Winsome or Weak? Rethinking the Evangelical Approach to Resistance
We should never set out to offend people unnecessarily. I try my best not to do so, wherever possible. We should be friendly, gracious, and welcoming wherever possible. We should “let our reasonableness [and/or gentleness] be known to everyone” (Phil. 4:5). We should not blast into situations or confrontations trying to attack people for the sake of showing off our “boldness”. Not all boldness is good. It depends on the situation, on the motivation, on the consequences. But the same goes for what many take for “gentleness” today.
When speaking with people with whom we disagree – Christian or otherwise – we should be patient with them. You should seek to persuade them, wherever possible, “correcting your opponents with gentleness” (2 Tim. 2:25). This is effectively what it means to practice “winsomeness”, the dominant evangelical approach of the past few decades. This approach, as many now know, has become the subject of significant critique due to the changing climate western Christians are now in today.
For some time now, an increasing number of Christians have begun to rediscover parts of the Bible that simply don’t fit with the perpetually winsome approach they were told about. They are beginning to find some very strange things in God’s book which they didn’t think they were “allowed” to talk about too loudly.
But who told them they weren’t allowed? It certainly wasn’t Jesus. Not even Jesus calls us to be perpetually welcoming to those who will not be persuaded: “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.” (Matt. 10:14-15).
When was the last time you did anything like that in your missional interactions with unbelievers today, let alone entire towns? Whilst we seek to be hospitable to those who seek to truly listen, it’s clear that there are times not to be hospitable, not to be “winsome”. We should not be ongoingly hospitable to those who have no ears to hear.
Yet there are some who believe such an approach to be impossible for a Christian to take because it sounds “unchristian”. They believe that because “God is love” and because “God so loved the world” we must love and include everybody all the time, no matter what they say or do. I have nothing against being loving and gracious and kind, but tell it to Jesus. He’s the one who said it, and He’s the one who’s God. If you end up with the conclusion that Jesus Christ is being “unchristian”, perhaps your definition of “being Christian” needs revising? Jesus gets to decide what “Christian” behaviour looks and sounds like, not us.
When Offence is Necessary
Now, there certainly are some Christian combatants who can be prone to “shaking the dust off their feet” too soon or for the wrong reasons. They may be angry, impatient, quick-tempered, or - ironically enough - offended by those who reject what they say. In online interactions, for example, it can be easy to write off the most aggressive unbelievers or opponents far too quickly. Some of them - like Paul himself - may well be closer to the kingdom than we think, and it’s not our job to determine someone’s eternal fate for them.
But whilst we should always seek to “persuade” unbelievers or erroneous believers (2 Cor. 5:11), we must be mindful of another of Jesus’ unwinsome teachings: “do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” (Matt. 7:6). What a statement, by the way! Try tweeting that today and see what people make of it! Just so we’re clear: in this analogy, the “pigs” are people. Another example of Jesus being “unchristian”, perhaps?
Not casting pearls before swine is likely the kind of thing Paul & co had in mind when they directly applied Jesus’ practice of dust-shaking in their evangelism.
When Grace is Opposed
If ever there was a candidate who might have had good reason to neglect Jesus’ dust-shaking against fierce opponents of the Gospel, it would be Paul. He, after all, was one of them once, a man who breathed out “murderous threats” against Christians and deliberately sought out ways to persecute and imprison them (Acts 9:1-2). Paul would be the first to emphasise the grace and mercy of God to save even the worst of sinners, well knowing how we all fall short and all need the grace of Christ (Rom. 3:23-26). Yet when the Gospel is opposed, undermined, and reviled, Paul does not respond with perpetual graciousness.
At Antioch, for example, there had been much good fruit of the Gospel, with Gentiles “rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord” which was “spreading throughout the whole region” (Acts 13:48-49). Naturally, this good fruit soon attracts enemies:
But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. (Acts 13:48-52).
