THE SAFE SPACE

There are those who expect colleges and universities to provide something called a "safe space." By the use of the word, "safe," our minds think the term refers to physical safety, but if that's the case, we are oh, so wrong.

WHAT'S A SAFE SPACE?

A safe space is a geographical location on campus where students can feel safe ideologically, emotionally, and good all the time. A safe space is a bubble which insulates students from the views of people who are different, ideas which upset them. The location provides psychological  protection. Brown University provides a safe space with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets, and a video of puppies. These items are for students, ages 18 and beyond.

An uncomfortable idea could be anything, written or oral, such as an argument against abortion, an informal conversation which expresses the view that the federal government should not be involved in health care. Words written on a sidewalk with chalk in support of a candidate for office may so upset a student they drive him or her to a safe space. One student, upon hearing her professor say,"I'm against abortion, but it is permitted under the law," became upset; she began to cry and fled the classroom.*

A safe space is the result of the idea that people have the right to absolute emotional comfort at all times. Is that "right" in the Constitution somewhere? James Madison would say, "No, we didn't put it there."

Once in a safe space, no one will express an idea which offends you or makes you feel uncomfortable. In a safe space, there's no debate, no arguing to defend your position, and no exchange of viewpoints. In the words of academia, there's no one in a safe space to trigger you.

NO BUBBLE FOR THE BELIEVER

But for the Christian living in the Kosmos, the world arranged by Satan to leave God out, there's no such thing as a safe space. Jesus didn't provide us with one. As a matter of fact, He deliberately commanded us not to try to live in one, isolated from those who hold different viewpoints. Monasteries and nunneries weren't His idea.

When did Jesus command us not to live in a bubble? (Glad you asked.) He did so in one of the most famous statements He made, one inscribed in our churches all over the world--the Great Commission,which literally says: "After you have gone (aorist participle) disciple all the nations . . .," It has the force of a command. So, then, we're to go to the nations and nations certainly have different opinions than we do.

By saying, "After you have gone," (with the force of a command) Jesus is telling us to deliberately go out of our way into areas where we confront different viewpoints. That doesn't sound like a safe space, does it?

BUT I WANT MY BUBBLE

Yet, there's the tendency to construct our Christian safe spaces. How so? If you don't want to go to a gym where there are unbelievers, there are Christian aerobics and weightlifting classes in our churches and on video. If you don't want to play on a team in which a non-Christian might be the  pitcher,  the center, or the coach, there are church softball and basketball leagues. There are cafes and bowling alleys for church people only.

If you feel like you're missing out on all the fun, in Illinois, there's a Christian night club, called "Club Jesus" where you can dance and drink non-alcoholic beverages called, "Repentance," "Faith,"and "Virgin Mary." While enjoying your glass of Repentance, you can listen to rap, jazz, and poetry. (The club is somehow justified by Ecclesiastes 3:1, and from that verse, the owner of the Jesus Club says, "God wants us to have fun.")

But, getting back to the safe spaces, Jesus didn't build one for us. He sends us out into the Kosmos of clashing viewpoints, all of which leave God out. He commands us to go into places where they don't understand us. He sends us into locations where people hate us. He propels us out where people think we're fools and what we're saying is foolishness.

The book of Acts contains one example after another of the Apostles and those early day Christians deliberately placing themselves with people who clashed over and over with them. Like the Sower in the parable, obeying the Great Commission doesn't just happen accidentally, the planting of the seed is deliberate.
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*The professor was giving an example to the class of how we may disagree with a law, but we're to obey it. The student went to the dean; the teacher was dismissed.

HILLARY'S BASKET OF DEPLORABLES

During the recent (and seemingly eternal) presidential campaign, one frustrated and possibly exhausted candidate called half of those voting for her opponent, "a basket of deplorables."

That remark will go down in history as one of the worst statements ever uttered by a politician, ranking right up there with, "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it," and, "That all depends on what the meaning of 'is,' is," and, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

It's not a smooth move to call those who legitimately have a disagreement with you, "a basket of deplorables," when you're looking for votes. Millions of people saw that statement as a revelation of an arrogant and superior attitude, and, in a politician, or anyone else, that's a turn-off.

BUT YET WE . . .

But yet, haven't we been victimized by a misunderstanding of a text that causes us to reflect the same arrogant attitude as the doomed candidate? We're talking about a misunderstanding of Matthew 7:1-6:

"Do not judge so that you will not be judged. ² For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. ³ Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴ Or how ^[b]can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. ⁶ “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

In the above text, the subject is misunderstood to be that of judging others. This misunderstanding leads us into the fallacy of multiculturalism and relativism in which no one is to think, say, or believe that there is right and there is wrong, that we aren't condemn any belief or practice as "wrong" because absolute right and wrong do not exist. That would be "judging."

