A Jesus Shaped Life

We say who Jesus is by how we live our lives.

After Sunday worship at one of the congregations in my diocese, I met with the church’s leadership for the standard review of finances, attendance figures, evangelism strategies, and the like. One of the leaders was visibly angry. He said nothing until we came to the “Other Business” item at the end of the agenda.

Referring to my sermon, he said, “Where do you get off telling us to love our enemies? They’re our enemies! They’re dangerous. We have to defend ourselves.”

Taken aback, I was at a loss for words. Several seconds passed. The priest of the parish broke the silence by saying, “The Bishop was quoting Jesus. Those words are from the Sermon on the Mount. It’s in Matthew’s Gospel.” My critic didn’t respond, but he was obviously still fuming and appeared to be unconvinced.

This exchange came to mind recently as I listened an interview with Christianity Today’s editor-in-chief Russell Moore. Here’s what he said:

[Multiple] pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the S…