Check out the new Convergence Church Network! 

Visit www.convergencechurchnetwork.com and join the mailing list.

Enjoying God Blog

1

What? Are you serious, or is this some sort of joke? Trust me, I’m entirely serious. The question was raised in the most recent issue of Christianity Today magazine (July / August 2014, 30-31). Three answers were given. Two of them were Yes, but for different reasons. One respondent said, Yes, to Heal the Abused. Another said, Yes, to Shine in the Dark. I have to say I didn’t find their arguments convincing. Continue reading . . .

What? Are you serious, or is this some sort of joke? Trust me, I’m entirely serious. The question was raised in the most recent issue of Christianity Today magazine (July / August 2014, 30-31). Three answers were given. Two of them were Yes, but for different reasons. One respondent said, Yes, to Heal the Abused. Another said, Yes, to Shine in the Dark. I have to say I didn’t find their arguments convincing.

The lone negative response came from Joe Carter, and I want to give you his reasons.

“It’s hard for me to believe there are Christians who think Jesus would hang out in a strip club,” writes Carter. “Are we talking about the Jesus who had a high opinion of women and a low view of lust? Hanging out at a strip club doesn’t sound like something he would do.” Carter assumes that those who answer Yes to this question would appeal to the fact that “Jesus ate with sinners” and would therefore have no problem “eating at a buffet next to a stripper pole.”

Yes, Jesus sat and ate with sinners (Mark 2:16-17; Luke 15). “But there is no evidence that Jesus ever ate with sinners or even spent significant time ‘hanging out’ with them without calling them to turn from their sin. There is no place in Scripture where Jesus was uncritically present when sin was occurring or when an action that mocked God was taking place. In fact, in the most famous example of Jesus witnessing an act where sin was taking place and God was being mocked – a scene recorded in all four Gospels – he made a whip of cords and drove sinners from the temple. Do we think Jesus would unreservedly hang out in a place where men and women were mocking the dignity of the human body?”

Carter closes with this:

“I wonder if what many people want to know is not whether Jesus would hang out at a strip club, but whether he’d have an issue if they hung out there. For those people, I’d recommend meditating on the words of Matthew 5:28-29.”

[Joe Carter is an editor at The Gospel Coalition and senior editor at the Acton Institute.]

1 Comment

I agree

"Friend of sinners" was actually a jibe of the Pharisees so we need to be very careful how we apply it. I would maintain that the people Jesus "hung around" with were those who were in the process of turning from their sins. We see from his treatment of the rich young ruler that Jesus sought evidence of real repentance from His followers.

Write a Comment

Comments for this post have been disabled.