Introduction
Matthew 18:6-7 NIVUK
[6] ‘If anyone causes one of these little ones – those who believe in me – to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung round their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. [7] Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!
I am about to embark on one of the most difficult – and likely controversial – series of posts I have ever worked on.
We are going to examine together people who are hurt by religious people: mostly Christians, but the principles we will uncover apply to any religion.
Before I start on this series, I feel it’s necessary to clarify a few facts.
Firstly, I am a Christian. I’m sure you will have noticed that if you have read my previous posts. As of this October, I will have been a Christian for forty-five years.
Secondly, I was raised in a Christian family. I’ve been going to church since I was in my pram.
Thirdly, I and my family were seriously hurt by seemingly well-intentioned people from a Christian church.
I will not go into the details. That would not be helpful. Suffice to say that it rocked our faith to the extent that we left that church, and very nearly stopped going to church altogether, such was our fear that the serious and unwarranted mistakes could have been repeated.
However, one simple statement of faith kept us going. To mis-quote Paul in Romans 3:4, God is true, even when His people are liars.
Since then, I have had several encounters when people who claimed to be Christians have committed offences that affected me and the people around me. So I am not coming into this series to justify their actions. Please understand me: their actions are inexcusable and reprehensible.
Neither am I seeking an explanation for what they did. They are unexplainable, other than to say that all have sinned (Romans 3:23). So although we should expect higher standards of behaviour from those who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ, we should also realise that they were sinful human beings too and mistakes can be made, and are made.
However, I am seeking to understand them.
Why?
Because when we understand where the pitfalls are, we can make sure that we don’t fall into them. As Paul told the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 10:12-13 NIVUK
[12] So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! [13] No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Let me explain how we will proceed.
I have lined up nine posts on this issue.
The first three are on aspects of our faith that show signs of immaturity if we have taken decisions that have hurt other people
I will also examine six groups of people who are harmed when this happens.
Going through this process and examining what goes wrong will not be easy. In fact, holding an x-ray up to our spirituality, our heart and our attitudes will not be a comfortable process at all and maybe quite painful.
But for the sake of those who have been wounded or have fallen in the name of religion, we must be willing to examine ourselves in the mirror of the Word of God and put this right.
We owe it to them.
And most of all, we owe it to the Gospel.
Let me finish by stating that our faith teaches us that everything we do should be summed up by these words:
Matthew 22:34-40 NIVUK
[34] Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. [35] One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: [36] ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ [37] Jesus replied: ‘ “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” [38] This is the first and greatest commandment. [39] And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” [40] All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’
The Bible doesn’t teach us that we should acquiesce to every request and requirement that our culture comes up with. If you have been hurt because a pastor or church leader told you that you couldn’t get what you wanted, then I’m afraid that is something you need to just accept and move on.
But if you have been actually physically, psychologically or spiritually harmed in a church, then my heart breaks for you. I stand with you. People who do these things have violated the entire law by failing to love you as they love themselves, and that will never be acceptable.
But if we, as God’s people, can get back to living these commands as they should be lived, then the Body of Christ will get back to being a place where people can come for safety and sanctuary, which is what it should be.
My hope and prayer is that through these posts, I can, in some small way, contribute to that.
The first post is on the first concept that is ignored when so-called Christians harm others: that of Obedience.
Obedience
1 Samuel 15:22 NIVUK
[22] But Samuel replied: ‘Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
When I was a teenager, there was something that angered me greatly.
In our area, there are two groups of people who carry out sectarian marches every year. They claim to be honouring their history while doing so.
However, they are also professing and promoting a vile, undiluted hatred towards their opposing group.
What makes matters worse for me is that at least one of these groups carries a Bible at the head of their march.
What has the Bible to do with sectarian hatred?
Absolutely nothing!
Yet passers-by see these people, proudly marching behind the Bible, while singing songs of centuries old battles and spewing hatred at their opposite group.
It is absolute poison.
These are people who not only march behind a Bible, but for decades we’re required to attend church or chapel. Unknowing onlookers might assume that they are religious. Which they are. But only on the outside.
On the inside, they are anything but.
And this is nothing short of an antidote to the spread of the Gospel.
We are about to embark on a short study of a man like them, in the sense that on the outside he seems to be religious and faithful to God, but on the inside he was not. That man is King Saul.
Many years ago, when I was young enough to attend a Youth Fellowship, we studied this man and my pastor at the time was a little confused. He confessed that he couldn’t see why Saul lost the kingship.
But I could.
And I want to explain it to you today.
Because as we study it, we will understand why it is that outwardly religious people often make the most terrible decisions that go spectacularly wrong.
