The Measure You Use

This is the third chapter of a book in progress, with the working title “Be Not Afraid of Their Terror.” The first chapter is here:

Who is My Neighbor?

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Our modern life is far less communal than that of even our most recent ancestors. We seal ourselves up within the walls of our tiny domains and largely interact with the world through screens. Smartphone addiction has been directly correlated to anxiety and depression¹, and most of us can think of at least one family member who has a warped worldview due to an echo-chamber they have built for themselves through incessant social media or cable news consumption. We have become more distrustful of each other, and nothing has fueled that distrust more than the novel notion that holding the “correct” opinions is, in and of itself, a form of morality. Christians are not exempt from this fallacious belief—a cursory glance at how our faith is represented on social media confirms this. Increasingly we define ourselves by what we are against more than what we are for, and, instead of refuting ideologies, we attack the groups we associate with those ideologies as inherently worse people than us. This has only been exacerbated by our self-imposed sequestration from our neighbors. We lack understanding of each other, because, by and large, we shy away from long-term exposure to people not in our predetermined social circles.

Many Western Christians don’t want to hear this, but perpetually complaining about “the world” and proactively sequestering yourself from it is a violation of a direct instruction from Jesus, echoed in all three synoptic Gospels. Here it is, from the Gospel of Mark:

And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

—Mark 4:21-25

Most times that this parable is brought up in church, the person relaying it stops at the part about covering up the light, but we should pay attention to the consequences Christ details afterwards. There’s a play on words in the Greek in all three accountings; the “basket” that covers the lamp is a μόδιον (modion), which is not just any basket but a unit of measure, similar to a peck of apples. Therefore, when He comes around to the “measure” we give and receive (vv 24-25), it has a correlation to the μόδιον that covers the light of Christ within us. So, there are two major points to parse out of this passage and apply to our daily lives as Christians.

Firstly, believers are given the light of Christ, through the Holy Spirit, and are expected to shine that light among non-Christians. We are not given the option to reject this command and interpret being “set apart” (1 Peter 1:15-16) as meaning sequestration; we’re to behave in a demonstrably different way than the non-Christians whom we have regular interaction with (Hebrews 12:14). The same light that rested at a table with tax collectors and sinners (Matthew 9:10-13) and that had compassion for the rich man who could not bring himself to become fully dedicated to God (Luke 18:18-30) dwells in us, through the Spirit. Consciously covering up that light by hardening your heart to those at moral odds with you is to deny the inerrant, trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance, that you are the “foremost of sinners” (1 Tim 1:15).

Sadly, I’ve not only seen an implicit rejection of this principle among Christians through their actions, but often an explicitly spoken one. When discussing the nature of sin with other Christians the conversation can often divert into a hyper-focus on the evils committed by contemporary non-Christians. I’ve had Bible study sessions with people who stress that they’re incapable of committing the sins “those other people” commit. I’ve sat in churches with pastors who are seemingly unable to discuss the subject of sin without turning it into a lengthy diatribe on homosexuality and/or transgenderism. They never seemed to want to discuss any of the sins the people in the pews are more prone to commit, such as the Tenth Commandment violation of covetousness that is constantly seeking new possessions to use as status symbols or the Third Commandment violation of equating allegiance to God with voting for a particular political party, often coupled with the sin of openly questioning other professing Christians’ salvation based on nothing more than whom they consider the lesser of two evils in an election.

All of these notions lead to an us versus them mentality, which, given how we’re to be directly opposed to the ways of the world, is very easy for Christians to fall into. Yet, it’s not us versus them, it’s the world versus Jesus Christ (John 15:18); it’s a one way hatred, at that. God loved (ἠγάπησεν, ēgapēsen) us so much that He condescended Himself to become a Man and then died for us, so that, instead of facing a just judgment for our innumerable sins, we may instead live with Him for eternity (John 3:16). That Greek verb for “love” (ἀγαπάω, agapaó) is not only used to describe Christ’s sacrifice in that most famous of verses, but is reiterated by the Apostle in his first epistle, and is used to describe our expected conduct, in light of that sacrifice:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

—1 John 4:7-11

This is not a conclusion that John came to on his own. In his Gospel, he recounts this as a inescapable requirement from the mouth of the Lord Himself:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

—John 13:34-35

Some might protest, “This clearly says that we should love one another, meaning those inside the church,” but this notion is completely sunk by the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus also commands us to love (ἀγαπᾶτε, agapate) our enemies (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27, 35). Then, perhaps one will protest, “Maybe that’s the tough love we need to have for sinners.” They would have to reconcile that notion with Paul’s words, which you’ve probably heard at more than a few weddings:

Love [ἀγάπη, agapē] is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

—1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Those who consider Scripture the inerrant word of God are without excuse; we must love our enemies with the very same type of love we are expected to share with one another, which is the very same type of love we are to direct towards God and our neighbors, which is the very same type of love He had for us while we were still His enemies (Matthew 5:45). We will all fail at this—I fail at this every single day—but the standard has been set, which is why a heart of self-reflection and repentance is necessary. From that springs an understanding of the depths of your own sinfulness, which, in turn, makes it easier to occasionally succeed at loving your enemies as Jesus Christ loves you.

