X. Personal

X. Personal

On OJ the Cat

I have a cat named OJ. He was paralyzed from the waist down when we found him. Nobody wanted him. He could not walk. He could not use a litter box. He could not clean himself. He dragged his back legs behind him and looked up at you with eyes that did not know why the world was the way it was.

He had been living in the bushes outside a church building for months. People walked past him every Sunday. One kind soul was putting food out for him, but nobody took him home. Nobody picked him up. Nobody did what the theology they preached on Sunday morning said to do with the broken and the unwanted. They stepped over him on the way to the sermon.

We took him home. And we have changed his diaper twice a day, every day, ever since.

He did not choose us. He did not apply. He did not meet the qualifications. He did not demonstrate that he deserved a home by performing well enough to earn one. He was broken, helpless, and unwanted. And we chose him anyway. Not because of what he could do for us. Because of what we saw in him.

That is the gospel.

“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” (John 15:16)

The elect did not choose God. They did not apply. They did not meet the qualifications. They were dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), broken, helpless, and by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). And God chose them anyway. Not because of what they could do for Him. Because of what He authored in them before the foundation of the world.

OJ does not know why I love him. He cannot understand the decision that brought him into my home. He only knows that he is warm, fed, held, and safe. He experiences the love without comprehending its source. And that is exactly what salvation feels like from the inside. You wake up loved and you do not know why. You did not earn it. You cannot explain it. You can only receive it.

And here is the part that matters most. I did not choose OJ because he was the best cat. I chose him because he was the one nobody else wanted. And that is not a flaw in the analogy. That is the point of the analogy. God does not choose the strong, the qualified, the impressive. “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).

That no flesh should glory in His presence. That is why God chose the paralyzed cat. That is why God chose a programmer from the post office. That is why God chose you, if you are His. Not because you were qualified. Because He is sovereign. And His sovereignty means He loves whom He loves, for reasons that originate in His own will and nowhere else.

I change OJ’s diaper twice a day. It is not glamorous. It is not convenient. It costs me time and effort and supplies. And I would not trade him for any other cat on the planet. Because he is mine. Not because he earned it. Because I chose him.

“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (Romans 9:15)

That is the sentence applied to a cat in Ashland, Kentucky. And if you can see it in OJ, you can see it in yourself.

For further study: Deut. 7:7-8; 1 Sam. 16:7; Ps. 113:7-8; Isa. 53:2-3; Matt. 9:12-13; Luke 14:13-14; Luke 15:4-7; John 6:37; John 10:16; John 15:16; Rom. 5:6; Rom. 5:8; Rom. 9:11-16; 1 Cor. 1:26-29; Eph. 1:4-5; Eph. 2:1-5; Eph. 2:8-9; Tit. 3:4-5; 1 John 4:10; 1 John 4:19.

On Grief and Lament

The Psalms are full of grief. David cried out to God in anguish. Job cursed the day he was born. Jeremiah wept over Jerusalem. The Bible does not sanitize suffering. It puts it on the page, raw and unedited, and calls it Scripture.

And here is something that needs to be said, because the sovereign grace world sometimes forgets it: believing in absolute predestination does not mean you stop feeling. The old firmware still runs. The grief is real. The loss is real. The frame you are standing in right now may be the hardest frame in the filmstrip. And the theology that tells you “God authored this for your good” does not make the frame hurt less. It makes the hurt meaningful. But it does not make it disappear.

Lament is not a failure of faith. It is the old firmware processing the frame. David knew God was sovereign. David still cried. Job knew God was in control. Job still cursed the day he was born. The two things coexist because the framework predicts them both — the sovereignty is real AND the experience is real. The theology holds the grief. But holding is not the same as erasing.

Some saints lament loudly. Some carry it quietly. Some never feel the need to scream at God because the framework caught the grief before it became rage. All of these are authored responses to authored circumstances. The saint who weeps is not less faithful than the saint who doesn’t. And the saint who doesn’t weep is not less human than the saint who does. Both are frames in the filmstrip. Both are being held.

“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

The mourning is real. The comfort is real. And both were authored before the first tear fell.

