While discussing Wednesday’s post with a friend and colleague, he shared a story that demonstrates the need for cultural discernment—what I called “loving judgment”—among ministers of the gospel. My friend had spent the past few weeks speaking with a group of missionaries from a decidedly post-Christian nation. These missionaries were lamenting the state of the nation, giving as an example a recent church retreat at which half the attendees shacked up in cabins with…
At one point in his letter to Titus, Paul goes on a “rant” that, were he to utter it in today’s culture, would surely have gotten him dismissed from his apostolic post. He says to his young charge, “One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: ‘Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.’ This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith” (1:12-13). These are strong…