Dr. Preston Sprinkle on the Kindness of God

To be fair, the title of this blog post buries the lede a bit. The focus of the video presentation linked below is on LGBTQ+ issues in the Bible and how the modern church should address those issues. But at its core, the primary issue IS the kindness (goodness) of God and how Christians should image that to other people… ALL other people… of whatever inclination/persuasion/identity.

I found it a very interesting presentation. Some quotes from the video:

"[I’d go out and speak to gay people] Can I buy you lunch and hear your story?... One of the most common responses I got, went something like this: "Wait a minute... you're a Christian, and you just wanna hear my story? Yeah, right. What's your real angle? I've never met a Christian who just wanted to hear my story."

One of the most common responses I got - through all the diverse experiences, and stories and narratives - the common response woven through all of that diversity was this: "I've never met a Christian who was kind to me."

And that started to rip me apart because the Bible says it's the kindness of God that leads to repentance. And so if... Christians look at the gay community, the LGBT community, and think, "They should repent"... whatever that means. That means by definition, if you are truly a Biblical Christian in heart and not just in name, and you believe what Paul says Romans 2:4 that it's the kindness of God that leads to repentance, then you should be so passionate about embodying the kindness of God towards LGBT people."

"We can get the Bible right, but if we get love wrong, then we're wrong."

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"One of my favorite phrases was from a Methodist preacher, D.T. Niles. He said, "Christianity is like one beggar showing other beggars where to find bread." Let's just set aside "Love the sinner, hate the sin" and let's maybe just adopt that... I'm a beggar that found bread at the foot of the cross and I'm feasting on this bread... there's so much bread I can't consume it all. So I go and I try to find other beggars, and say, "I have found bread, come with me, I'm a beggar like you, and you need bread and I need bread, and I found some bread, come with me... I'm so eager for you to find this bread."

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"Jesus never mentions same sex sexual relationships... But one thing we do see in the life of Jesus that's very relevant for how we should think about this conversation is that Jesus often reaches out to and relates to people who are marginalized by the religious elite. This is a major theme... Some of the people were marginalized because of sin. Maybe they were tax collectors, or maybe they were engaged in some kind of sexual sin, or you know, adulterers were marginalized by the religious elite... or maybe they weren't in sin... maybe they were lepers or unclean... they were marginalized by the religious elite... There was a group of people that we see throughout Jesus' ministry that were considered to be kind of extra-extra bad sinners. They were pushed to the margins of Jewish society of that day. And what is so profoundly beautiful and counter-cultural and confrontive is that Jesus often went out of His way to relate to, to befriend, to build a relationship with those who were marginalized by the religious elite. And whenever He encountered that kind of person, He always fronted love... He's not afraid to tell them to "go sin no more", but He always leads with love."

"Jesus and Zacchaeus, one of my favorite passages... Jesus is coming through the town of Jericho... and sees this man up in the tree... not just a tax collector, but a chief tax collector... and he was rich. This is like a really, really bad dude. We don't have a category for what a first century tax collector was. We'd have to take like just whole like various kind of stereotypical very bad sinners... somebody that's like the head of a drug cartel and owns a lot of prostitutes on the side, and then he's head of the porn industry, and then he takes all of his money and sends it to North Korea, or whatever... there's nothing contemporary that can capture how bad a tax collector was.

And this guy was not just a tax collector, he was very good at it... and Jesus looks up and He says, "Zacchaeus, hurry, hurry, you need to come down, because I must stay at YOUR house today... because I am Jesus and you are far from me. And there is no other person here that I want to spend all evening with eating and drinking and hanging out with than YOU, Zacchaeus."

And all of a sudden, Zacchaeus is repenting... selling all of his stuff... do you know what Jesus said to Zacchaeus to get him to repent? This is what he didn't say:

"You know what, Zacchaeus, I can hang out with you right now, but first I need to tell you about my stance on the Roman agenda and the tax collecting lifestyle... because these are the sins you're living in. And once I give you my stance, then we can engage in a relationship."

That's not in the Bible.

You know what Jesus says to get Zacchaeus to repent? Nothing. The only thing He says is, "I must stay at your house today" then He embodies the kindness of God that leads to repentance by entering into the home and entering into His life and it's that confrontation with the love and kindness of God that pushed obedience out the other side of Zacchaeus... There's not a single tax collector in heaven who got there because somebody shared their stance on the tax collecting lifestyle. That's not how it works."

"Statistically, 83% of LGBT people were raised in the church... 3% said the main reason I left was the church's theological stance against homosexuality... [most of them] ended up leaving because of relational reasons."

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"I ended up, having studied this as thoroughly as I could, landing FIRMLY on the traditional side. I do think the Biblical evidence is far in favor of the view that marriage is between a man and a woman and that all sexual relationships - gay and straight - outside that bond are sin. And that God gives grace to those who are falling short and are seeking to pursue Him. But I never wanted to interact with the other side simply to refute it... I do, I believe in the traditional view of marriage, not because I've always believed it, not because it's traditional, not because I understand everything about it, but because I do believe, having examined the evidence, as fairly as I possibly can, that that's where the Biblical evidence points."