Telling People They Are Sinners - In A World Literally Dying For Encouragement

Sep 7, 2021

Preface

This article has been a long time coming! I have written and re-written this article many times in order to try to be as clear as possible. Over the past weeks, I've sought to write some articles that lay the groundwork for this one. It's not an easy discussion because, like most things in life, it is very complex and takes careful consideration to discuss well.

The primary point I will be making in this article is as follows:

Telling unbelievers (non-Christians - particularly ones that you don't have any relationship with) that they are sinners without preceding it with acts of love, compassion, and empathy that are felt and understood by the listener, will not effectively communicate the Gospel. Instead, it will most likely produce shame. This shame will lead someone to put up their mental defenses so they don't get hurt. This action effectively shuts down all rational communication.

In this article, I'm going to evaluate the reasoning for this statement, looking at the Bible, Psychology, and Statistics.

Before diving in, I want to be clear with what this article's intent is, and what it isn't.

This article is written based on what I believe the Bible to say, and my own experiences. Both of these things are subject to evaluation and I welcome insights and opinions that may be different from my point of view.
The scope of the article is Christians being loving in the context of Evangelism. There are other circumstances in life where we are required to love those around us, but the application may be different because of the different details of the situation. I don't want you to misunderstand that I'm talking about Christian love in all circumstances and times, but specifically within the domain of evangelistic outreach.
I realize that others may have different experiences than I have. I don't want to minimize them or exclude them. Please share them with me so that I may understand varying perspectives and insights.

For those who are Christians, I would hope that God would use this article to be a means by which He transforms your thoughts to grow more and more in love with Christ and into His likeness. You are the primary person that I'm writing this for.

To those who are not Christians, I pray that my writing may in some small way illuminate your eyes to the truth of who God is. He is so much better than how we Christians sometimes portray him. He is the fulfillment of everything that we desire in the deepest depths of our soul.

For either group of readers, I don’t want you to simply take my word for it. I want you to search the Bible and other sources for yourself.

I hope that you use this as a springboard for your own study. This article is a result of my own study over a long period of time. I would encourage you to engage in the same kind of thoughtful study and share your findings. I would love to hear about your thoughts and experience!

The State of our World

I recently watched a video of an interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson (A clinical psychologist, speaker, and author.) He was describing some of his experiences giving talks at various universities and events. People would come up to him and describe how his words affected them in dramatic ways. With tears in his eyes, Dr. Peterson says the following in the interview:

"To get a taste of the depth of despair that can be eliminated with not much more than some words of encouragement, some statement like "You as a human being aren't intrinsically worthless, you have a spirit that is worth preserving and that the things that you do that you do in your life that you do correctly are important." People are literally dying for lack of that."

A link to the specific point in the interview is here.

While it may be tempting to think that he's using a figure of speech in regards to people dying, I believe his words give us insight into the state of our culture. While speaking from his own experience, I think current statistics agree with Dr. Peterson that suicide and mental health concerns have skyrocketed over the past 10-20 years.

Between 2000 and 2016, the death rate by suicide has increased by 30% at a rate of 1-2% per year. This is split into a 21% increase for males and a staggering 50% for females. It is important to note, these statistics are only showing percentages of people who have committed suicide, not those who have attempted unsuccessfully, or who are struggling with depression or other mental health concerns that could lead to suicide.

Looking at depression as a whole, the statistics are even more alarming.

In 2017, it is estimated that 11 million adults aged 18 or older had at least one episode of impairing depression. This is 4.5% of all adults in the United States. In adolescents, the number increases to 9.4% looking at the ages between 12 and 17. Out of that nearly 10% of all adolescents in the United States, only about 40% receive any kind of medical treatment.

Because these statistics are only looking at documented cases, we must assume that the issues are more widespread than reported.

In summary:

Mental health and depression are not things that we can dismiss lightly as Christians or people in general.

How are we to live like Christ in this place and time?

The Importance of Love

The Bible talks about how love is the primary external display in which our identity in Christ is known to the world and for ourselves.

John 13:35 says:

"By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

In this section of John, Jesus is washing his disciples' feet. In their culture, the act of washing feet was a lowly task reserved for servants. Jesus, being a respected teacher at that time, would have been the last person to culturally be responsible to wash his disciple's feet. Peter even tries to stop Jesus because of the inappropriateness of the situation.