So what caused Saul to disobey God and lose the kingship?
Firstly, it was due to Fear Instead of Faith.
Fear Instead of Faith
The phrases ‘Do not fear’, ‘Do not be afraid’ and ‘Do not be anxious’ are among the most repeated in the Bible.
And not without reason.
Fear can either paralyse us with indecision or cause us to cease rational thought and make poor decisions.
Fear has also been a prime factor in decisions that have been detrimental to the church and to the Gospel.
Fear was a very real part of Saul’s life. Perhaps it was what we would now call ‘imposter syndrome’. Perhaps it was just his nature. But any passing study of Saul’s life cannot help but remark on the number of times his fears are mentioned.
Take the moment when he is appointed, for example.
The Israelites had grown tired of Samuel’s corrupt sons and so had requested that he provide them with a king ‘such as the other nations have’ (1 Samuel 8:5).
In other words, ‘We want to be like them’.
So God answered their prayer. He gave them a king chosen by worldly standards. It’s very interesting that the only characteristics that highlight Saul as kingly material are nothing to do with his character or spirituality, but his handsomeness and his height (1 Samuel 9:2, 10:23).
In other words, shallow, worldly characteristics.
Within these same verses, we see Saul’s first fear – which is not all endearing or promising – that of fear of responsibility.
1 Samuel 10:20-24 NIVUK
[20] When Samuel had made all Israel come forward by tribes, the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. [21] Then he brought forward the tribe of Benjamin, clan by clan, and Matri’s clan was taken. Finally Saul son of Kish was taken. But when they looked for him, he was not to be found. [22] So they enquired further of the Lord, ‘Has the man come here yet?’ And the Lord said, ‘Yes, he has hidden himself among the supplies.’ [23] They ran and brought him out, and as he stood among the people he was a head taller than any of the others. [24] Samuel said to all the people, ‘Do you see the man the Lord has chosen? There is no-one like him among all the people.’ Then the people shouted, ‘Long live the king!’
Now, there were plenty of reasons for Saul to be anxious. His clan was the weakest in all Israel (1 Samuel 9:21), having been weakened less than a generation previously due to shocking and grossly sinful behaviour (Judges 19, 20 and 21). This meant that Benjamin, a former favourite of Jacob (Genesis 35:16-18, 42:3-5) was now far from a tribe with the bearing or statute of royalty.
So of course, we can understand why the burden of ruling over a restive, divided people from a small tribe with a poor reputation may have hung heavily on him.
But the responsibility was also difficult to bear for Moses (Exodus 3:11, 4:10, 13), Barak (Judges 4:4-9), Gideon (Judges 6:36-40) and many others, yet they dealt with their fears before God and with God.
They took on the responsibility.
This misplaced fear is a real trait of his rule.
He was afraid his men were deserting him, so he offered a sacrifice that only Samuel should have done (1 Samuel 13:5-12).
He was afraid of his own men, so he allowed them to eat what God had told them was forbidden (1 Samuel 15:1-26).
He was afraid of his reputation with the people, so he insisted that Samuel came back from the battlefield with him, in order to maintain the veneer that everything was alright and that nothing had changed, when it had – Saul had lost the kingship (1 Samuel 15:30-31).
He was seriously afraid of David, and so hunted him down like a pest for years (1 Samuel 18:12).
He was terrified that he was about to die, and so consulted a medium to find out for sure (1 Samuel 28).
Rather fittingly for a man who lived his life in fear, Saul died in fear, killing himself to avoid the ignominy of being slain at the hand of a Philistine (1 Samuel 31:4-6).
A whole life marked by misplaced fear – and not necessarily of his enemies, but mostly of those who should have been his friends.
The Bible us plain about this:
Proverbs 29:25 NIVUK
[25] Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.
This is a trap Saul fell into time after time after time.
When we make decisions based on our fear of other people, we fall into the same trap.
Because, you see, we ought to be different:
Romans 8:15 NIVUK
[15] The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’
2 Timothy 1:7 NIVUK
[7] For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
We ought never to decide to do something (or not do it) based on fear of what other people will think, say, do or feel. Our first and our only priority should be to please God:
Proverbs 9:10 NIVUK
[10] The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
So we must understand that the mistakes made by our forebears which have trashed the reputations of the Gospel and the church were driven by fear, not by faith. If we are to avoid making the same mistakes as they, and Saul, did, then we must make our decisions based on a cool-headed, calm-hearted faith, rather than panicked and anxious fear.
As well as fear instead of faith, we see that also Saul took decisions based on Convenience Instead of Character.
Convenience Instead of Character
In other words, Saul took the easy way out, instead of taking a morally and spiritually sound stance.
