THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

JUST THINKING VOLUME 26.3

Just Thinking is a teaching resource of
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and
exists to engender thoughtful engagement with
apologetics, Scripture, and the whole of life.

Danielle DuRant
Editor

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

3755 Mansell Road
Alpharetta, Georgia 30022
770.449.6766

WWW.RZIM.ORG

HELP ING THE THINKER BELIEV E.

HELPING THE BELIEVER THINK.
 TABLE of CONTENTS
VOLUM E 26.3

03
A NOTE FROM
THE EDITOR
Wings To Fly

04
EVERY TRIBE
AND TONGUE
Ravi Zacharias suggests
that only when our hearts
receive God’s forgiveness
can we become instruments
of true reconciliation.
12
“US” VERSUS “THEM”
“Fair or not, people judge
the credibility of a message
by the integrity of the
messenger,” argues Abdu
Murray in an excerpt from
his new book Saving Truth
(Zondervan, 2018).
26
THE FORGETTABLE
POWER OF EMPATHY
Lowe Finney revisits
the perhaps too-familiar
Bible story of Zacchaeus
and Jesus’s surprising
interaction with this
despised tax collector.

10
IN THIS HOUSE
“Never in my young life had
I experienced a place so
COVER: ©2018 KEN ORVIDAS
24
A CRY FOR HELP
John Njoroge poignantly
observes, “Trying to meet
our real needs without
Christ is like trying to
satisfy our thirst with
salty water.”
29
THINK AGAIN
No Longer Bound
Ravi Zacharias offers
an encouraging word
for those bound by the
chains of the past.

unlike anything I knew,”

writes Margaret Manning
Shull about a trip to South
Africa as a young girl.
 RESIST CONFUSION
By accurately describing the Culture of Confusion and how it has
affected our society, Abdu Murray seeks to awaken Westerners to the
plight we find ourselves in. He also challenges Christians to consider how
they have played a part in fostering the Culture of Confusion through bad
arguments, unwise labeling, and emotional attacks.
Available for purchase online at rzim.christianbook.com

