3 Sin
My young friend sat down for dinner, and I knew right away that he was discouraged. I asked him how he was doing, and his answer was to hand me his cell phone. It was opened to an email he had received that morning. He is one of the young pastors I meet with. I love these times and these men. I listen to their ministry horror stories and try to comfort them with the gospel and give them insight on how to respond to the kinds of things every pastor faces. But over the last couple years, I’ve begun to understand that something very different is going on. Pastors are under attack in a way they have never been before. No, I am not talking about the attacks that you would expect from a godless culture. I’m talking about attacks from the very people that they have sought to love and serve. Yes, pastors blow it at times and, yes, there are users who find their way into ministry who should never be there and who leave a trail of damage behind them. I know people who have endured the harm of church hurt. But I am meeting with good and godly men who, although they are imperfect and still maturing, love God and love their people and have dedicated their lives to the soul care of gospel-centered pastoral ministry.
I took his phone in my hands and began to read. What a message to receive Monday morning following a long and demanding Sunday of public and private ministry. His medium-sized Midwest church had once been a joyful place to serve. It was an imperfect and messy community, but it was a community of love nonetheless. He and his wife had moved from the East, had settled in to a productive life of ministry, and had been there for ten years. He never imagined that he would want to leave this church or that he would someday daydream about leaving pastoral ministry altogether. The words I read were not loving, thankful, or even respectful. They were written in anger and filled with judgments of character and motive. The husband and wife, who wrote the email together, said they could not continue to have my friend as their pastor, and they were immediately canceling their membership. They didn’t ask for an appointment to talk and share their concerns. The email was not an invitation to talk; no, it was an accusatory bomb drop. It was an email version of a drive-by shooting, but by people with whom he shared life, love, and ministry. It wasn’t his first, and it wouldn’t be the last.
It wasn’t his theology, his preaching, his pastoral care, or even his personality that they had come to hate. It was his perceived politics. Nothing about his preaching was political, in the true sense of what the word means. He preached gospel-infused messages, walking through one portion of God’s word after another. They thought he had forsaken the faith because he preached the Bible’s justice themes when they were in the text he was expounding. From their perspective, he didn’t seem to be as politically conservative as they thought a true Christian should be. So, in a Sunday-night reaction to something he had said that morning that angered them, they fired off their termination email. He woke up to the bomb drop from people he loved, tried not to waste the whole morning wallowing in the toxicity, and then came to have lunch with me. This was not the first of these situations I witnessed, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
We have drifted far from a lifestyle of wholesome talk, one in which you can expect others to listen well, take time to consider, and speak with understanding, respect, and grace. So we are going to spend the next five chapters examining the biblical worldview that lies underneath the call to wholesome communication, whether face-to-face or screen-to-screen. These chapters will explore five biblical themes that are the root perspectives of how the apostle Paul, in Ephesians 4, understood we should communicate. I deeply believe that these biblical themes, taken seriously, are the death of any culture of reactive toxicity. The five themes are sin, grace, identity, glory, and eternity. Each has the power to expose us, convict us, restore us, and transform us.
Saying that our damage-producing culture of reactivity is a sin problem is obvious, but it is nonetheless important to say. But we must also look at what a deeply humbling and insight-giving perspective this is. When you are willing to say that there is such a thing as sin, you have opened the door to the deepest, most practical understanding of human dysfunction that you could ever consider. The Bible elaborately unpacks, from cover to cover, what sin is and what sin does. This unpacking begins with the first historical account after the account of creation. In fact, it is not an overstatement to say that all we need to do is carefully examine the sad biblical stories of Genesis 3 and 4 to see in living color what sin is and what sin does.
God had lovingly designed Adam and Eve, gifted them with one another, placed them in a beautiful garden where they would find everything they needed, set protective boundaries for them, and blessed them with his presence and love. It truly was a life in paradise. It is this context that makes the self-centeredness of Adam and Eve so shocking and clear. Why did they step outside of God’s boundaries and eat what was forbidden? The answer is self-centeredness. It wasn’t hunger that motivated them; no, their motivations are exposed in the narrative that has been retained for us. They ate because they thought they would be like God and because the fruit would deliver wisdom to them. Take note that they didn’t need wisdom. They were in relationship with the ultimate source of all wisdom. What attracted them was independent wisdom, that is, wisdom that wasn’t connected to submission to God. They desired the autonomous, self-sufficient existence that only God has. They wanted to be in the center of their world, free to think and live as they wanted. In that horrible self-centered, self-glorying moment they stepped outside of God’s loving boundaries and paradise was no more.