Jesus is demonstrating servant love to his disciples. In verse 35 he emphasizes the importance of love in this verse by saying that after he is gone, love will be the indicator that we are truly disciples of Christ.

1 John 2:8-11 says:

"At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes." - 1 John 2:8-11

In this passage, John re-states what Jesus had said in John 13. You may notice that these verses mention loving "brothers" and "one another". This may lead to the following question:

Does the Bible only say that we need to love Christians in this way, or do we need to love those in the world this way too?

Paul clarifies this in Romans and Galatians:

"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,' and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." - Romans 13:8-10

"For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another." - Galatians 5:14-15

The next question that may come to mind is "what does the Bible mean by neighbor?" Thankfully Jesus deals with this question for us, however, he doesn't give us the clear answer we were looking for.

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” - Luke 10:25-29

Jesus then proceeds to tell the lawyer the story of the good Samaritan. The story is found in Luke 10.

"Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’" - Luke 10:30-35

At the end of the story, Jesus doesn't answer the lawyers' question but instead asks him a different question:

"Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” - Luke 10:36

The lawyer answers:

“'The one who showed him mercy.' And Jesus said to him, 'You go, and do likewise.'” - Luke 10:37

It's not a question of who is your neighbor, but are you being a neighbor.

Loving your neighbor doesn't have to do with who your neighbor is, but that you are loving your neighbor.

With that in mind, let's ask the next logical question:

What does it mean to be loving?

Being Loving is Distinct From Speaking Truth

To simply proclaim the truth does not mean love is being shown to the person listening. This is stated in multiple ways in 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul is describing what love looks like:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." - 1 Corinthians 13:1

"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." - 1 Corinthians 13:2

Paul is speaking to the Corinthian church who had people who were holding certain spiritual gifts higher than others. They believed that certain gifts were required evidence to confirm Salvation. Similar to the modern belief of some that without speaking in tongues, you do not have the Holy Spirit inside you and therefore are not a Christian.

Paul was correcting this error by saying that the Body of Christ has many members, that each member is there for a purpose, and that some are capable of doing things that others are not. He also says in verse 13 that love is the greater expression of Christ abiding in you. Greater than any other spiritual gift.

(This is also confirmed by the verses we looked at previously in 1 John 2:9-11)

"Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling." - 1 John 2:9-11

So the first idea of what being loving means is this:

To be loving is something that is separate from speaking the truth. They can be related, but they are not identical. It is possible to speak the truth without love, just as it is to speak the truth with love.

This is an important point that I don't believe is agreed upon throughout Christianity.

I believe that some may argue that proclaiming the truth is in itself loving. There is a belief that the simple act of speaking the truth found in Scripture is a lifeline for those around them.

The word picture that I've heard used is this:

Sharing the gospel with someone is like trying to stop somebody from running over the side of a cliff. What do you do when someone is running towards the cliff? Do you kindly ask them to stop running towards the edge? Or do you grab their legs and make them stop before they go tumbling to their demise?

We as Christians believe that God is just and that sin must be punished. This picture has been used to describe how we should be fervent in our evangelism. I don't think anyone would argue that love is shown in the act of stopping someone from tumbling over a cliff's edge. At the very least they care enough about them to try to save them. But I would strongly suggest that this picture should not be the basis by which we determine how we are to interact with people evangelistically. The reason this picture falls short is that it oversimplifies the complexity of evangelism itself.

There is a significant difference between interacting with people about spiritual things and this picture of going over a cliff's edge.

The difference is that grabbing someone's ankle who's physically running for a cliff is an effective way of stopping them. I believe that simply telling someone they are sinners with no other prior relational context is not an effective way of stopping them from going over the spiritual cliff.

In our situation, telling people that they are sinners who need to trust in Christ and believe in his righteousness to be saved is a statement of truthful fact. However, the tactic to communicate this in a way that will effectively stop them from running over the cliff is a little different than simply speaking this truth. Without careful analysis of how the message will be received, effective communication will not happen. This is particularly true in a time where mental health is on a steep decline.

While the cliff analogy takes into account our spiritual human condition, it doesn't take into account the complexity of human psychology. I would argue that understanding how our minds work is one of the critical elements of understanding how to love someone effectively as defined by Scripture.