Not only that, but the common misunderstanding of verse 6 leads us to violate the principle of grace and conflicts with the Parable of the Sower. Matthew 7:1-6 is erroneously presented as stating that there are those who are "dogs" and "swine," the deplorables who aren't worthy to hear the gospel ("that which is holy" and "your pearls") because they will attack, ridicule, and abuse the one who gives it to them, and should never have had it given to them in the first place. The result is, the misunderstanding says, that you've got to judge who's a dog and whose a swine before you speak to them about the gospel, lest they turn and attack you.

Back when John Wycliffe was translating the Bible into English, the Roman Catholic hierarchy condemned him by citing Matthew 7:6, declaring, "By this translation, the Scriptures have become vulgar, and they are more available to lay, and even to women who can read, than they were to learned scholars, who have a high intelligence. So the pearl of the gospel is scattered and trodden underfoot by swine."

Is that what Jesus is saying? The misconstruing of the text has it contradicting itself, that is, telling us not to judge, then telling us to decide who's a dog and who's a swine. That doesn't make sense, does it?

According to this misinterpretation, we're told to evaluate a person before we witness to him: is he a dog? is he a swine? If so, don't give "that which is holy, the pearls, to him."

ENTER THE SOWER

But this interpretation also has another problem: it contradicts the Parable of the Sower in which the Planter is generous with the seed (the gospel--Luke 8:12); he throws it everywhere--on the beaten path and on three other types of soil. And (very important!) the generous Sower doesn't evaluate the soils on which He throws the seed. He just throws it all over the place without discrimination. The Sower never considers who's worthy and who's not, the Sower never disqualifies anyone, to do so would violate grace.

SO WHAT'S GOING ON IN MATTHEW 7:1-6?

The misunderstanding occurs because verse 6 is ripped from verses 1-5. The context is that Jesus tells the disciples, "Judge not that you be not judged" (verse 1). Then, in verses 2-6, He explains the command.

We can't live without making judgments, scores of them everyday. We judge whether something is right or wrong. In John 7:24, Jesus commands the disciples to "judge a righteous judgment." In I Corinthians 14:29, the church is to judge whether a speaker has presented true or false doctrine.

Jesus isn't talking about "judging;" He's discussing a particular kind of judging--one that's hypocritical (remove the beam in your own eye) and judging someone over trivial matters (the splinter the other person's eye.)

SANCTIFIED SARCASM

To understand what He's teaching us is to realize that He's explaining why we shouldn't judge people over trivial matters and hypocritically. And, He uses sarcasm to do so.

Jesus is saying, "Don't judge hypocritically and over trivial matters. Don't give [what you consider to be] your "holy" advice, do not give what ]you consider to be] your "pearls," to [those you consider to be] dogs and swine, because they will turn on you and retaliate. Therefore, "judge not [hypocritically and over trivial matters] that you be not judged" [in the same way you're judging them.] Therefore, we see that verse 6 is tied directly back into verse 1. Verse 1 commands, "Don't judge so that you won't be judged." Verse summarizes, "lest they [those you are judging' turn on you and judge you in the same way."

BE GENEROUS

With that understanding, the Parable of the Sower isn't in conflict with Matthew 7. But, there's more: just as the Sower [Christ] is generous with the gospel, just as He doesn't prejudge the soils, so are we to be.

This parable forces us to examine ourselves, and is therefore convicting, isn't it? Am I generous with the gospel? Am I discriminating against someone because I've judged him to be in a basket of deplorables and therefore unworthy to hear it?" We're all unworthy to hear the gospel, but in grace the Sower casts it everywhere. We can easily fall into the trap of being selfish with the gospel by telling ourselves, "He's wouldn't be interested." "He'd just reject it."

Be generous.  Give a tract to the repairman who comes to your home, along with a "Thank you" for coming. Leave a tract for the waiter with a compliment for good service written on the back. Create opportunities to cast the seed everywhere like the Sower did.

Jesus cast the seed toward the immoral, the adulterer, the religious, those that society shunned, the rich, the poor, the hostile, the disinterested, the young and the old. He sat by their wells and at their dinner tables. He invited them to come to Him and He went to them.

He is THE generous Planter.

THEY CAME, THEY SAW, THEY READ

This is encouraging!

"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." (John 11:25-26 KJV)

Those words are on a plaque inside Washington's Tomb on Mt. Vernon. I've seen them, but up until that time two years ago, I never knew they were there. (Um . . . has something been blocked from my education? Why was I never told?)

I got to wondering, "Who else has seen those words on that plaque in the tomb of one of the greatest men in American or world history?" Who's read that text from the Gospel of John inscribed at Mt. Vernon.

In 1860, all the members of Congress gathered at Mt. Vernon at the tomb, so they read it.

On October 5 of that same year, President James Buchanan and the Prince of Wales, accompanied by the British press read the words.

Jumping to 1916, inventor Thomas Edison came to the tomb and saw the plaque.

