How To Be Gracious When Haters Gonna Hate

I've been asked by the Idea Network blog manager to write an article on dealing with one's critics graciously; on how to love and respect people who hold a different theological viewpoint.

And yet, right now, I'm really struggling to do any of those things.

The editor who messaged me couldn't have known this, but literally at the moment she sent me her article request, I was writing the most savage takedown of my theological critics I've ever written. Some of them have really been attacking me recently, in personal and insulting ways.

They got under my skin to a depth that I hope is rare. I had this amazing illustration about the Unabomber saved, it would have been epic. The whole internet would have shuddered at the thud as my enemies fell to the ground, crying, "We're not worthy!"

But, um, I think that email was a nudge from the Lord not to bring the Unabomber into this. Thank you, Idea Network editor.

And thank you, Lord. If indeed I have anything valuable to say about graciousness, it's because I have the best Teacher. Let me just take you through three Bible passages I go to when I realize that there are theological critics under my skin and normal tweezers aren't getting them out.

10,000 talents

The first and most important is what has become my favorite parable, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. Once in pastoral ministry, long ago, someone in my church spoke incredibly vile words to someone else in the church, and I was present. When I say, "incredibly vile", I mean, we are Legion, kind of vile. I've never felt so much like I was in the presence of the demonic.

Then, suddenly, the reviler returned to ask for forgiveness. They were nervous about this, and understandably so. They were terribly ashamed. The things they had said were truly awful; I can't even begin to describe them, and what did I do? I took both the sinned against and the sinner right to Matthew 18:21:35.

For me, too, when I am sinned against, I do a simple calculation, taken straight from my daughter's fourth-grade math textbook.

PLACE THE CORRECT MATHEMATICAL OPERATOR IN THE BLANK; CHOOSE FROM AMONG GREATER THAN (>), LESS THAN (<), OR EQUAL TO (=):

10,000 talents __ 100 denarii

I paused for just one second to check my mnemonic devices (Alligators eat the bigger thing; check!), and I wrote a nice fat GREATER THAN (>) symbol in the blank. My sins against God definitely, by far, exceeded the worst thing anyone has ever done to me.

I don't want to be glib here: what forgiveness practically entails, when the sin is very great, sometimes requires equally great wisdom. But usually, it's not that complicated. It just means believing and feeling that Jesus paid a much greater price for my sin than anything anyone else could ever possibly owe me.

If there is one thing that should produce graciousness, it is the almost humbling valuation of your sin debt given to you by the Person who paid it for you.

Love is the greatest adhesive

The second Bible verse I think of when my enemies get to me is actually not one verse cheated, but a small collection of related passages. Let me mash them together the way they run in my mind:

Love covers a multitude of sins. It is a glory to a man to overlook a transgression. What credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

If you know your Bible, you'll know that that mash-up draws from 1 Peter 4:8, Proverbs 19:11, and then heads back to 1 Peter 2:20. This is what I think of when my enemies threaten to get to me.

I recently preached on Jesus' command, "Love your enemies." For the first time in my life, because of online theological controversies, I realized that I have enemies. People who cherish hostility against me personally, and against whom I am at least tempted to cherish equal and opposite hostility. But during my research for the sermon, I got some counsel from a theologian who said that Jesus doesn't envision the possibility of a Christian cherishing hostility against someone else.

"No," he said, "Our enemies are those who hate us, not those whom we hate."

To make matters more complicated, because the Bible and the world it addresses are complicated, not all hatred is sin. Psalm 139 has David saying,

"Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies." (Psalm 139:21:22 ESV)

Jesus can't be contradicting his great-great-great-great grandfather when he tells us to love our enemies. No, there is a time to love and a time to hate. I'm tempted to say that the situation of the Old Testament era, in which literal, physical enemies threatened the literal, physical lives of Abraham's seed, no longer exists. I see truth in that line of reasoning, but I can't bring myself to land there finally. Instead, I reserve "enemy" status, people I am willing to hate, for openly and obviously committed haters of God. And how many fellow Christians you argue with online fit in that camp? Probably none. I think I'm left again with the obligation to love people even when they sure seem to hate me.