Being Loving Means Cultivating Relationship

Secondly, loving means cultivating relationships with people. This is because we can look at how Jesus interacted with people. Jesus did not spend his time aloof and detached from the everyday lives of the people he was speaking to. He ate meals with them, he worked with them, he healed them, He cried with them, He celebrated with them. One example is talked about in Luke 19, where Jesus shared a meal with the hated tax collector Zacchaeus. Another example is in John 2 where Jesus attends a wedding. Jesus also eats with "tax collectors and sinners" in Matthew 9.

This is also not to say that Christ never preached to large crowds. He certainly did this on multiple occasions like the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7. He also feeds 5 thousand people in John 6 who he then preaches to as well. That being said, Jesus didn't spend all his time preaching. There are significant portions of scripture that document personal interactions with individuals where Christ builds relationships with them in ways that were normal to the cultural practices of the time.

Being Loving Means Loving Individuals

Jesus loves the world (John 3:16) but that doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't love each person in the world in a personal and individual way.

Two contrasting examples of this are Jesus and the woman at the well, and Jesus talking with Nicodemus.

The Woman at the Well

The story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4 is a beautiful story about how God comes into our broken world. He comes to us, crossing all cultural barriers to love us and tell us that he is our hope.

The Jews viewed the Samaritans as untouchables and unholy people. The Samaritans were a remnant of Israel who remained in Israel after the Assyrians brought the northern kingdom of Israel into captivity. They intermarried with the peoples who were relocated there by the Assyrians. They became a race of half-Jew, half-Gentile (non-Jew), and were therefore hated by the people of the pure Jewish heritage. Jesus goes to Samaria intentionally with this knowledge and background.

Jesus then interacts with a Samaritan woman. Crossing two other cultural boundaries of the time. The woman is taken aback by Jesus noticing her and interacting with her as a human being instead of an untouchable.

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) - John 4:9

Jesus did this intentionally because it was a way that he was able to show love to this woman. By noticing her, and by initiating a conversation with her across cultural barriers. He demonstrated love to her by calming the defense mechanism of her brain so that she was open to hearing what he had to say.

Jesus then proceeds to delay calling her out on her sin. Instead, he starts by saying that He is the hope that she needs. He is the Living Water that will satisfy. That's how he starts his sharing of the gospel with her - with hope. The things in life that she desires are fulfilled in Him. After doing this, he then asks her to "call your husband" - which is his gentle way of calling out her sin because he knows her life and that she’s been with multiple men and doesn’t have a husband.

Jesus doesn't water down the truth - but he frames it in such a way that this individual person will leave the conversation feeling valued and being given hope.

Nicodemus

Nicodemus is a ruler of the Jews - a Pharisee who comes to Jesus at night in John 3. He comes at night because he is afraid his reputation would be damaged with the other Pharisees for coming and speaking with Jesus.

The conversation that he has with Jesus looks very different than the one that Jesus had with the woman at the well, though he is really saying the same thing: "I am your only hope". But Jesus knows that Nicodemus is a different kind of person. He is a respected man. A godly man. A ruler of the people and diligent scholar of the Word of God. So Jesus uses a different tactic to shock Nicodemus into realizing that there is nothing that he can do in his own power to be saved. John 3 has this story.

There are many other instances that we could look at. But throughout the gospels, in the instances that Jesus interacts with individuals, he is very precise in how he communicates the Gospel. He makes it clear that he has come to save sinners, and he tailors his statements to the specific person he is talking to.

Since we are not all-knowing and don't know people's entire lives from the time they were born, we need to spend time and get to know someone before we can tailor our own conversations with them in a similar way. This is one of the reasons why I believe human psychology is such an important topic for us as humans, and particularly as Christians. I'll talk more about this shortly.

To be clear, I'm not saying is that we shouldn't ever share the truth with people we don’t know. We definitely should! Jesus and the apostolic writers of the new testament tell us to do this. Don't misread what I'm saying and think that we shouldn't speak to people unless we are amazing friends with them. What I am saying is that the way in which we speak the truth matters greatly both to God and to the people around us. Love is the way that people see Christ in us. Not truth, but love. Therefore we need to be thinking as much about how to love someone as we are about sharing the truth with them.

Being Loving Will Result in People Hating You - That's Okay - But Don't Assume.