For further study: Ps. 6:6-7; Ps. 13:1-2; Ps. 22:1-2; Ps. 42:3; Ps. 42:9-11; Ps. 43:5; Ps. 55:4-5; Ps. 69:1-3; Ps. 77:1-9; Ps. 88:1-18; Ps. 102:1-11; Job 3:1-26; Job 6:2-4; Job 7:11; Job 10:1; Job 30:16-20; Lam. 3:1-20; Eccl. 3:4; Isa. 53:3; Matt. 26:38; John 11:35; 2 Cor. 1:3-4; 2 Cor. 7:6; 1 Thess. 4:13.

On Comforting the Grieving

The last section told you what grief IS in the framework. This section tells you what to DO when you’re standing next to someone who’s in it.

Don’t explain the sovereignty. Not first. Not yet. The man whose wife just died does not need Romans 8:28 in the first hour. He needs a body next to his body. He needs someone to sit with him the way Job’s friends sat with him — before they opened their mouths and ruined it. “So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great” (Job 2:13). The best thing Job’s friends ever did was shut up for a week.

The sovereign grace believer has a unique temptation in grief: to theologize too fast. “God ordained this.” “It’s all part of the plan.” “He’s in a better place.” All of that may be true. None of it helps in the first hour. The theology is for the second week. The first hour needs presence.

“Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep” (Romans 12:15). Paul didn’t say “explain sovereignty to them that weep.” He said WEEP. Match the frequency. Be in the frame with them. The theology can hold the grief — but the theology arrives through relationship, not through lecture.

When the time comes — and the grieving person will tell you when, because the question will come out of their mouth, not yours — then you can say what the framework says. God authored this frame. He was not surprised by it. He was not absent from it. He was not watching helplessly while evil happened to your family. He wrote this frame, and He wrote the next one, and the next one, and He holds every frame simultaneously, including the one where the pain stops. That is not a comfortable answer. But it is an honest one. And an honest answer from a God who holds you is better than a comfortable answer from a theology that doesn’t know what to do with suffering.

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

The comfort you received is the comfort you give. Not theological lectures. Not systematic arguments. The comfort of having been held in a frame you thought would break you, and discovering that the Author who wrote it also wrote the morning after.

For further study: Job 2:11-13; Ps. 34:18; Ps. 147:3; Prov. 25:20; Eccl. 3:7; Eccl. 7:2; Isa. 40:1; Isa. 61:1-3; Matt. 5:4; John 11:33-35; Rom. 12:15; 2 Cor. 1:3-7; Gal. 6:2; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; 1 Thess. 5:11; James 1:27.

On Lydia and the Moment of Awareness

“And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul” (Acts 16:14).

This verse appears throughout the book’s study lists, and it deserves to be quoted and unpacked here, because it is the clearest picture in all of Scripture of what the firmware flash looks like from the outside.

Three things happened in sequence. First, Lydia “worshipped God” — she was already religious, already seeking, already oriented toward the divine. The Spirit had been preparing her firmware before Paul ever arrived. Second, “the Lord opened” her heart — the firmware flash. Not Lydia opening her own heart. The LORD opening it. The active agent is God, not the hearer. Third, she “attended unto the things which were spoken” — the application layer became aware of what the firmware had just received. Faith arrived. Conscious engagement followed. The order is preparation, firmware flash, then conscious faith.

And notice what the verse does NOT say. It does not say Lydia chose to open her heart. It does not say Paul’s argument persuaded her. It does not say the evidence was compelling enough that any reasonable person would have believed. The Lord opened her heart. Period. The opening was the Spirit’s act. The attending was the application layer’s response to the opening. The firmware was flashed, and the application layer woke up.

This is the pattern for every conversion in the book of Acts and in the history of the church. The Spirit prepares (the grammar phase — Chapter 16). The Spirit flashes the firmware at the appointed time. The application layer becomes conscious of the change and calls it faith. The person did not choose to believe. The person became aware that they already did. And the awareness follows the flash the way light follows the switch. You don’t choose to see the light. The switch was flipped, and now you see.

