Narrow-Minded

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power (2 Tim 3:1-5).

Years ago I taught on this passage. As I prepared to teach it, I was thinking, "Yeah, the world sure has grown to resemble this list of sins, hasn't it?" And then it dawned on me that it wasn't just the world. It wasn't hard to find this list in people in the church. Sin, it seemed, was becoming more and more acceptable in church, let alone in the world.

Of course, those of us who are trying to be diligent followers of Christ stand up and say, "No!" We point our fingers at the sin and urge people to avoid it if possible and repent if not. And we do so not out of some arrogance or self-righteousness. No. We do it out of love. These things are both morally bad and bad for people and, if we care about them, we will encourage them to avoid doing what is bad for them.

It seems that Christians are known for pointing out sin. We're known for being "judgmental and intolerant" even though judging people for that is judgmental and intolerant. We're told we are too divisive even though the truth, by its very nature, divides. We're told we're wrong for saying that sex outside of marriage is sin and we're told that we're wrong for saying that marriage is the union of a man and a woman and we're told that we're wrong for saying that the Bible condemns homosexual behavior and ... well, it goes on and on. But the Bible isn't unclear on what sin is and it doesn't fail to be both judgmental and intolerant ... of sin.

It occurs to me, though, that we tend to get narrowly focused at times. You will find, for instance, Christians condemning homosexual behavior. (It is important to note that condemning sin is not the same as condemning sinners, that God offers salvation to sinners, that we need to be careful about the distinction.) What you will rarely hear is a Christian who warns against being "lovers of self". In fact, they encourage it. We might warn against being "lovers of money" (although too many of us are), but how often do you hear Christians condemning the sin of "disobedience to parents"? We are against brutality and treachery, but are we against ingratitude? And how often do we shout warnings against the appearance of godliness without the power?

You will hear that the sin of Sodom was not homosexual behavior. Oh, no! It was ... inhospitality. (Seriously, they make that argument.) Jude argued that the problem of Sodom and Gomorrah was indulging in sexual immorality and pursuing unnatural desires (Jude 1:7). And I wouldn't argue in the least that we should shut up about sin. In fact, it is natural and reasonable to be where the fire is, so to speak. As the world tries to "normalize" what God calls "sin", we need to be there. I understand that. Never call evil good. I get that. But let's not get too focused on a sin when God is opposed to all sin. Let's be careful about pointing fingers at "those who are sexually immoral" while we're, perhaps, "lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful" and so much more. And it isn't hypocrisy to say, "Those are wrong and I'm guilty of them." Let's just be fair and equitable in our condemnation of sin (as opposed to sinners), both in ourselves and in others, both in the current fads and in all sin. After all, holiness is our aim, and if all we achieve is "I'm no longer sexually immoral", we've missed a ton of other problems to face.