This is the second of three posts concerning “meekness”, used with the permission of the author (Dr. Paul Brownback, Evangelical Reformation). I will post his articles in their entirety.
I had a professor at New York University who said, “God created man in His own image, and man has been returning the favor ever since.”
This is a valid observation, especially in regard to our morphing Jesus into the image of our culture. This is true even of evangelicals, who pride themselves in their adherence to Scripture.
In the previous post, we noted that one means of deforming Jesus so that He fits nicely into contemporary society is by defining meekness to mean mildness and gentleness. By so doing, we have transformed Jesus into Mr. Rogers, thus making Him comfortable to have around—accepting, non-threatening.
Recently, I read through the gospel of Matthew in several sittings. In so doing, a person is hard-pressed to find a Jesus in the image of Mr. Rogers. I challenge you to read it for yourself and see if that is not the case. Pay special attention to the dialogue—what Jesus actually said.
Many evangelicals let their imaginations run wild in order to re-create Jesus into their image. They imagine Jesus chuckling to Himself as He uses the illustrations of the person with a beam in his eye seeking to remove the speck from the eye of another.
However, if we are at all sensitive to the attitude conveyed by Jesus throughout the gospel, there is every indication that He is not chuckling, but rather that He is deadly serious. The chuckle is a figment of the reader’s imagination—an attempt to make Jesus like us.
What, then, is this meekness that according to Jesus characterized His personality?
The essence of the meaning is to be oriented toward service. It is to set aside one’s own agenda in order to minister to others. Blessed are the meek means blessed are those who desire to provide service to others rather than demanding service from them.
Though Jesus could rightly demand service, instead, as He asserts in several places in Scripture, He came to serve. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45 NIVUS). Jesus calls us to maintain a similar attitude of service.
This definition of meekness also can be misleading if we do not understand the nature of Jesus’ service, which is the type of service He has called us to render.
Jesus came primarily to serve His Father. His service to us is a byproduct of His service to his Father. That should be the nature of our service as well.
This arrangement fits the biblical teaching regarding the first and second commandments, that is, to love God and neighbor. The first commandment is first because love of God must be preeminent, and love of neighbor an outflow of it.
If we misconstrue this order—allow love of neighbor to be first, we end up with humanism. Our approach to life becomes dominated by the horizontal rather than the vertical dimension.
Making our service to God priority one has some serious practical implications. If service to our neighbor were priority one, we should serve them on their terms. “I exist to serve you, to support your agenda. What can I do for you?” Based on this arrangement, meekness would consist of living our lives according to other people’s terms.
This is not biblical or practical. Imagine trying to meet everybody’s terms.
However, because service to God is preeminent, we are not called to serve others on their terms, but on God’s terms. This arrangement is abundantly evident in the life of Christ. Though he came to serve, He was clearly in charge. He displayed meekness first and foremost through His attitude of submission to His Father, not to human beings.
Consequently, He could be meek and still deal with His disciples and others like a Marine drill sergeant. This is how His Father called him to serve them. In addition, this attitude represented the greatest service He could render to them. For the most part, they didn’t need mildness and gentleness. They needed confrontation and exhortations.
The same is true in our service to others. Sometimes they need gentleness, but often they need to be challenged and exhorted.
Such ministry fits into the biblical understanding of meekness, but our Mr. Rogers definition of meekness excludes it. Therefore, by deforming Jesus, we have also deformed our own approach to Christian living, forcing ourselves to comply with a definition of meekness that is not biblical.
This deformation of character has serious implications. That is our next topic.
The Battle Cry 