But what about Christ’s church? Do they model the same faithfulness of Christ in this same endeavor today? At no point would we call His frankness with the truth, calling out sin, or even calling some “broods of vipers” a “lack of love.” We would rightly see this as the very embodiment of love, namely, because these very same routine offenders were always called to place their faith in the Messiah, who came to deliver sinners from the penalty of sin and death. If you were to spend any time with Jesus during His earthly ministry, one thing would be quite clear: He loved you enough to not only sup with you as a sinner, He would call you to the carpet on your sin, and then call you to repentance and faith. Jesus revealed himself to the Samaritan woman as the Messiah, but not before laying bare the fact that she had no less than five adulterous relationships. Our Lord modeled this routinely, but the example of the woman at the well will suffice to illustrate my point. Love and truth always work in tandem with one another, and thus, they are not mutually exclusive realities to try and uphold for the Christian. In the same manner, any show of truthfulness without love is nothing more than a clanging symbol. ![]() God called her to faith in Christ in a hospitable environment, where she was able to “come as she was,” yet remain under no illusion that she need not repent and believe the gospel.Īt the forefront of her story is the concept that any show of love devoid of the truth is not love. In other words, the gay community doesn’t have the market cornered on hospitality, and she illustrates this rather wonderfully with her own personal story. This isn’t a practice foreign to Christianity so much as it is a practice often neglected within some Christian circles, and that’s her point. That’s the basic gist of practicing hospitality toward unbelievers. Here’s where we ought not miss her point: Christians do need to invite sinners of all stripes in their homes and genuinely welcome them-without compromising on the truth. From this point, she encourages Christians to adopt, in one sense, a hospitable, welcoming stance towards homosexuals-but with the explicit purpose of being able to give them the gospel. ![]() ![]() In the same breath, she offers much-needed qualifiers to speak to the fact that this common bond is drawn around a common sin. Rosaria Butterfield has written an excellent book called “The Gospel Comes With a Housekey,” illustrating a phenomenon that is well-known within the homosexual community, where they are exceedingly hospitable, welcoming, etc. In one sense, I have no real beef with that particular statement if several important qualifiers are stated. Much of the online world has been abuzz as of late owing to a short clip from Andy Stanley, where he speaks rather candidly on the virtues of homosexuals coming into the church with the way that the broader Evangelical community has treated them.
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