In its essence, sin is about living for yourself. Sin is driven by what we want, when we want it, how we want it, and where we want it, no matter what. It is driven by no greater value than my wants, my needs, and my feelings. Sin is by its very nature anti-authority and antisocial. At its core, sin doesn’t care who is in charge and how others are affected. Sin shrinks the field of my concern down to my own desires. It’s me in the center, it’s me in control, and it’s me writing my own rules.
The culture of toxic reactivity is a culture of self-centeredness. It’s not driven by love for others. It’s not propelled by love for truth. It rebels against higher authority. It doesn’t display a commitment to ongoing community and communication. Toxic reactivity says I have a right to my opinion and I have a right to express it however I wish. I have a right to call you out, to put you down, and to dismiss your tribe, no matter what the consequences. I don’t care who you are, what you have achieved, or what your present situation is. I will fire away behind my screen however I wish, and no one will take away my right to do so. Reactivity is speakers or writers assuming a godlike position, responding as they wish. Their only allegiance is to themselves. It is in the soil of this self-centeredness that disrespect, mockery, misogyny, cruelty, vengeance, and dismissal grow.
Where the self-centeredness of sin lives and grows, true, productive, insight-producing, relationship-building, unity-producing, change-motivating communication dies. When we react, we’re not offering one another nutrients by which we may grow; we are shooting verbal bullets at one another that injure us and kill any hope we may have that we can launch our thoughts into an environment of thoughtful consideration.
It’s not hard to get at the root of our reactivity problem. The question is, Will we humbly confess the self-centeredness of sin that still seduces us all and takes our talk where our Creator never intended it to go?
It is important to recognize that Adam and Eve’s choice to eat the forbidden fruit was not a breaking of some abstract rule. No, what they did was a direct rebellion against the authority of God. Their disobedience was vertical and personal. They were walking away from a life of submission to the authority of God and setting themselves up as their own authority. Human life, properly lived, is always shaped by a willing submission to God’s authority and the human authorities he has set up to represent him. Healthy, productive human communication is the result of a submission to a higher authority than your own. Good communication always submits to a set of rules that you didn’t make. Good communication, which never harms and always produces a harvest of good fruit, submits itself to love God above all else and your neighbor as yourself.
The culture of toxic reactivity submits to no authority but the authority of self. It recognizes no rules of communication other than the rules the speaker or writer sets for him or herself. Reactivity takes no time to consider communication rights and wrongs. The culture of reactivity doesn’t wait to think of the greater good. It doesn’t take the time necessary to communicate in a way that is free from harm in any way. The culture of reactivity is more motivated by the attention-getting hot take than it is by genuine love for the receiver. It’s a culture that glories in the takedown rather than in patience, forgiveness, and love. Reactivity has a loud, aggressive voice, rather than a kind, measured, thoughtful, and thought-provoking response. It’s driven by the right to speak rather than a consideration about how best to speak. Like Adam and Eve, toxic reactivity at its core rejects God’s authority and the essentiality of the loving community that he created for healthy human functioning. The question is, Will we sit behind our screens as our own authority and use our words as we wish for purposes no greater than our own?
We were not designed by our wise and loving Creator to live alone. We were made to live in a vibrant vertical and horizontal community. Fellowship with God and with others is an essential ingredient in our spiritual health and proper living. Independence is a seductive delusion that never takes us anywhere good. Look where the quest for independence took Adam and Eve. The religion of the Old and New Testaments is foundationally and practically relational. God, who himself is a community, crafted those made in his image to live in community with him and one another. Healthy, mutually loving, and mutually serving relationships are not a human luxury—they are a human necessity. To be human is to be a social being. This means that isolated, self-sufficient, and independent living is not just a denial of my spirituality; it is also a denial of my humanity.
