He said something like, "You know, if some guy came in and killed my family like that, screw all that forgiveness crap. I would tie him up and kill him slowly."
I was immediately torn, I'm not sure john is really a Christian or not so I wanted to be careful about how I responded. I mean, the serial killer we were talking about broke into a random guy's home, tied him, his wive and his daughter up, the serial killer then made the father/husband watch him rape and kill both of the girls. How do you respond to john's comment without going against the Bible's teaching about forgiveness, but at the same time be relatable and practical? I wanted to say forgiveness was right, but at the same time I wasn't really sure if I would even stop john from killing the guy who did it.
I was reading Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis and a similar story came up. It was about a girl who had been raped. She went to a pastor and told him what happened, and guess what he said...Forgiveness is the answer. He told the girl not to tell the police.
So she didn't. The rapist went on to rape several other girls before he was caught. And now she feels guilty for not going to the police.
If someone were to kill your family like that, and you lost all anger and bitterness "before the sun went down" crazy conspirators would make up stories about how you actually planned for your family to be killed, and professional psychologists would question your sanity.
We're just not built to operate like that.
God didn't build us to operate like that.
It seems people everywhere are fusing the words forgiving and forgetting.
When I say, "I appreciate the Boy Scouts so much because of the pride they take in what they do." We feel good about the Boy Scouts, it even promotes them.
When I say, "Wow, that guy over there is full of himself." what am I actually saying? That he has pride. And I don't mean it in a good way.
Do you see what just happened? I used the exact same word to create two complete opposite meanings.
And that's the problem here. Of course we should forgive. Of course she should have reported the man who raped her. Of course that serial killer (real or not) deserves punishment.
As a Christian, one of the most important things we need to do is be careful not to bear false witness.
In 1st Corinthians 8 Paul addresses an interesting issue.
This Christian church is in the city of Corinth, which was filled with Paganism. The only place to eat meat in Corinth was by going to a Pagan temple (which was pretty much a restaurant) and eating it there.
The Christians in this church didn't want to worship the idols at the temple or even look like they might even believe in the idols, but they were just people and they wanted some meat. So they asked Paul what he thought. Paul pretty much agrees with them, that if they want to eat it they can. But at the end of the chapter he says if you eating sacrificial meat at a Pagan temple will cause a "weaker Christian" (someone that may misjudge what you are doing as sinful), then don't do it. Chapter 8 finishes with verse 13, which says, "Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall."
We must be careful about how we communicate what our ideas are.
To mix the two words forgive and forget is a horribly misleading idea that pushes people away from Christ.
When we look back through the Word we find that the words forgiving and forgetting were not always fused together.
Hebrews 10:30, "For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people."
After the Midanites committed violent acts against the Israelites, God said to Moses in Numbers 31:2, "Take vengeance on the Midanites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people."
I don't think God ever wanted the definitions of forgiving and forgetting to ever be in the same word.
I believe that there is a spiritual war waging, and I think evil spirits grin when they see people pushed away by things like this.
This is why we have to be careful about bearing false witness.
I wish I could have explained this to john. I wish the girl could have explained it to that pastor. I wish I could have explained this to every person who saw Christianity as unrelatable, unpractical, or just plain ridiculous.