It is also important to note that just because you are loving to someone doesn't mean that they will like you or respond positively to you.

"We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you." - 1 John 3:12-13

This means that there will be people who know what they are doing is wrong but are unwilling to look at Christ to be their hope because that would require them to peer into the chaos of their own being. It would require them to confront the illuminating light of God's perfection and holiness which none of us can stand before and live without the righteousness of Christ. Spiritual warfare is real. However, Christ has overcome the power of the world and that power is inside us through the Holy Spirit. We shouldn't assume that the reason that people hate us is that they hate Christ. We should make every effort to live at peace with one another.

"If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." - Romans 12:18

If someone is upset by something we said, we should first look at ourselves before assuming the worst of others. Assume responsibility for yourself and the weight of your own words before assuming the devil lives in someone else.

The Importance of Psychology in Christianity

I have heard and felt hesitation in some areas of the Christian community to discussions of Psychology and mental health. I think this has to do with the fact that often Psychology can be used, just as other sciences are, to proclaim a worldview that is in opposition to Christianity. I agree that this definitely happens and that things get very complex when discussing the mind. The lines between the physical and the spiritual start to blur very quickly.

This shouldn't be a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater though! Just like other forms of science like medicine, we have to hold trust in science loosely because it's based on failable human observation. However, to discard it completely is to live in willful ignorance and shunning of the good gifts that God has given us in organized and careful observation of creation.

There are two psychological concepts that I want to bring up that relate to what I said at the beginning of this article about depression and suicide in our culture:

Guilt and Shame

First, let's talk about guilt.

Guilt in the Bible is often used as a legal term. To say that someone is guilty is to say that they have committed an offense. This is what the Bible says is the state of all mankind apart from the justifying work of Christ. We have committed sin against God and we are therefore guilty.

This is an important distinction between the psychological concepts of guilt and shame. When someone feels guilt, it means that they feel they have done something wrong. The feeling of guilt is associated with activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain which triggers the limbic system to produce stress. Feeling guilty about something produces stress in the brain. This feeling of stress starts in the prefrontal cortex which is the frontal lobe of the brain. This part of the brain is responsible for logic, reason, and other high-level cognitive functions.

Because the feeling of guilt is associated with the frontal lobe, it means that the logical part of your brain is still active. The adrenaline rush that you get from feeling guilt helps you to be able to think about how to right the wrong that has been done.

In other words, guilt propels you towards action.

From a Christian perspective, feeling guilt is a good thing because for someone who is not trusting in Christ for salvation - they are truly guilty. For someone to realize the true state of their reality is a good thing. Because It propels people towards Christ because he is the solution to our legal guilt.

The important contrast here is the difference between feeling guilt and feeling shame.

Shame is distinct from guilt. Shame is a term that is associated with evaluating someone's value and worth. To be ashamed means that you are self-conscious. It means that you are conscious of your own being, and wish to be different than who you are.

Shame triggers activity in the limbic system of the brain. The feeling of Shame causes your psychology to self-protect because it uses the same mechanisms as if you were hiding from physical danger. The feeling of shame is so powerful that it actually hijacks your prefrontal cortex (logical, rational thinking) and pushes your mind into the automatic fight or flight response. Often people express deep-seated shame as anger, depression, or anxiety.

While guilt can propel people towards action and changing themselves, shame prevents people from improving because instead of questioning their actions, they question themselves, their value, and worth.

The difference between guilt and shame can be summarized like this:

Guilt accuses someone of doing something wrong. Shame accuses someone of being something wrong.

There is a massive difference between these two concepts! One propels people to self-improvement and changing their actions. The other is the gateway to depression.

Based on the statistics at the beginning of this article, I ask myself the following question:

If more than 1 in 10 people from the next generation are coming into adulthood suffering from depression, then is it unreasonable to question if our culture's epidemic of mental illness is related, if not rooted in deep-seated shame?

Let's look a little further.

Emotional Immaturity

I recently read a book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson who is a clinical psychologist. While I'm thankful that I don't have parents like what was described in the book, I think it is extremely helpful to grow in empathy and compassion for people who have had these kinds of parents. It helps to understand why people are the way they are, and how to better communicate with them. I would highly recommend reading it.

The reason I bring up this book is that it takes a deep dive into how toxic shame comes about in people's lives.