I remember once sitting in the back of a vehicle driven by an American pastor in Romania. He mentioned that his van had been tested for road-worthiness the previous week. There had been nothing wrong with it. However, the Romanian mechanic had been keen to make a bit of money from this ‘rich’ foreigner, so he put in the report that his headlamp wasn’t straight.
The American pastor commented that $20 later and suddenly the headlamp was very straight.
Another former colleague of mine was crossing a border with a bus full of foreign citizens, coming to do short-term mission. Spotting an opportunity to make a bit of cash, one of the border guards decided to ask my flame-haired, Liverpudlian colleague how much money ‘her foreigners had in their passports’.
My former colleague was raging. She yelled at him, ‘You are not getting a bribe from us!’
An hour later, the rather sheepish border guard waved the bus through the border.
Every Christian will face a test of our character and our determination to do the right thing.
Sadly, some of us, like Saul, fail that test – and sometimes more than once.
As we saw earlier, Saul caved in and offered a sacrifice instead of waiting on Samuel while his men were deserting (1 Samuel 12:1-14).
As the leader of Israel, it was up to Saul to set the tone in terms of faith and courage, but it was his son Jonathan that led Israel into battle, not Saul (1 Samuel 14:1-14).
During that battle, Saul did not seek the Lord for guidance (1 Samuel 14:18-19). He also made a foolish vow that weakened his army and almost cost him his son (1 Samuel 14:24-45). And then, after all that, we see him allowing his men to disobey God’s clear command through Samuel – something he, as their commander, was ultimately responsible for, but tried to evade this responsibility and pin the blame on them (1 Samuel 15:15).
What we see here is a man without moral fibre or backbone, who tried to find the easiest way out of a situation for him, despite the costs for other people.
He was a leader in name only.
We have seen similar behaviour in those who have been exposed as lacking who were Christian leaders in name only. For example, those who covered up sin, or did not allow it to be brought to light, and excused their inaction by saying they were seeking to preserve the reputation of the Gospel.
Stuff and nonsense!
True Gospel people live in the light, with integrity and honesty, even if it is inconvenient, or even difficult, for them (1 John 1:5-10).
We see others who have tried to ignore wrongdoing, or moved perpetrators to another location, in the hope that it will go away.
Which it didn’t.
We see others who have engaged in sinful realpolitik and sided with people or organisations whose reputation is abominable, simply for personal gain.
Saul had very little character or backbone. He wilted and caved in at the first sign of pressure.
Sadly, many of our leaders have done the same.
However, that doesn’t mean thar the Gospel is wrong.
No, it means that these people are wrong.
They have sinned. They have fallen short of the glory of God.
As we have. All too often.
So we see that Saul lived by fear instead of faith, and convenience instead of character.
These are but expressions of the reality of Saul’s spiritual status, where he was focused on Self Instead of God.
Self Instead of God
The clearest expression of this is in an often-overlooked verse in 1 Samuel 15:
1 Samuel 15:12 NIVUK
[12] Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, ‘Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honour and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.’
This verse is just so telling.
Jonathan had led the troops into battle while they were, to all intents and purposes, unarmed (1 Samuel 13:19-22). And yet while bearing little more than light weaponry and farming implements, they had been victorious, thanks to the Lord (1 Samuel 14:15, 20-23).
Now God had summoned Saul to a new battle, this time against the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:2-3).
So from whom would the victory come?
And come it did – decisively (1 Samuel 15:7-9).
But not obediently.
Which makes the raising of this monument in his honour highly ironic.
Why?
Because he could not claim honour for a battle he did not win on his own.
Because he could not claim honour for a battle where he had been disobedient to God.
Then later, as I highlighted earlier, Saul wanted Samuel to come and worship God with him in order to preserve his reputation before his men, despite God having withdrawn his divine mandate to rule from him (1 Samuel 15:30-31).
So we see here that Saul was more concerned with his own reputation before his own people than he was about his reputation before God. Worse, he is more concerned with his own glory than he is the glory of God.
We are told in the Sermon on the Mount that we should be concerned with building God’s kingdom, not our own (Matthew 6:33).
What has happened with Saul is precisely the opposite: he is more concerned with building and defending his own kingdom instead of God’s. This explains why he was so keen to hang onto the kingship, even if it had been taken away from him, while David is not keen to take it from Saul, even though God has told him that it will be his (1 Samuel 24:6, 26:9). David is waiting on the Lord to build him a kingdom; Saul is grasping onto his for dear life.
Contrast this too with Jesus:
Philippians 2:6-8 NIVUK
[6] who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; [7] rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. [8] And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!