Can there be a lag? Can the firmware be flashed before the application layer fully wakes up to it? The architecture implies yes. The firmware operates beneath conscious awareness (Chapter 16). The application layer processes what the firmware sends up through the operating system (Chapter 17). And there is always a processing delay — feelings arrive 488 milliseconds before thoughts. The spiritual version of that delay could be longer. The person who is “seeking” — restless, hungry, drawn to Christ but unable to articulate why — may be experiencing the early signals of a firmware flash that the application layer hasn’t yet named. The seeking IS the evidence. And the Author who authored the flash also authored the timing of the awareness.

For further study: Acts 2:37; Acts 8:30-35; Acts 9:3-6; Acts 10:44; Acts 13:48; Acts 16:14; Acts 16:30-31; Acts 18:10; John 6:37; John 6:44; John 6:65; John 10:16; John 10:27; Eph. 2:1-5; Phil. 1:6; 2 Tim. 1:9.

On Doubt and Assurance

I have genuine doubts about God and Christ. I said it in Chapter 2 and I’ll say it again here, because most preachers won’t.

There are seasons when I stop reading the Scriptures. Life gets busy, the world gets loud, and the text gets quiet. And in those seasons, the doubt creeps in. Not because the framework is weak. Because the firmware needs feeding. When I stop reading, my application layer starts processing whatever else is in front of it — and the world offers its own firmware. Evolution documentaries. Secular philosophy. The persistent hum of a culture that assumes God is not there. And if I listen to that hum long enough without returning to the text, I start to wonder.

And then I open the Bible. And the hum stops. And the framework holds again. And the doubt was never a verdict. It was a signal. The Spirit pulling me back to the Word.

This is how the firmware works. The Spirit does not give you permanent immunity from doubt. He gives you a hunger that the doubt cannot satisfy. The doubt feels real. The hunger is realer. And the hunger always wins, because it was installed by Someone who doesn’t lose.

Assurance does not come from perfect confidence. It comes from the inability to stay away. The sheep who wanders and comes back is still a sheep. The sheep who wanders and never comes back was never a sheep. And the saint who doubts and keeps opening the Book is displaying the very faith he’s afraid he’s lost.

“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)

That is the most honest prayer in the Bible. And the Lord honored it.

For further study: Ps. 73:1-17; Ps. 77:1-12; Ps. 94:19; Ps. 119:25; Ps. 119:28; Ps. 119:49-50; Ps. 119:81-83; Ps. 119:92; Isa. 40:31; Isa. 41:10; Matt. 11:2-6; Matt. 14:31; Luke 7:19-23; John 20:24-29; Rom. 4:20-21; 2 Cor. 4:8-9; Heb. 11:1; James 1:6-8; 1 John 5:13; Jude 1:22.

On Using Theology as a Weapon

I need to confess something in this book, because the book would be dishonest without it.

There was a season in my life when I used the truth as a weapon. I was right about the theology. I was wrong about the delivery. I took the doctrines in this book — the same doctrines, the same framework, the same positions — and I wielded them against people on social media like a man swinging a sword in a hospital. I cut people who were already bleeding. I corrected people who needed encouragement, not correction. I won arguments that nobody asked me to enter. And I did it all in the name of defending the Gospel.

I was so right that I was wrong. That is the sneakiest form of pride, and I lived in it for years.

The truth does not need a defender. The truth needs a presenter. And there is a world of difference between the two. The defender is anxious, combative, tribal, always looking for the next heretic to expose. The presenter is patient, tender, and content to say what is true and leave the results with God. The defender builds walls. The presenter opens arms.

I have hurt people. I will not name them here, because the confession is about me, not them. But I know who they are. Some of them will never forgive me, and I understand that. Some of them were never mine to correct in the first place. And some of them needed a shepherd, and I gave them a prosecutor.

I wrote the articles on cynical nitpickery and heresy hunting because I saw myself in every word. The man in those articles was me. And the book you are reading now is the man I became after the Lord broke that pride and taught me, slowly, painfully, over many years, that the sharpest doctrine produces the widest arms — not the sharpest tongue.

If I have hurt you with my theology, I am sorry. The theology was not wrong. I was.

