Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Abel told his brother Cain the truth in kind, loving words; the latter rose up and murdered him. For six millennia (and more), unnumbered Abels have told unnumbered Cains the truth in the same kind, loving words, and have been hated for it. For nearly 1260 years of the Dark Ages, millions of Christians who loved truth were persecuted by millions more professed Christians who were Cain redivivus.
Why do people who love truth feel motivated to tell it? The Holy Spirit impels those who love truth to "cry aloud, spare not; ... Tell [God's true] people their transgression, and ... their sins" (Isa. 58:1). Until now, those who thus respond to the Spirit are resented. And we are all either Abels or Cains at heart.
Imagine yourself in Jerusalem in the mid-first century A.D. The most "spiritual" members of your "church" are "the devout and prominent women," the "good works" people (history says they gave pain killers to the crucified wretches, works of motherly kindness). But they oppose Paul's preaching about their "despised and rejected" Messiah and "expel" him (Acts 13:49, 50). Paul proclaims Christ with kind, loving words, tears in his voice, but he can't help bringing in "Christ and Him crucified."
Would you in sanctified common sense tell him, "Say less on that disturbing aspect of our message and tell it to these 'devout and prominent' people in a more palatable way. Paul, be a little more 'serpent-wise, but harmless as a dove.' Maybe you could win more that way; the cross is offensive. Why make these 'devout' ones so uncomfortable?" Would you?
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 11, 2005.
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