Secondly, though you are justified through the finished work of Christ on the cross, there is still a measurement by God of how you handle that most immeasurable of gifts. The statement, “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you” (Mark 4:24), should produce a healthy fear in you, much like “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23). I tremble at the thought of being on the wrong side of those equations, and, through a conviction wrought by the Spirit, feel extreme remorse every time I recognize that I have substantively failed to meet their demands.

The parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) serves to solidify this principle. There is a hierarchy in the new heaven and earth (Matthew 11:11) and we will be variably rewarded based upon how we applied ourselves to following the Lord in this life, in proportion to what He, in His providence, has given us. While our justification (our entry-ticket to heaven) is based totally on our faith in what Christ has done, our works will be tested, and some will only make it into the kingdom by the skin of their teeth (1 Corinthians 3:15).

Do you want to be that person? If not, how seriously should you examine Scripture and ponder what it means to love your neighbor as yourself, putting your conclusions into practice?

The very first thing we can and should do, before going out into the world, is to make it a daily practice to consciously turn our outwardly-facing, accusatory finger inward. Through my writings against Christian Nationalism, I interact with many people who hold views I consider utterly despicable. As I wrote this, an anonymous Twitter user, whose profile picture is a powdered wig wearing “Pepe” frog, informed me that at the judgment Jesus will “crush your skull with a rod of iron and throw you into hell for eternity, you Anabaptist swine.” When I blessed him and said I was praying for him, his response was to post a meme using the n-word. It can be easy to brush these encounters off as crazy things happening on the internet, but a real, flesh-and-blood human being interacting with the world through a screen took the time to write that. It can be hard to see yourself as the worst of sinners and to have empathy for people engaged in such egregious sin, but it’s an integral part of denying yourself (Mark 8:34).

I am not a good person. I have killed men in war and, in reaction to the guilt resulting from that, I have self-medicated with marijuana, alcohol and debauchery. I have let anger get the better of me and have said horrible things to people, and have committed violence over perceived minor slights. I have lied, manipulated and cheated. Before the years that I was most lost to those behaviors, I was given the gift of salvation, and yet I walked away from God and denied Him to others for over a decade of my adult life. Yet, in His ἀγάπη love for me, He providentially led me to a point where I could no longer deny Him. When I again cried out for His help, His undeniable presence was with me instantly, like the father running to hug his prodigal son; He has never left me since.

I have to wish that experience for everyone else, even the racist who pines for my eternal damnation while calling me “Anabaptist swine.” I can rebuke him, but I cannot consider myself any better than him. I must continually bless him and offer him a path to interpersonal reconciliation, just as my Father in heaven did for me. If I wrong him, I must apologize. If he asks, I must clothe and feed him. If I find him in dire straits, I must help him back on his feet. Most importantly, he need not ask me for forgiveness before I’m required to do that; I would have to do it while he reviled me. If this is the mindset I must have with a random, supposedly Christian “anon” on Twitter taking the Lord’s name in vain, what excuse do I have to not put it into action with a person in real life who has never heard the gospel and who has allowed cable news to convince them that conservative Christians like me are a scourge on the nation? If I do not attempt to offer all of these things to all of these people, I am the worst of hypocrites and I deserve the full measure of what’s coming to me.

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How can non-Christians ask about your hope unless you demonstrate hope? How can you demonstrate it to people with whom you don’t have an intimacy? How can you have an intimacy with people for whom you don’t have empathy? How can you have empathy for people unless you are honest about your own sinfulness?

The goal is for people who don’t know Christ to find Christianity attractive through their interactions with you, not in spite of your “conservative” ethics, but because of them. Those ethics include grace, mercy and forgiveness.

1. Seung-Gon Kim et al., “The Relationship between Smartphone Addiction and Symptoms of Depression, Anxiety, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity in South Korean Adolescents,” Annals of General Psychiatry 18 (March 9, 2019): 1, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12991-019-0224-8.