RZIM Resources
 Wings To Fly
THEY SWOOPED IN, a rush of wings, whirls,
and whistles. Within a minute, they were
gone. There must have been two
dozen. I’ve not seen a single Cedar
Waxwing since, but the sight some
years ago of black-masked birds
with beaks of berries has stayed
with me. If I knew where to find
these magnificent red-tipped
creatures again, I would rush to
catch a glimpse of them.
Their captivating visitation came to
mind recently while reading of Zacchaeus
in the Gospel of Luke. The name Zacchaeus
means “innocent” or “clean”—and yet his
life up to this point has been seemingly
quite the opposite. While short in stature,
his wealth and power are immense, for he is
a chief tax collector. As such, he is despised.
Zacchaeus not only collects money for the
enemy Rome from his from fellow Jews
but also profits from them by pocketing
his own concocted commissions.
Jesus is passing through Jericho on
his way to Jerusalem, just hours before his
triumphal entry into the city and final
week of his earthly life and ministry.
Zacchaeus has heard about this magnificent
Jesus, and he is determined to catch a
glimpse of him, running as fast as his
stunted legs can fly. Luke writes, “He
wanted to see who Jesus was, but because
he was short he could not see over the
crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a
sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus
was coming that way” (Luke 19:3-4).
Danielle DuRant
Editor
Up in the tree, Zacchaeus is afforded a
bird’s-eye view of Jesus approaching.
The animosity toward this tax
collector is evident: even though he
beats the crowds to Jesus, he still has to
climb a tree in order to see him. He must
have expected to be shoved to the back
once the crowds arrived. A blind beg-
gar sitting by the road faces a similar
plight, and his story immediately
precedes Zacchaeus’s. When he
learns that Jesus is passing by, he cries out,
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Luke tells us that “those who were in front
rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But
he cried out all the more, ‘Son of David,
have mercy on me!’” (see Luke 18:38-39).
One is poor, another powerful. Both
are shunned by their communities—by
people who even try to thwart them from
meeting Jesus. What a tragedy!
But Jesus sees them and stops,
bringing them healing, salvation, and an
invitation to intimacy: “Zacchaeus, hurry
and come down, for I must stay at your
house today” (Luke 19:5). This is the way
of Jesus; “For the Son of Man came to seek
and to save the lost” (verse 10).
And it is the way we are called to
follow as followers of Christ: to love our
neighbors as ourselves, whatever their
place or race, and even to love our enemies.
Only with God’s indwelling Spirit can we
do this; only by his tender mercies and
grace have we been given eyes to see,
hearts to love, and wings to fly.
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [3]
[4] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
 EVERY TRIBE
AND TONGUE By Ravi Zacharias
ifty years ago, Martin Luther King,
F Jr. was assassinated, killed for his
efforts to create a society in which
all people accepted each other as equals.
It was another one of those shots heard
around the world. The path of a fighter
for peace and justice is never smooth.
It is profoundly moving to read how he
struggled with giving up on his ability to
succeed, or for that matter, giving up on
life itself. The nature of his struggle
brings to mind the words of a member of
the British Parliament describing the
battle William Wilberforce waged in
England against slavery: “It was like
pushing back a storm from a raging
Atlantic with a mop and a bucket.”
King’s personality, like many
reformers, was very complex. A reformer’s
task is always bigger than he or she is, and
their opponents can crush them with
©2018 KEN ORVIDAS
taunts and despair. I see our world today
with so much strife everywhere. The
political scene is staggering under the
weight of dissension and disrespect. I
certainly don’t recall seeing it like this
before, even from the time of my youth.
Language and emotions are poison-tipped
to send arrows into the heart of the one
seen as “the enemy.” And those who suf-
fer the most are often those that have the
least with which to fight the oppression.
Racial pain is a deep pain because it
goes to the soul of one’s being. No one has
a choice over one’s birth. To be attacked
with racial prejudice is a form of murder
because you are at risk just by virtue of
your very being. Such a threat brings
together stories of the past, the pain of
the present, and cynicism for any solution
in the future. When confronted with such
an unshakable reality, sadly, it can breed a
prejudice all its own.
I often think of the life of Mahatma
Gandhi and his indefatigable spirit to
fight for the freedom of his people. I was
only two years old he was assassinated. As
a young man, he practiced law in South
Africa and faced much discrimination.
What he saw of racism in those days drove
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [5]
him away from the Christian faith, because
he mistakenly judged a person’s profes-
sion of a faith as being the substance of
that faith. The truth is, you don’t judge a
belief by its abuse. So fortunately, he
later qualified the difference: “I like
their Christ; I don’t like their Christian.”
How ironic that the only message in the
world that frames humanity in God’s
image, takes sin seriously, gives us the
most glorious Scripture on love ever
penned, and from beginning to end is a
message of reconciliation was seen as a
cruel belief because of the way it was
being lived out. Therein lies the tragedy
of racism and the failure of Christendom
to deal with it or to own up to its blunders.
But the truth is that prejudice is
present in virtually every culture. India’s
prejudice didn’t come just from the
British. This is a visibly stratified society
where often the most common reality is
