I receive this criticism often. My tone, or attitude, or conceit, or arrogance, or smugness, or condescension, or hate, or whatever it is, frequently gets reprimanded by Christians who I assume are attracting hundreds (if not thousands) of pagans to Christ by the sheer force of their love.

So my regular readers (both of you) will be shocked (SHOCKED I tell you) to learn that this comment was NOT directed at me! It was a comment hurled at another Christian (an official ‘minister’ no less) who made the outrageous claim that followers of Jesus are limited in their dating options.

This is wonderful! I thought I might be the only person using God’s word to lead folks out of the Kingdom of God. As it turns out, there is another guy employing Christian orthodoxy to push people away from Jesus. And this guy has a much bigger platform than me!

Generally speaking (and there are exceptions to this rule, of course) I am more closely allied to the person accused of shoving people away from Jesus than to the person doing the accusing. The people who publicly worry about my negative impact on the church’s evangelistic efforts usually have zero impact in any church efforts. It doesn’t bother me at all when people with empty silos tell me I’m not harvesting correctly, but it fills me with joy to learn that I’m not alone.

Anyone else who has been told you are driving people away from Jesus with your strict adherence to Jesus’ teachings — we’re on the same team. We’re in good company.

(Matthew 5:11) “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”