This is why the antisocial behavior on social media is so harmful and alarming. The powerfully influential culture found online denies the Creator’s design and, because it does, cannot ultimately work. It cannot be constructive. It will be destructive. It is a denial of the mutual love and mutual dependency that is the soil in which healthy living grows. Hateful takedowns are never posted by someone who is committed to ongoing relationship and healthy mutual edification. This reactive culture puts a higher value in securing a hit than it does on the person taking the hit. A hunt for the next good shot is never where “love your neighbor as yourself” will take you. The person finding joy in taking down another person has about as much commitment to loving relationships as the hunter has to the duck he is hunting. This is a sad deconstructing of life as the Creator designed it to be: me in relationship to you, together in relationship to God. A community.
Sin devalues relationships for the glory of self. Sin always ends up harming our relationships in some way. Look what sin did to Adam and Eve’s relationship. Consider the horrible fruit of sin in the relationship of their sons, Cain and Abel. Imagine I am angry at you because of something you said and in my anger I get up so close to you that you can feel my breath, while I say inflammatory, accusatory, and hurtful things about you. What are you thinking at that moment? I doubt you’re thinking, “Paul loves me so much. This is so helpful. I am learning so much. I wish he would do this more.” No, you are crushed, and all you want to do is get away and out from under the onslaught. As I’m up in your face, I’m not forming a relationship with you; I am harming whatever relationship we have. You are not listening to me. You are not learning from me. You are not feeling grateful for me. You are not hoping to engage me further. Nothing constructive results. Neither person is better because of the encounter. Why would we think getting up in a person’s face via a screen and a social media post would have a different result?
If the aim of the religion of Christianity is love out of a pure heart, then much of the Christianity on social media is false religion. It may be theologically knowledgeable and biblically literate, but it is the religion of the Pharisees. It is a culture of pride, self-righteousness, and legalism. It binds burdens on people rather than helping them bear their burdens. It is accusatory and condemning rather than loving and forgiving. It mocks those considered less righteous or not as theologically informed. It hunts for reasons to judge and finds joy in disrespectful, cruel attacks. It lacks the kind words of a tender heart. It professes a love for truth but is really driven by a love of self. It is obsessed with its own voice, while seldom listening very well.
A Christian media culture that does not regularly exhibit the fruit of the spirit is actually Pharisaism, that is, the kingdom of self masquerading as the kingdom of God. On his way to the cross, the strongest words Jesus spoke were to those who promoted such a culture (see Matt. 23). Humbling, rescuing, forgiving, and transforming grace doesn’t produce independent, relationship-harming, proud, disrespectful toxicity. It produces the opposite.
I don’t think I am particularly naive, but I am regularly shocked by the manner at which “Christians” talk to one another online. I am regularly dismayed at the disrespectful reactions to spiritual leaders. I am not saying we should never post questions to our leaders or engage them in a respectful conversation or even debate with them. But when I read, “Dude, just quit tweeting,” or “Bro, just shut up,” or “______ just get back in the kitchen and bake something,” or “You can be in ministry and still be stupid,” I get heartsick for the church of Jesus Christ and for the state of its culture. We were made to live in loving community with one another where we grow to know God and his truth in union with one another. Anything that harms this community harms us, stunts our growth, and moves us away from the life Jesus died to make possible for us.
As I was thinking of the current independent, relationship-devaluing Christian social media culture, I thought of the words of Paul at the end of Ephesians 3. This statement is the capstone of his discussion of the theology of the grace of Jesus Christ: “That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17–19). Paul is saying that the hermeneutic of the gospel is a community project. We will fully comprehend the redeeming magnitude of the love of God only when we are developing our understanding in community with other believers. Gospel theology is never developed independently. Practical, transformational gospel understanding is a community project. The gospel is only ever fully known in the context of humble, approachable, and mutually dependent relationships with other believers. Any behavior that harms those relationships harms our potential for fully understanding truths that so desperately need to be known.
