My wife, Michelle, and I enjoy watching the late night show monologues. Often the hosts poke fun at politicians, exposing the hypocrisy, or sometimes sheer lunacy, of those politicians. Watching those monologues, I will at times say out loud that a politician is an idiot. Have you ever exclaimed something like that? Contempt is dripping from my mouth when I say, “What an idiot!”
What is contempt? One scholar I read defines it this way, contempt is “to despise someone or something on the basis that it is worthless or of no value.” (Louw & Nida).
Even though we have the normal human right and free will to hold an opinion, even if we are convinced that our opinion is correct, we Christians do not have God’s permission to despise people. Why? Because when we despise someone, we are saying, “You are worthless, you have no value.”
Have you ever despised someone?
One antidote for those times when we are struggling with despising someone, when we are struggling with contempt, is to remember the powerful teaching of the Image of God.
That teaching is on page 1 of the Bible, chapter 1. Genesis 1:26–27,
“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Every single person is invaluable to God, because we are made in his image. Think of the people who have mistreated you, hurt you, even those who have abused you. Think of those people throughout history who are considered to be the worst humans of all time. Adolf Hitler level people.
Every single one of them, invaluable to God. Made in God’s image. Therefore we hold no one in contempt. We despise no one.
If we disagree with a person’s ideology or teaching or behavior, that is normal. It is okay to disagree.
It is not okay to allow our disagreement to grow into contempt. It is not okay to allow our disagreement to become thoughts like, “that person is worthless.”
Michelle doesn’t like it when we are watching the news and I say that a politician is an idiot. To her, that is disdain, contempt, and beyond the pale for a disciple of Jesus.
Instead, we work to change our thinking about a person, we remember that they are made in God’s image, deeply loved by God.
We can be loving, kind, and gentle with those with whom we disagree. We can actually be in close long-term friendships with people who we disagree with.
But what do we do with the fact that the person is teaching something or prophesying about something that might be incorrect doctrine or teaching? More on that in the next post.
Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 