Personal Assumptions:
Not a Test of Faith
I think I forgot to mention that our position on whether Jesus is serious in these passages is not a test of faith. This isn’t a test of faith. The conclusions we come to on this topic don’t relate to our salvation, I don’t think. This doesn’t mean that we won’t be answerable for the things we’ve done in the flesh, while we’ve been alive, we will: but we aren’t going to be condemned for them: We’re going to be saved because of what Jesus has done, and deeply we have tried to imitate his life in our own lives. This is putting the emphasis in a different place–not on judgment, but on salvation–where the emphasis, I think, should be put if the gospel really is good news.
And this is good, because as we noted earlier in this series, all of us have been angry, called someone a fool, etc, when we know we shouldn’t have: this is playing around in death’s property, and Jesus warns us that if we play on death’s property, we’re going to be liable for all the time we’ve spent there. And who among us hasn’t called someone a fool, or the like, a couple hours after the worship service or on our way to Life Group?
Personal Assumptions:
Maturity
I guess I’m assuming that I’m speaking to mature Christians who will make the time to consider these things thoughtfully, and raise thoughtful objections and claim thoughtful conclusions, filtered through scripture and Jesus and the perspectives of one another. This is a lot to assume, considering how busy the world leaves us, and how little time we have to deal with tiny things, much less things like “bless your enemies.”
Personal Assumptions:
Marginilization
I guess I’m also assuming that when we really try to follow Jesus, we will be marginalized; we will be less popular, and more weird: maybe misunderstood, or treated differently, or kept out of the loop because of what we believe and who we act like. At this point in my perspective, I just don’t know if there’s a way around this. I think of Paul, when he says in 2 Corinthians: “For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.” Some people will smell death around us; but it’s not ours, it’s there’s. You get close to Jesus, and rotten things get exposed now and then.