Swine and fools

Haters gonna hate, of course. They're just gonna. Christian graciousness doesn't mean ignoring this fact. So, this third point won't sound very gracious, perhaps. But I'm convinced it is. The Bible tells us that grace and truth came from the man who said the words I'm about to say. Here they are:

"Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you." (Matthew 7:6 ESV)

I can't say there are limits to love and grace. "His love has no limit; his grace has no measure." No, the word "limits" is not quite right. Love never fails. I'd rather say what Paul says to the Philippians:

"It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment." (Philippians 1:9 ESV)

Love and grace know when to back away, for everyone's good.

I do sometimes give up on engagement with particular people because Christ told me to.

I still pray for them as Jesus also told me to do. But I stop engaging publicly and even sometimes privately. I did this quite recently and quite self-consciously with specific people, after much prayer and thought.

Pertinent here are the classic statements in Prov 26:4-5:

"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes." (Proverbs 26:4-5 ESV)

These verses might at first appear troubling. Indeed, to a certain mind they might look like nothing short of a contradiction. But after many years pondering these verses in the context of public debate, I find them freeing.

They say to me: there isn't always a clear right or wrong answer when it comes to answering fools. I tend to default to the first option: don't answer.

I fear becoming foolish myself much more than I fear letting a fool remain wise in his own eyes, something he's probably going to do no matter what I say.

Writing these thoughts out is crystallizing them for me. Indeed: how many fools have ever gone from being wise-in-their-own-eyes to humble by answers from me? Comparatively few. I'm just not that good.

How often does answering fools make me start to look like one? Pretty often. How many people online argue with pigs until mud is so covering them all that you can't tell where the pigs end and the humans begin? A lot.

Again, it may not sound gracious to talk about Christian debate opponents by using verses that call them, potentially, pigs and fools. But I'm convinced from the Bible and from a lot of experience, that fallen, finite humans like you and me can't stay gracious if we tangle with the kinds of people Jesus and Proverbs warn against.

I often say to myself after reading a wild and nasty comment on my YouTube channel, "If people find this foolish argument persuasive, there is nothing I can do for them. I'm out."

The end of the matter

There are so many other passages I think of when it comes to gracious interaction with others: What do I have that I didn't receive? Get the beam out of mine own eye before I pick the speck out of someone else's. The servant of the Lord should not quarrel but be gentle and meek with all men. Don't fight about words (that one has occasioned some reflection in me, as those who know me might imagine!). If you answer a matter before you hear it, it's a folly and shame to you. A soft answer turns away wrath. Love hopes and endures all things. I could go on and on.

I'll end with this: Ultimately, vengeance is God's, and he will repay.

Disputes of all kinds are endless in this life. We've got these passions at war within us, see, and hence come a bunch of wars and fighting. I'm not a Bible Justice Warrior, someone freaking out all the time over other people's sins, because I know they simply won't be cleaned up, in them or in me, until Jesus comes back.

In an evolutionary worldview, we fight all these fights, and no cosmic referee ever pronounces anyone the winner. He who dies with the most social shares wins. Then all the sharers die. Then everyone dies, and the sun goes out. The end.

Under the sun, in this life, it's not apparently different. Arguments go on and on, as the likes fly upward. But the great hope and fear of every Christian is final judgment. Fear because some of our own words and works and beams and specks will burn up; hope because Jesus paid it all, and he will wipe away all bad arguments from our minds as we come to know him, face to face, the One who is the Truth.

If you can't be gracious after all the reasons the Bible gives you to be gracious:

1) Get off social media.

2) Set your eyes on Jesus.

3) Get back on social media and love your neighbor, my friend. It will be your glory.

One Big Idea: Love covered a multitude of sins 2,000 years ago enabling your love to cover others' sins today.

mlward@gmail.com