Charismatic believers need conversation with Reformed believers and vice versa. Baptist and Presbyterian believers need to be able to talk respectfully and listen humbly to one another. Politically conservative believers need to talk with those who are not so conservative. Leaders need to be in conversation with those who are not leaders. Young and old believers need to be able to communicate with one another. White believers and Black believers need to be in gospel conversation with one another. Our communication needs to cross racial, ethnic, political, age, gender, and doctrinal lines. We are not a collection of individuals. We are not an assemblage of tribes, but rather we are one in Christ. Any reaction that does not value the unity of this community harms the very thing that is essential for the gospel to be understood by our minds, embraced by our hearts, and bear fruit in our lives. Toxic reactivity is the enemy of true Christianity because it damages the community that true Christianity holds dear.
Repudiation of proud, independent, and antisocial Christianity that loves winning more than loving must begin with a willingness in each of us to confess and repent of instances when we have taken part in this culture that has moved so far from what God has designed. There is a better way, and grace makes it possible.
Having differences is one thing, but hating and wanting to harm the other side is another thing altogether. The seeds of vengeance developed very soon after sin entered the world in the garden of Eden. It began with Adam and Eve pointing the finger of blame. Sin makes it much easier to point out the sin, weakness, failure, inadequacy, hypocrisy, logical fallacy, immaturity, and bias of others than to recognize and confess our own. Sin causes us to think of ourselves as way more righteous than we actually are and others as way more unrighteous than they actually are. We will take a microscope to examine every minute detail of the writings of someone outside of our tribe while seldom giving the same attention to the writings of those we agree with. We are all too quick to assign blame. We are too quick to question the character and motives behind the words on the page. It is all very self-righteous and destructive to the community, conversation, mission, and reputation of the people of God.
But the passive vengeance of blame often morphs into the more active vengeance of harm. We see this in Genesis 4 in a horrible act of sibling homicide. But we also see it on social media in ways that don’t always seem so horrible. Some posts are an invitation to a conversation, some are a challenge to a debate, some question the validity of a point made or the qualifications of the person posting; but then there are those that are intended to harm a person’s reputation or to silence her voice or to get her audience to join in canceling her. It is an attempt to do what God alone is wise and holy enough to do (see Rom. 12:17–21). I have found the warnings of Leviticus 19:17–18 both sobering and helpful: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Holding a grudge against someone, failing to be reasonable in your response, and engaging in vengeful reactions are all the fruit of hatred in your heart. This is a hard pill to swallow, but I would ask you to humbly open your heart. Could it be that the power and character of your reactions on social media are not driven by your love for truth or your desire to expose what is wrong but are instead driven by hatred in your heart? A hate-producing grudge against a person or his tribe will never produce reasonableness in your response. No, it will always cause you to sin against your neighbor, passively or actively. Loving your neighbor as yourself will never produce disrespectful mockery, slams against a person’s character, straw man accusations, or any other form of verbal cruelty. If we use the lens of Leviticus 19:17–18, we have to admit that underneath our public Christianity there appears to be a whole lot of private hatred.
We don’t have just a truth problem; we have a massive love problem that is played out every day on the communication platforms we all use. Love reads and listens carefully and assigns the best intention to the writer’s or speaker’s words. Hate speaks loudly while not reading or listening well and assigns the worst intentions to the writer’s words. Sin turns those who were designed to live in communities of love into haters who damage the health of the very communities that are a vital part of the Creator’s commitment to their welfare and thriving. When you feel compelled to react, what is the heart behind that compulsion?
Sin Is a Problem We All Have
This may seem obvious, but on this side of eternity sin is still a problem all of us have. Yes, the power of sin has been broken in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but the presence of sin still remains. We will experience the final death of sin, but we are not there yet. So we are all susceptible to sin’s seduction. We are capable of carrying hatred in our hearts, we are capable of loving vengeance more than mercy, we are capable of shocking self-glory and self-righteousness, and we are capable of being more eager to blame than confess. So we all stand in need of the grace of rescue, not first from one another but from ourselves. We need to pray with David for a clean heart and a right spirit (see Ps. 51). And we need to live with the confidence that when we cry out for help, God willingly hears and answers, greeting us with grace that is more than up to the task. His grace guarantees a future when we will be free of this toxicity, but it also guarantees fresh starts and new beginnings right here, right now.