When parents raise their children and are distant, unwilling, or unable to engage with their lives, are authoritarian instead of empathetic, and are hostile towards emotional expressions like crying or anger, children have the choice to internalize their feelings or to externalize them.

"Internalizers" feel shame when they express feelings because the punishment for simply being upset is a hallmark of emotional immaturity. It has a significant impact on the well-being of a child. This also leads to the belief that empathy is a sign of weakness and a simplification of the world so as not to create any unwanted emotions when faced with the complexity of living.

"Externalizers" in an effort to avoid self-hatred, rid themselves of shame by blaming others and making excuses. They also tend to believe that empathy is a sign of weakness, but don't mind expressing it in the form of anger.

When we look at the two expressions of being parented in this way, I think you get a fairly accurate picture of our culture.

On one side you have people who don't show emotion, are unsympathetic, and hold to ideologies because it makes the world simple. It gives them the satisfaction of being right while excusing the rest of the world to be "simply stupid."

On the other side, you have people who won't take responsibility for their own actions and are angry at everything and anything that won't soothe the inner shame that they feel.

Both are the result of running from feelings of deep-seated shame.

Where do we go from here?

Let's look again at how I started out this article:

The question for Christians becomes: How are we interact with the people around us in the world?

Below are some of my own conclusions.

Make Others Feel Important and Valued

Particularly in today's fragmented society where anyone who disagrees with another is called names and attacked, it is important that we are different as Christians. Jesus went out of his way to make someone who was inferior feel valued in a way that he or she didn't expect. Jesus did this with Zacchaeus, the woman at the well, and others.

When you proclaim the love of God through loving action and counter-cultural action, it can soften people's hearts because they recognize you are something different. It makes them feel like they are someone who has value because you noticed them, and care about them as a person with intrinsic value. And that makes them curious why.

Be Patient

If we have the cliff mentality when we speak with people, there is an urgency to our speaking, and an urgency to people responding. Our talking with them is going to be laced with fear as the motivation for change. This is because that's our primary feeling and motivation, so that is what we project. There is no fear in the Gospel. The good news is that there is hope. Hope dissolves Fear. The Gospel is "good news!" a message of Hope! In light of that, be patient with people. God is sovereign and his timing is perfect, don't let the limbic system of your brain be your motivation.

The most effective thing you can do to stop someone from going over the spiritual cliff is to love them and share the hope you have in the One who is the sum of all that is desirable.

Learn How to Communicate Effectively

Since God has called us to share the Gospel with others - to make disciples of all nations, and since communication is the way that we do that. We should learn to communicate effectively. God can use even poor communication to bring someone to himself, but I think it is poor stewardship of our abilities if we don’t seek to do so in the best ways possible.

Approach People Looking to Learn from Them Instead of Changing Them

One of the keys that I'm learning to effective communication is Empathy. In order to have Empathy, you need to be Humble. In order to be Humble, you need to understand that you are not perfect or infallible. This is not to say that you can't trust anything - it's not Relativism, but it is to say that I can always be open to learning something I never knew before from someone else.

There is no person on earth of which I can say with complete confidence that I have nothing to learn from.

Therefore one of my goals, whenever I interact with someone, should be to discover those things they can teach me. By doing this, my approach to them is naturally humble and curious rather than arrogant and rude.

As I stated at the beginning of this article, This is a topic that weighs heavy on my heart. I want others to know the truth of who God is. I also want people to know what God is not. It is painful for me to watch people in our churches and in our world reject Christ because they think that Christ is something that he's not. A lot of the reason that this happens is that we are not careful to communicate the truth in love. We get confused thinking that speaking the truth is in itself loving when it's not. There are large portions of Christianity that are following after wrong doctrine and falsehood in the name of love. There are also large portions of Christianity that have correct doctrine, but no love. Neither are correctly representing Christ.

A question to ask that may get to the heart of what I'm trying to say is this:

Is your interaction with someone conveying to them the comfort and hope that is found in Christ? Or are you just another voice that they hear telling them they are worthless and a failure?

I hope that my writing is a springboard for your own study. I don't pretend to have all the answers, and even after thinking about this for so long, I'm sure that there will be places that I need to refine my thoughts further.

I would be happy to hear about your findings or to discuss ideas. You can reach me using the social links below.

Be Humble, Stay Curious.

-Josh