Paul and Barnabas don't stay to persuade them. They effectively say: “Have it your way...” They move on. They knew this opposition had arisen to undermine the good fruit of the Gospel that was happening. They were not distracted by it, and despite doing something we might think of as “mean” or “joyless”, the whole event is bookended by rejoicing in God’s Word and Spirit. Robust response to God’s enemies is not incompatible with the fruit of the Spirit; it goes hand in hand with that fruit.
When Opposition is Opposed
A similar thing to the incident at Antioch happens to Paul and his team at Corinth. Here they see good fruit of the Gospel and then meet intense opposition:
When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” (Acts 18:5-7)
Again, Paul says “Have it your way…” and moves on (though without leaving the city entirely) and sees the fruit of more conversions as a result. But here, rather than leaving, God calls them to stay longer and to keep speaking in spite of the opposition:
And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. (Acts 18:9-11)
A similar thing to Corinth had also happened in Iconium, the place they’d gone to after facing earlier opposition at Antioch. Whilst “a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed,” we immediately see the familiar counter-attack: “But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.” (Acts 14:1-2). A perfect time to shake off the dust and move on, perhaps? But no, in this case the response to the “mind-poisoning” is to stay and fight against it: “So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord” (Acts 14:1-3).
Leaving Boldly or Staying Boldly?
It seems that in both cases - leaving boldly or staying boldly - the primary motivations were not to persuade the slanderers themselves but either to win new converts elsewhere, or to strengthen existing believers who might otherwise have been won or led astray by those slanderers. Sometimes opposition must be faced head-on, especially when many more might be poisoned against the truth if you don’t. At other times, the better thing to do is to reject firmly and move on.
In both cases, there is evidence of both boldness and judgement against the opposers, and very little evidence of winsomeness towards them. There are always times to “shake off the dust” at our opposers, whether we stay or whether we go. Most contemporary Christians seem to have no way of applying or imitating anything like this today. We are perhaps tempted to explain away this strange dust-shaking thing as a practice limited exclusively to 1st-century Jews never to be imitated in any form ever again. We must be honest and say that, even if we do not literally do this very thing, we cannot say that it has nothing at all to say to how we interact with our opponents today.
Disagreeable Graciousness
Despite how much I may talk about things like this, it still challenges me deeply. I very rarely (if ever) do things like Jesus or Paul when opposed. The desire to be agreeable and welcoming at all times is itself difficult to shake off. But if we really mean to be Biblical, then shake it off we must. Those most comfortable with gentle winsomeness as their default response to opposition are most in need of learning that there are other ways to respond Christianly. Sometimes, they are the only ways to respond. If we do not learn how to walk in those ways, there will be longer term implications. Christians will weaken in their faith and become deceived, and wolves will be strengthened and multiply, seducing the Church to the ways of the world.
If you don’t see multiple evidence of this in the contemporary Church, I really can’t help you. The game has changed, and you may need to wake up and see what has been happening and what will keep happening in future years. Once you’ve woken up, you need to think about what God may be calling you to say or do about it. You may not need to do precisely as Jesus or Paul do here, but if something of that is not informing anything about how you might respond to the opposition to Christianity in your own sphere of influence, you should be challenged by that, and seek to do something about it.
Whether we stay and confront opposition or shake them off and move on to somewhere else, we must heed the varied examples we see in the New Testament, especially when we may have ulterior motives for unseeing or unapplying them in our lives. Whilst our speech should “always be gracious” (Col. 4:6) we cannot overlook just how significant it is that both Jesus (the very epitome of grace) and Paul (the greatest preacher of grace) emphasise the judgement of God against those who oppose that grace. They oppose their opponents precisely because they believe so thoroughly in the very thing their opponents are opposing. This too can be gracious, albeit “seasoned with salt” (also Col. 4:6).
If you believe in the power of grace to set people free, you will graciously run the risk of being called “ungracious” by others for the sake of truly defending it.
