I’ve been following Jesus (closely or distantly) since childhood, for about 35 years. For most of those years, I shunned the most obvious sins—10 Commandment stuff: sexual immorality, lying, stealing, cursing, that sort of thing. When wronged or hurt, I responded with general kindness. I didn’t gossip, backbite, throw a fit, or respond hatefully. I was a speaker and Bible teacher, a pastor’s wife, a homeschool mother of 2, a graduate of seminary. I had taught scores if not hundreds of Bible studies.
But if you had, figuratively speaking, viciously slapped me across the face, if you had sued me for absolutely no reason and taken the very clothes off my back, if you had unfairly forced me to humiliating and exhausting work that was actually YOURS to do, in short if you would have attacked me in some way… I would’ve done exactly what virtually every Christian counselor would have told me to do and what most well-meaning Christian friends would tell me to do:
I would’ve stood up for myself. I probably would’ve couched it in Christian terms, of course. Something like: I know my identity and I’m a daughter of the king so I don’t have to be treated like this.
This feels an awful lot like the world’s wisdom, doesn’t it? Something along the lines of: Get even. Fight back. Stand up for yourself.
I think there’s a reason we gravitate to this option—there’s actually a strong biblical case for this call-down-fire Christianity.
In fact, it’s possible to know Jesus, even walk beside Jesus, and still react to offenses the exact same way as the world. A few of Jesus’ disciples did exactly this.
Today we talk about call-down-fire Christianity, what eventually transformed Jesus’ followers, and what will transform us … Join us here or listen below:
Podcast description: We need wisdom, y’all. Like, yesterday. Right?! We need God’s perspective. We need His heart. We need joy, resilience, clarity, and conviction. Feeling this need, author Kari Patterson opens Scripture and shares candidly how God’s Word informs her daily life. Appropriate for all ages, relatable and refreshing, join Kari for conversations on responding to unkindness, emotional freedom, parenting dilemmas, self-pity, forgiveness, and more.