For further study: Prov. 12:18; Prov. 15:1; Prov. 15:4; Prov. 16:24; Prov. 18:21; Prov. 25:11; Prov. 29:11; Matt. 5:9; Matt. 7:3-5; Rom. 12:18; Rom. 14:19; Rom. 15:1-2; 1 Cor. 8:1; 1 Cor. 13:1-3; Gal. 5:15; Gal. 6:1; Eph. 4:15; Eph. 4:29; Col. 4:6; 2 Tim. 2:24-25; James 1:19-20; James 3:5-10; 1 Pet. 3:15.

On Shibboleths

The word comes from Judges 12. The Gileadites defeated the Ephraimites and held the fords of the Jordan. When a survivor tried to cross, they told him to say “Shibboleth.” The Ephraimites could not pronounce the sh sound and said “Sibboleth” instead. And the Gileadites killed them. Forty-two thousand men died over the pronunciation of one word. Not over their allegiance. Not over their conduct. Not over what they believed. Over how they said it.

The sovereign grace world has been standing at the fords ever since. A shibboleth is a phrase or custom that identifies which group you belong to. In the sovereign grace world, shibboleths are everywhere. “Sufficient for all, efficient for the elect.” “Accept Christ as your personal Savior.” “God helps those who help themselves.” “The longest journey is the eighteen inches from your head to your heart.” Every one of these phrases, when examined logically, contradicts the gospel of sovereign grace. And every one of them has been uttered by people who love Christ and cannot articulate what is wrong with the words they are using.

The framework explains why. Shibboleths are application-layer outputs. They are phrases the conscious mind produces from whatever theological vocabulary was loaded during the grammar stage (Chapter 16). A person raised in Arminian churches has Arminian vocabulary. A person raised in Pentecostal churches has Pentecostal vocabulary. The vocabulary was loaded before the firmware was flashed. And when the Spirit regenerates a soul, He changes the boot parameters, not the dictionary. The new firmware is installed underneath, but the application layer keeps running the old vocabulary until the Spirit teaches new words. And sometimes that takes years. And sometimes it takes a lifetime.

This is the distinction between the confusion and the rebellion (Chapter 30). A person who says “I accepted Christ” may be describing their experience of regeneration in the only language they have ever been taught. The phrase is wrong. The experience may be real. And the sovereign grace believer who hears the wrong phrase and immediately writes the person off has confused the vocabulary with the firmware. He has judged the application layer and ignored the boot parameters. And only the Spirit knows what is running underneath.

“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20). The fruit is the evidence, not the phrasing. A person who says “I chose Christ” and then produces love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, and faith may have the wrong words and the right firmware. A person who says “unconditional election” with pinpoint precision and produces arrogance, cruelty, and division may have the right words and the wrong firmware. The shibboleth is the label on the outside of the can. The fruit is what is inside. And the label does not determine the contents.

This does not mean vocabulary is unimportant. It matters. Words carry implications. A person who consistently and willfully teaches that salvation depends on human cooperation has a different problem than a person who uses sloppy language out of ignorance. The first is teaching a false gospel. The second needs patience and instruction. And the difference between the two is not always obvious from the outside. Which is why the framework says: present the truth softly, help the brethren correct their speech, and wait on the Lord. He is the only one with root access. He knows the firmware. We only hear the application layer’s output. And the output does not always match the code running beneath it.

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7). Patience with bad vocabulary is not compromise. It is the theological conclusion of sovereignty applied to the Spirit’s work. God renders His truth progressively in history (Chapter 9), and a believer’s understanding of what is already positionally true may deepen over time. But the sanctification itself is settled (Chapter 18). And the man who demands perfect vocabulary before he will acknowledge a brother has made doctrine the gatekeeper instead of Christ.

For further study: Matt. 7:16-20; Matt. 12:37; Rom. 14:1-4; Rom. 15:1-7; 1 Cor. 3:1-3; 1 Cor. 8:9-13; 1 Cor. 13:11; Gal. 6:1; Eph. 4:2-3; Eph. 4:15; Phil. 1:9-11; Col. 4:6; 1 Thess. 5:14; 2 Tim. 2:24-25; Heb. 5:12-14; James 5:7-8; 1 Pet. 3:8; 2 Pet. 3:18.

