Treating Fellow Christians Like Enemies
Over the years, I’ve noticed one curious and nearly universal characteristic of movie villains: they have no qualms about turning on each other. Whenever it’s convenient or expedient, bad guys will treat their own friends like enemies. From Captain Barbossa to the Joker , they seem to have unswerving loyalty only to themselves. Villains don’t mind leaving a pile of dead bodies in their wake as long as they get what they want. Sadly, when it comes to the topic of confronting sin in the lives of others, we in the church can be nearly as hurtful. I’m painfully aware of the temptation to turn correction into an exercise in harsh, prideful berating—i.e., “do you see how bad/stupid/idiotic you are being?” When I see someone else sinning in a way I don’t (or sinning similarly but in a “worse” way than me), I often imagine a vast chasm between the two of us, as if I were somehow superior. My goal in pointing out the sins and weaknesses of others can easily be to prove someone wrong, ...