View him in the context of the Gospel

This morning, I was listening to a local radio station before coming in to work.  The News Director reported a story about a street preacher who is “one of the men who has been causing all the trouble at Bentleyville,” the local Christmas Park I mentioned in my last blog.  He immediately corrected the obviously biased statement with an awkward ad-lib amendment, “er, at least the one causing trouble for the city and for the founder of Bentleyville.”

The story, which is also in the local paper along with a picture of the street preacher,  reports that this street preacher in the news of late in our community is a registered sex offender for a crime of which he was convicted in 2004.  We in the church—however we may view the ministry of the street preacher and his ministry must be careful not to let the secular worldview of the local media wrongly influence us here.  The stock response of the media and the many people who have opposed the preachers at Bentleyville will be one of utter contempt and disgust—“another example of flagrant evangelical hypocrisy.”  In truth, this man is an example of the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.  The preacher in question was not a Christ-follower in 2004.  He was powerfully converted after the admittedly terrible incident occurred.  Imagine a preacher of the gospel with “a past” who now warns others of sin and its consequences! 

If we are scandalized by this man’s pre-Christian behavior, we best be careful for at least three reasons.  First, God has a way of using preachers “with a past” to greatly expand his kingdom.  The author of not- quite half the New Testament, the greatest theologian in the church and the greatest missionary in church history also “had a past.”  The apostle Paul considered himself the “chief of sinners” for his blasphemous persecution of the church which involved sending men and women to trial for their believe in Jesus where they were sent to prison, orphaning their children.  The greatest theologian of the first millennia of the church is universally held to be Augustine, a sexual miscreant of the worst kind before he was converted.  Indeed, space would not allow for the mentioning of all those who were engaged in sinful, repulsive behavior but who after they were miraculously converted, found themselves called by God to deliver his Word.  I am not placing this brother in the company of Paul and Augustine nor would he.  Likewise, I am not minimizing what he was convicted of and neither would he.  What I am doing is placing this preacher in the context of the gospel and of church history where he belongs instead of the context of a world so opposed to Christ that they put him on a cross when they had the opportunity.

A second reason we should pause before we bring down the gavel on this brother in Christ is our own- pre-Christian unsavory activities.  Although the sin that brought me to Christ is not of the same type as the preacher in question, my sins were just as evil in God’s sight and probably more numerous.   Who am I (or you) to throw stones at another forgiven sinner?  Finally, condemning him is wrong on what we might call procedural grounds.  If we have a problem or concern with a brother, it is sinful to malign him behind his back.  Like all Christian leaders, I have numerous scars in my back from knife wounds delivered by people who have called me “brother” and claimed to love me.  If we would not like to be spoken ill of by others, it behooves us to neither speak ill of them.   If you have something to say to this man, make an appointment with him, sit down and discuss your concerns with him.  Just because the world delights in condemning those who they consider hypocrites, before we in the church do so, we had best take a long look in a mirror.