On Heresy Hunting

There is a difference between contending for the faith and hunting for heretics. Contending for the faith is Jude 1:3 — earnestly, because the truth matters. Heresy hunting is pride wearing a theology uniform. And after twenty-five years of operating theological websites and forums, I know the difference because I have been both.

The heresy hunter is not looking for truth. He is looking for error to expose. And the exposure is not for the protection of the flock. It is for the exaltation of the hunter. The feedback loop is simple: find error, expose it publicly, receive praise from the pack, repeat. And once the loop is running, the hunter’s religion becomes the hunt itself. Remove the enemy, and the hunter has nothing left to worship.

The framework explains why heresy hunting fails and why the tactics are dishonest.

Straw men. The hunter reads into the text something that is not there, builds a position the target does not hold, and destroys it to the applause of his audience. In the framework, this is a firmware problem. The hunter’s boot parameters have been set to “find error,” and the application layer processes every input through that filter. He does not hear what was said. He hears what his firmware expected to hear. And his refutation is of something that exists only in his own processing.

Poisoning the well. Before addressing the argument, the hunter attacks the person. He brings up past failures, associations, or scandals that have nothing to do with the theological claim. This is the opposite of what Chapter 30 teaches. “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant?” (Romans 14:4). The truth does not change based on who says it. And a man’s sin does not invalidate his doctrine any more than a man’s righteousness validates his.

Slapping labels. The hunter assigns a label and then condemns the label instead of engaging the argument. “Hyper-calvinist.” “Compromiser.” “Tolerant.” The label replaces the conversation. And once the label is applied, the hunter no longer needs to listen. He has filed the target in a category and closed the drawer. This is the shibboleth problem applied offensively — using vocabulary as a weapon instead of a tool for understanding.

False implications. The hunter takes a statement, traces what he believes to be its logical implications, and then condemns the person for believing the implication rather than the statement. But the implication is the hunter’s derivation, not the target’s belief. And a man cannot be held accountable for conclusions he has not drawn. Chapter 30 addresses this directly: the confusion is not the rebellion. A man who uses imprecise language is not the same as a man who believes a false gospel. And the hunter who cannot tell the difference has lost the right to judge.

Sensationalizing. The hunter needs an audience. The exposure must be public. The scalp must be displayed. This is the opposite of Matthew 18:15 — go to your brother privately first. And it is the opposite of 1 Thessalonians 4:11 — study to be quiet. The hunter who posts his rebuke on YouTube before picking up the phone has revealed his motive. He is not seeking restoration. He is seeking applause.

Crusading. The hunter builds his entire platform on the exposure of others. His content is not positive teaching but negative polemic. Without an enemy, his religion collapses. I wrote a song about this called “Cannibal!” — the church eating its own. And “Has Jesus Been Lost in Your TULIP?” asks what happens when doctrine becomes the object of worship instead of Christ. And “Your Knowledge Won’t Save You” addresses the fatal assumption that correct articulation of the gospel is what saves, when in fact it is Christ alone. A religion that requires an enemy to function is not Christianity. It is the Pharisee in Luke 18, needing the publican in order to feel righteous.

Nit pickery. The hunter finds heresy in every sermon, every article, every prayer. Nothing the target says is worthy. Every word is scrutinized for error. This is the pride monster from Chapter 14, feeding on the failures of others. And it is the opposite of Paul’s instruction: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8). Think on what is good. Not on what you can destroy.

The root of all of it is pride. The heresy hunter has substituted the love of truth for the love of being right. And the difference between the two is the difference between Chapter 30 and the Pharisee. One produces the widest arms. The other produces the sharpest sword aimed at the nearest brother.

The framework’s answer to heresy hunting is simple. Present the truth softly and wait on the Lord. The Spirit does not need your crusade. He does not need your YouTube video. He does not need your scalps displayed on your social media mantle. He needs the truth spoken with meekness. And He handles the results.

“And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24-25). If God peradventure. Not “if the heresy hunter’s video goes viral.” If God. He gives the repentance. Not you. Your job is meekness. His job is root access.

