice,” but I know he was always good and always merciful. He said some hard things. He overturned tables in the temple when he was angry and blatantly insulted his enemies in front of crowds. But he was Jesus, “Word became flesh” (John 1:14), God born as a man, the son of the Father. He had the clout and the right to behave that way. We, however, are mere human beings. And we don’t know everything, so we’re not allowed to act as though we do with the sort of confidence that comes from knowing we are the son of God.
I was a bit of a know-it-all growing up, though I tried to mask it, and I’m probably still a bit of a know-it-all deep down. I remember sitting next to more obvious know-it-alls at school, bristling at their arrogant little smiles as they insisted they were right about something, but a lot of times they weren’t right. Whether through tests or teacher instruction, they soon found out they were wrong. As the old saying goes, “They got a slice of humble pie.”
The truth is that none of us knows it all. We are not God, and though as believers we do have the Holy Spirit inside of us, we can’t pretend we know exactly what God meant in Scripture. We can read certain things in the Bible, things that were translated from ancient Greek and Hebrew, and think we know exactly what it meant, but consider how many years have passed and how much the language has changed over the years.
There are certain truths in Scripture we can understand without a shadow of doubt—the fact that Jesus is the son of God and our savior, our only path to salvation. But some of the other things, some of the things that are in Scripture that are not necessarily the “Gospel truth”? If we feel convicted about them for ourselves, then absolutely we need to follow that conviction! We need to be obedient to God and do what we believe Scripture is telling us to do. But we cannot for a moment believe we are the only ones God is convicting, because every day at every moment, God is convicting other people.
For example, in Christianity, there are differences—albeit seemingly small differences, but differences nonetheless. For example, recently I saw a video where a woman felt convicted that she needed to cover her head in church at all times, from 1 Corinthians 11:4-5. So now she and her daughter wear a hat or headwrap every time they are in worship. They’re not part of some sect that is teaching them to do these things. In fact, they’re actually the only women in their church that do this. They’re not asking anyone else to do it, and they’re trying not to judge anyone else who doesn’t do it. But they are personally convicted that this is what God wants them to do, and for them, this is important.
Another example: I have friends who are devout Christians who regularly worship on Sunday because they believe that Sunday is the Sabbath (disclosure: this is me, too). I have other friends who are just as equally devout Christians who worship the Lord on Saturday because they believe Saturday is the Sabbath. Fundamentally they believe the same thing—a Sabbath is essential. But which day is actually the Sabbath? That’s where they differ, and that’s OK.
Consider other differences among Christians. I can certainly think of a lot, and many far more controversial than these.
We Christians fundamentally believe in the same things. But we don’t agree on everything, and that’s not a bad thing. It was this way in the early church also. Some Jewish Christians still followed traditional Jewish ways, while others felt convicted that the old ways had been set aside with the coming of Jesus. Remember the circumcision strife in Acts? There was a huge issue because many felt the new Gentile believers needed to be circumcised (ouch!) to follow The Way, while others believed this wasn’t essential. Finally, after much prayer and debate, Peter and the other apostles affirmed that we are saved through grace, not because we follow rules like circumcision. Ultimately they decided to issue a letter settling the matter, telling the Gentiles they didn’t need to worry about this issue any longer. As they wrote, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell” (Acts 15:28-29 NIV).
They showed tolerance and grace.
God is love, and God is truth. God is everything, our creator who knits us all together. In the Lord, we are perfectly united in the Holy Spirit. As humans, we sometimes have differences, and it’s important to remember to be kind to each other in those differences, to maintain an element of sweetness and niceness and tolerance when it comes to the convictions of other Christian believers.
I believe one day in heaven, we will know all the answers because we will be perfectly, fully and completely of one mind with God, our Father.
Until then, let’s keep our sights on him and shining his light, not judging those around us.
Let’s heed the words of Jesus when he told us: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:1-5).
“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”―Madeleine L'Engle, Madeleine L'Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life
A prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for your son, Jesus Christ. Help us do our best to follow you in the way that we feel convicted is the right way, and not to let culture or different voices and pressures sway us from what you speak into our hearts. Help us to behave kindly to other people and offer grace and mercy whenever we have the opportunity. We are all on a journey, and help strengthen us as we approach the summit that is you. In your holy name I pray, Amen..
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