Prodigals in Pigsties
by Laurence Windham

You know, when you think about it, Jesus isn't nice at all. What with His booting Adam and Eve out of the garden, ordering the destruction of women and children in Canaan, and His requirements for discipleship. Call Him just, call Him holy, You could even call Him kind, but not nice. Can you imagine Jesus standing before a crowd and right after stating that He had come not to bring peace, but a sword, some little old lady commenting, "What a nice young man?" Or how about listening to His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. "You don't know what you worship!" corrected the Christ. Does that sound nice? Ask Peter what he thought about being called the devil.

I'm convinced that if C.S. Lewis were writing Narnia today, the children would not question whether the Lion, Aslan, was "safe" in today's vernacular, they would ask if he was nice. Of course, the answer for Aslan/Christ is neither.. .but he/He is good. So the question is, if Christ isn't nice, why does the church think that it should be?

Some institutions, that still call themselves churches, historically played nice with the world to the degree that now they are of the world. Other denominations, though they have not yet bowed the knee to Baal, regularly go bowling with him. That is because there is an incredible misunderstanding on the ecclesiastic level that, "the weak shall inherit the earth." When God told Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent we should have understood that in every age the church would be at war with the world. We were even encouraged that in our fight, that the gates of hell would not prevail against us. We are even allowed to kill with kindness. But "nice?" Nice does no damage to the Dark Side. Our problem is a lack of an "Us" and "Them" mentality. There are only two kingdoms. It isn't a matter of, "Can't we all just get along'?". We are to get along with the world—to an extent. Jesus said, "If possible, live at peace with all men..." but He also told the disciples to arm themselves just before His betrayal and arrest.

We must realize when we are doing evangelism, we are in enemy territory. These people hate Jesus; they despise our lifestyle; they esteem our values as dung. Therefore, our mentality should be one of caution when dealing with them. We should view our relationship with them as combative. They are to be conquered.. .that is something that they are not going to like. But this is precisely how we are to love our enemies, not by letting our guard down, but by keeping it up, for their sake.

One of our problems today is that we are too busy worrying about how the pagan thinks about us than we are about how God thinks of the pagan. They are going to hell. They are already condemned. Not telling them this is a lack of compassion on our part. Likewise, telling them the truth about how God has commanded everyone to live is intrusive, corrective, and authoritarian. Again, remember Jesus? He told people that He was the only way and the only way to follow Him to where He was going was to do it His way. Unless you get on His bus, there is only one destination. Nice? I don't think so.

The church also wrongly assumes that we are to be nice to each other, as if love and nice were synonymous. They are not. Love wounds; nice avoids confrontation. Love allows for consequences; nice, on the other hand, caters meals to prodigals in pigsties. Love forgives; nice pretends to forget. Love equals everything; nice equals zero.

This false virtue is no virtue at all. We must understand there are a host of these destructive traits that come from the world and not from the Scriptures. Fairness, egalitarianism, excitement, pragmatism, political correctness, etc... are not what should motivate believers of Christ, nor should they be descriptive of His church. The overarching virtue of Christianity is love. Our understanding of love as described by the Bible will lead us to be godly or nice. Love is distinctive of our faith. Nice, is our enemy. Nice allows for lack of discipline in the church...damning unrepentant souls that should be turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that they might finally repent.

Love makes hard choices that rock the boat, not for the sake of the rocking; it is just that faithful commitments lived out in the midst of nice people tend to perturb them. Nice likes things as they are. Why, to attempt change, even biblical change, wouldn't be, well. ..nice. And being nice allows a person to feel good about himself.

Love, however, thinks and acts like God, who is love. Love has little or nothing to do with feelings when decisions need to be made, battles must be fought, friends have to be wounded, and the church has to be protected. The end result of love-based actions is rarely characterized by being nice. The same is true of the Nice; their deeds and motivations don't qualify as biblical love-though I do concede, that may be their desire. But intentions are not what we are judged by. Our obedience will be on the same level as our love for the One who loved us first. The more we love Him, the less nice we will be.

So, when you think of our prophetic ministry here at the Highlands Study Center as not being "nice" you are right. That was never our goal. Our goal has been all along to help the church see what has been posing as normal and to question whether it belongs in the Christian's life at all. And being nice may just be the best place to start. By the way, the word "nice" comes from the Latin word for "ignorant." Thought you should know.