The poor decisions that many in authority have taken – firstly, driven by fear instead of faith; secondly, underpinned by convenience instead of character – are driven by a desire to take for themselves, or to hold on to what they have, rather than a desire to honour God.
Even David himself was felled by this temptation, when he slept with Bathsheba and killed her husband to cover up his sin (2 Samuel 11).
Solomon, his son, fell into the same trap when he took many foreign, idol-worshipping wives (1 Kings 11:1-13).
King after king in both of the Jewish kingdoms fell into the same trap of putting themselves and their interests before the Lord. This was always their downfall.
But this is not a Jewish condition. No, it is a human condition.
To prove this, I want to show you something you might find alarming:
1 Corinthians 10:11-13 NIVUK
[11] These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. [12] So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! [13] No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
The same temptation that felled these mighty kings is something that is common to all leaders – indeed, all people everywhere.
And so we must – absolutely must – be on our guard for this. There can be no place for decisions based on realpolitik that cause harm to others and to the reputation of the Gospel.
We must put God first. In everything.
Conclusion
I’d like you to imagine that you are standing over a pool of water. In both of your hands are stones which are identical to each other in size, shape and weight. Your right hand is raised higher than your left hand.
Which stone will make the biggest ripples in the water when it falls?
Of course, the answer is the stone that is highest, because it will hit the water with greater speed, due to the greater distance it has travelled.
I’m sure you don’t believe that I have inserted this illustration into this meditation purely out of a love for physics.
Whenever we give into temptation – acting in fear instead of faith, a desire for convenience instead of character, and to please ourselves and not God – then there are consequences.
There are always consequences. That’s how life is.
The only difference between the consequences for us and those who hold a leadership position stem from their fall being from a greater height, and so the consequences are further-reaching and deeper.
However, that doesn’t mean that the tough example of Saul’s failure is something only for leaders.
It is not. It is for all of us.
So how can we guard against it?
Step down. Get over yourself. There is no ‘special temptation’ to which you are exposed because you are who you are. Read 1 Corinthians 10:13 again. All temptations are ‘common to mankind’. They are common to all of us. We all face them. You’re not so special that the devil has to put in place a special operation to take you down. If you give in to a common temptation, you are responsible (James 1:13-15). No-one else.
Step back. Do the one thing no tempter wants you to do: examine the consequences of this sin. Think about it. See it in all it’s ugliness and horror. See it for what it is.
Step away. Get away from the source of temptation. Cut yourself off from it (Matthew 5:27-30). Get out of there. Flee from it. Don’t play with it. Don’t take the chance. Trust me: it isn’t worth it. It never is.
But what if you have been impacted by the wrong and hurtful actions of a Christian leader?
This hurts. It hurts really badly.
Often, it’s not just what they did that hurts. Often it’s who did it that hurts all the more. It’s the shattering of illusions, the deep disappointment and the sense of being severely let down.
I’m with you on that one.
But let me tell you: avoiding church will not protect you from this. These issues are not a Christian problem, they are a human problem. They can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
So cutting yourself off from Christian fellowship will not help you. It will actually hurt you. Because you should be around other believers for your own encouragement and strengthening.
Of course, leaving the church where it happened and joining another can help.
But the best thing you can do is to understand the traits that give rise to these awful crimes and ensure that you don’t see them in any leader under whom you decide to serve.
And the best, most positive, thing you can do is to search your own heart and eliminate these traits from your own attitudes and behaviour too. That way you become part of the solution, not the problem.
What happened to Saul was truly awful. It must have been deeply disappointing to Samuel and to the leaders of the Jewish people. We can’t put it down to his background or the fact that he seemed to be the ‘wrong’ person for the job. Plenty of other people were called from worse backgrounds and became better leaders, such as David, or the Apostles, or even Paul.
We can’t excuse Saul because there are no excuses for this. It is just plain wrong.
In the same way, when our leaders fail us – whoever they are – there can be no excuses. It is just plain wrong. There is no argument about that.
But understanding the traits and characteristics that got them there can help us from making the same mistakes. Growing closer to God in these areas can help us repair the damage caused by these intensely hurtful events and aid our recovery.
Because getting better is the best revenge possible.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, my heart aches because of the wrongdoing those who took Your name in vain have committed against me. I know I need to forgive them, but I struggle sometimes. Help me, Lord. Show me how I can better and avoid the mistakes they made. Amen.
Questions
Why do so-called Christians cause harm to others? Is it ever justified?
What do such people – and Saul – have in common?
How can we avoid making the same mistakes?
Extremely interesting and difficult subject to study Paul. We all need to examine our hearts and live as obediently as we can to the Word of God.