You Can’t Tell a Guy His Wife is Ugly

I’m a very blessed man. I have several friends who have become brothers over the years. Guys who have been there for me. I would take a bullet for these guys. They would take a bullet for me. I know that. They know that. These guys encourage me, hold me up and hold me accountable. I’ll go to the wall for any of these guys.

Yet, as close as I am to these guys and as much as we mean to each other, there is one line we don’t ever cross. You can’t tell another man his wife is ugly.

That’s a deal breaker. In fact, if I said that to any of my friends, more than a deal would get broken. There are some things you just don’t say to another man.

I think about this a lot whenever I hear people run down the church. Now, as I begin, let me say two things. First, the church should be open to valid accountability and criticism. The church claims to be the body of Christ and when anything is done or said by the church that doesn’t live up to that ecclesiological identity, something should be said. The truth must be spoken to the church, but even then, the truth must be spoken in love.

Second, no one knows better than me what a disappointment the church can be. I’ve spent my life in the church. I grew up in the church and I’ve spent my entire professional career serving the church. I know how the southern church supported racism and segregation. I know how the church exploited communities they were supposed to serve. I know all of this and more…

…but still.

I grow frustrated with those who use the disappointments of the church as a cover for their own disobedience and unfaithfulness. To go down a list of failures in the church as a reason for your own lack of engagement is lazy and dishonest. For one thing, there are a lot of good churches. No church is perfect and even if we could find a perfect church, it wouldn’t remain perfect if we joined it. However, there are a lot of good, deeply committed and faithful pastors serving in genuine and loving churches. Most of the time, these churches aren’t big on social media and few, if any, influencers go there, but these churches can be found if we’re faithful in looking for them.

Second, and this is the most important one, Jesus loves His bride. Paul writes that Jesus loves His church and gave Himself for it. The hope of our eschatology is that one day, Jesus will return to gather up His people – the church. To attack the church is to attack Jesus. We can’t say that we love Jesus and then, in the next breath, talk about how ugly His wife is.

Whenever I hear people attack the church, I know these people haven’t spent a lot of time with Jesus. Whenever we pray, if we’re silent enough in our prayers, if we’re deep enough in our prayers, we’ll hear Jesus say how broken hearted He is for His church. He is frustrated His church routinely refuses to live the vibrant grace He offers. Too many times, we turn our relationship with Christ into a contract. We do certain things in certain ways and in return, Jesus is obligated to do certain things for us. You know, Party A owes Party B because Party B did a task for Party A.

But we have a covenant relationship with Jesus. He loves us because of who He is. We love Him because of who He is. In the freedom of this love, we’re shaped more and more into His likeness. We aren’t generous in order to be blessed. Being a generous person IS the blessing. The God we serve, the Father who loves us, the Son who saves us – are generous in love and like our Father, we His children are generous people.

By definition, church work is messy. Knowing that, we must not confuse the work of the church with the church itself. Telling me the church is filled with hypocrites misses the point. At one time or another, we’re all hypocrites. Pretending to be faithful when we’re struggling to be faithful is one of the ways we become faithful. Make sense? We’re faced with a moment and we struggle with how to be obedient in this moment. We say to ourselves, “If I was a faithful follower of Christ, how would I respond?” Then, we do what we know a faithful follower would do. In that moment, we’re being faithful even when we’re not faithful. Pretending to be faithful is one of the ways we learn to become faithful.

Judging anything in the middle of the process isn’t fair. Yet, we judge the church in the middle of the process all the time. The ingredients of a chocolate chip cookie don’t taste that good by themselves. It’s only when they’re mixed together and baked to perfection that makes them the diet busters we all love. The church and everyone in it is in progress and should be judged as such. In each life and in each church, we’re waiting to see the final results that will be revealed when Jesus returns.

Until then, like Jesus, we are called to love the church and give lives for her.

And the next time you talk to Jesus, see if He doesn’t tell you how much He loves His bride. If we love Jesus the way we say we do, we’ll love His wife as well.

This essay was first posted in Scot McKnight’s newsletter.