Then a "first" occurred: in 1939, King George VI became the first ruling British monarch to come to America made it a point to go to Mt. Vernon, so he read the verses.

Then, from that great year of 1942, there's a picture of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill standing in front of the tomb and the plaque with the verses is visible behind them.

Then, another first: in 1943, it was the first time that a Chinese national addressed the Congress, as well as the first time the body had been addressed by a private citizen. Additionally, she was just the second woman to address both houses of the American Congress--she was Madame Chiang Kai-shek and her visit to the tomb on February 22, 1943, occurred on George Washington’s 211th birthday.

In 1944, Charles de Gaulle came from France and made his pilgrimage to the tomb. Although not a household name today, Saudi Crown Prince Amir Saud visited in 1947.

President and Mrs. George Bush went to Mt. Vernon in 2007 and in 2015 Charles, Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall paid their tributes to Washington.

As far as I know, none of the above rich, famous, and powerful remarked on the text from John 11. If they did, their thoughts weren't recorded for posterity.

Then, of course, there are the people like you and me, the average folks, who've been there and taken off their hats and caps to the great man and read Jesus' words on the plaque.

It's encouraging to read of those who've read Jesus' promise at Mt. Vernon. I wonder about the small and the great who've been there: did they think about those words? Did those words trigger them to search the Scriptures. Who knows? 

But one thing we do know: one day, we'll all be standing before the One who spoke them. There will be those who heeded His words and trusted Him and what He said (II Cor. 5:10) and then later, those who didn't.

Like John said, "And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne . . . (Revelation 20:12).

WHAT WE GOT HERE IS A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

That line, spoken by the villain Strother Martin, stands at Number 11 in the the American Film Institute’s top 100 movie quotations of American cinema’s first century. He said it in a movie that came out in 1967, and people have been repeating it decades later.

OOPS!

A classic failure to communicate happened during Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. It occurred as Mrs. Clinton was planning to finally do what her staff had been begging her to do--go on national television and explain the mushrooming e-mail/private server scandal that was in the process of threatening to bog down and burn down her campaign.

Here's the report of what happened:

"A miscommunication between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aide Huma Abedin led to a brutal grilling in her first national TV interview at the beginning of her campaign for president.

"It was May 2015 when her aides wanted to know who Clinton would like to have interview her about the scandal. Communications director Jennifer Palmieri asked Huma Abedin to find out — Abedin told Palmieri "Brianna," which she thought meant CNN anchor Brianna Keilar.

"However, Clinton actually said 'Bianna,' referring to Bianna Golodryga of Yahoo News, married to Peter Orszag who worked for the administration of former President Bill Clinton before becoming budget director for former President Barack Obama.

"By the time the mistake was realized, it was too late to pull back,"

The result was that, instead of a softball interview by the friendly Bianna Golodryga, Brianna Keilar's interviewed turned out to be a brutal grilling that had Mrs. Clinton staring darts at Brianna during the entire ordeal. Oh, the difference one letter can make.

A speaker saying one thing, the listener hearing another.They're talking past each other. That's why books on public speaking advise, "It's not what you say; it's what they hear."

SAY WHAT?

We encounter this failure to communicate when giving the gospel. We say, "Grace," meaning, "unmerited, undeserved favor," the listener thinks, "Peace," "Mercy," "Smooth of movement like a figure skater." We say, "Repentance," meaning, "A change of mind," the listener thinks, "Feel sorry for sin," "Turn your back on sin," Give up sinning," or "Be willing to give up sinning." We say, "Heaven is a free gift," the listener agrees, but illogically thinks, "It's free, but you have to earn it." We say, "Believe" or "Trust," the listener thinks, "There's more."

The New Testament says that one problem the unbeliever has is that he doesn't understand the good news message of faith alone in Christ alone. Like one lady I talked to: She defined grace with its theological definition, right on the money: "Undeserved favor."

She knew the definition, but it had no impact on her; it didn't register. She could quote Eph. 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;  not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." 

The problem was that she understood neither the definition of grace nor the meaning of the verse. From the confusion a cult had given her, she included dying to sin and the need to be baptized and the need to speak in tongues in order to be saved. To her, there were 3 steps to heaven: Her death to sin, her burial (her baptism), and speaking in tongues (her resurrection).

IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Yes. It's impossible for a person to be saved by the gospel if that person doesn't understand the gospel. He can't believe something he doesn't understand. He can define the words, quote the verses, but if he doesn't understand them, there is no salvation (Matthew 13:18). This is why some Lordship salvation teachers say that a child can't be saved. He can't understand Lordship salvation. They're right on that account, no child could understand such teaching. But faith alone in Christ alone, they can understand.

This is why, when we give the gospel, we must probe, ask, and delve as deeply as we can to see if, although he might define the words correctly, although he might quote Eph. 2:8-9 with 100% accuracy, that he connects the dots to understand that when he says, "Heaven is free, but you have to earn it" he's speaking nonsense.