For further study: Prov. 6:16-19; Prov. 10:12; Prov. 11:13; Prov. 16:28; Prov. 17:9; Prov. 18:8; Prov. 26:20-22; Matt. 7:1-5; Matt. 18:15-17; Rom. 14:4; Rom. 14:10; 1 Cor. 4:5; 1 Cor. 13:4-7; Gal. 5:15; Gal. 6:1; Eph. 4:29; Eph. 4:31-32; Phil. 4:8; Col. 3:12-13; 1 Thess. 4:11; 2 Tim. 2:23-26; Tit. 3:2; Tit. 3:9-11; James 3:14-16; James 4:11-12; 1 Pet. 4:8.

On Gatekeeping

Heresy hunting is offensive. You go out looking for error to expose. Gatekeeping is defensive. You stand at the door and decide who gets in. They are different sins with the same root: the conviction that you have the authority to determine who belongs to Christ and who doesn’t.

The gatekeeper does not hunt heretics on YouTube. He is subtler than that. He sits in the pew, or behind the pulpit, and he administers a doctrinal exam to every person who walks through the door. Not formally. Not with a written test. But with questions, with glances, with the slow calculus of “does this person sound like one of us?” And the test is not whether the person confesses Christ. The test is whether the person confesses Christ in the right vocabulary. The shibboleth section above addresses the vocabulary problem. This section addresses the examiner.

“Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:4)

The person you are examining does not belong to you. He belongs to God. And God is able to make him stand. Not you. Not your doctrinal checklist. God.

There is a particular form of gatekeeping that deserves to be named, because it is the most common weapon in the sovereign grace world: preaching against a man’s position from the pulpit without engaging his arguments. The gatekeeper reads Chapter 30 of this book, reduces it to “he says it doesn’t matter what you believe,” and preaches against that reduction to an audience that will never read the original. The straw man is built in the sermon. The audience burns it down. And the actual argument is never heard.

This is dishonest. Not because the gatekeeper is a liar in his heart. He may genuinely believe the reduction is accurate. But the firmware that produced the reduction was set to “find the threat,” and the application layer processed only what the firmware expected. He did not hear what the chapter said. He heard what his boot parameters told him it said. And his refutation is of something that exists only in his own processing.

The honest response to a theological position you disagree with is to quote it accurately, state it in its strongest form, and then explain why you believe it is wrong. This is the principle of charity. It is also basic intellectual honesty. And it is the one thing the gatekeeper almost never does, because engaging the strongest form of the argument means risking that the argument is right. And if the argument is right, the gate comes down.

Chapter 30 says the test is one question: who are you resting in? If the answer is Christ, that is enough. The gatekeeper adds questions. He adds vocabulary requirements. He adds confessional compliance. He adds every test the gospel does not demand, because without those tests, he has no gate. And without the gate, he has no authority. And without the authority, he is just a man sitting in a pew like everyone else. And that terrifies him.

The framework’s answer to gatekeeping is the same as its answer to heresy hunting. Present the truth softly and wait on the Lord. The Spirit does not need a bouncer at the door. He has root access. He knows who belongs to Him. And He has never once asked for your doctrinal exam before regenerating a soul.

“Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” (John 10:16)

Other sheep. Not of this fold. And the Shepherd will bring them. Not the gatekeeper. The Shepherd.

And lest anyone mistake tenderness for weakness, remember what Jesus did in the temple. He walked in, saw the money changers who had turned the Father’s house into a marketplace, made a whip, and turned the tables over. “And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:13). That was righteous anger. Controlled, deliberate, aimed at the men who put a gate between God’s people and God’s presence. And then, in the very next verse, “the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them” (Matthew 21:14). The same hands that made the whip healed the broken. The fury and the tenderness are not opposites. They are the same love, aimed at different targets. One aimed at the gatekeepers. The other aimed at the people the gatekeepers excluded.

For further study: Matt. 7:1-5; Matt. 21:12-14; Matt. 23:13; Luke 9:49-50; Luke 18:9-14; John 2:14-16; John 10:16; John 10:27-29; Acts 10:34-35; Acts 11:17; Acts 15:10; Rom. 2:1; Rom. 14:1-4; Rom. 14:10-13; Rom. 15:7; 1 Cor. 4:5; Gal. 2:6; James 2:1-4; James 4:11-12.