that the common person has no voice.
The caste system has taken a monumen-
tal toll. Prejudice and slavery were not
the localized problem of America. One
wrong word in the Middle East about a
group of people and you can land before
the authorities.
I recall one day in Toronto, along
with my wife, talking to my grand-aunt
who was over 100 years old. I asked her
how it was that though a particular group
of European missionaries led our ancestors
to Jesus, as a family in India we ended up
in a different denomination. She was sur-
prised by my question.
“You are the first one to ever ask me
that question,” she said.
I was even more surprised by her
answer: “The missionaries that led our
forebears to Christ welcomed them to
church, but would not take communion
with Indian believers. In contrast, the
Anglicans did permit that. In fact, your
great-grandfather, who was a lawyer,
fought that discrimination in court.”
Talk about a head-shaker! The terrible
[6] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
reality of prejudice across the centuries
denigrating or differentiating people is a
calamity like unto little else. And it car-
ried over even into the sacred expression
of Holy Communion. Evidently, for some,
even God would not open his sacred rite
to both races on equal footing. How irra-
tional to preach the Cross but close the
door to remembering it together. Such are
the vagaries of human prejudice.
Thankfully, there has been some
change within this generation of young
people who see the errors of the past. But
in some circles, prejudices still run deep.
Here is the deepest mystery: Jesus
did not say much about what we call
racial prejudice or discrimination, or for
that matter, even slavery. But his stories
were steeped in answers. The Jews had no
dealings with the Samaritans and saw
them as a mongrel race. Jesus shocked
them with the story of the Good Samaritan
that showed up their hypocrisy. That
phrase is now in our vocabulary. The
keepers of the law despised those they
saw as less moral than themselves. Again,
Jesus shocked them with the story of the
prostitute who poured out her alabaster
ointment on the Savior’s feet. Her story is
told wherever the gospel is preached. The
Israelites of old hated the Roman’s right
to force them to carry his armaments
for one mile. Jesus spoke of walking the
second mile. That, too, is a phrase we use
today. When Paul spoke of being called to
the Gentiles, the mob wanted to kill him.
But the gospel was still preached to the
whole world.
What does all this say? That racial
prejudice and other prejudices are not
new. Prejudice has existed from the time
of the first family when grace misunder-
stood led to murder.
THE REAL PR OBLEM
So where do we turn? I watch children
and learn so much from them. Our grand-
son Jude was recently taught in school
about slavery. It really shook him. He is
only six years old. He came back home,
his eyes filled with tears, and told his
mother how hurt he was to hear what
some had done to others. So my daughter
Naomi made sure he was told of the calling
of Martin Luther King, Jr., and he started
to read about him and about others who
have fought that scourge.
Jude had a startling question. He
Of all people in the world,
the Christian should lead
the way in loving people of
all nations because we all
are ultimately created in
God’s image.
has a friend that comes from a different
part of the world, and Jude asked, “Do
you think my friend might face prejudice
in life?”
My daughter asked him why he
asked that. This is exactly what he said:
“My hypothesis is that if a person wants
to dislike you, they will find some reason
to do that.”
A six-year-old using the word
“hypothesis” gets your attention. But what
is more profound is that his hypothesis
was right because the human heart is
wrong. Racial prejudice is not the prob-
lem. Racial prejudice is the symptom that
reveals the real problem. We all think we
are superior in some way to others, and
we find reasons to dislike certain others.
If in our hearts we spurn somebody, the
mind will find myriad reasons to justify
that cancer of the soul.
Of all people in the world, the
Christian should lead the way in loving
people of all nations because we all are
ultimately created in God’s image. Our
color does not define us. Our social stature
doesn’t define us. Our soul defines us in
that we are infused by God’s value in us, and
we love because we are first loved by God,
who is Spirit. Until the day dawns when
we see everyone as having intrinsic soul
worth, we will judge people by extrinsic
appearances—yes, by color or some other
distinction. How blind can we be?
There is a story in the Bible that talks
of alienation and reconciliation. Jacob
had betrayed his brother,
Esau, when he stole the
father’s blessing by pretend-
ing to be who he was not.
But God pursued Jacob until
Jacob pleaded for God’s
blessing.
“What is your name?’
asked God.
Jacob knew he had
been cornered. There’s the
application that stings. You
see, prejudice is not so much a wrong
view of someone else as much as it is a
wrong view of oneself. We are not who we
think we are, as superior to others.
Having finally seen himself as God
saw him, Jacob planned to meet with
Esau, fearing the worst. When the moment
of meeting came, God had already prepared
Esau’s heart to forgive. Esau embraced his
brother and in response Jacob said, “I
have seen your face, which is like seeing
the face of God, and you have accepted
me” (Genesis 33:10).
What an incredible statement! Oh,
the years of suffering and alienation that
ensue when you make a discovery that
should have been made earlier! The truth
is that God has to work in the heart of the
wrongdoer as well as in the heart of the
one who has been wronged. Until then,
the logic of unforgiveness will wreak
havoc. That is the world in which we live.
The logic of revenge.
The German reformer Martin Luther
was religious but almost “hated God”
because he felt he could never be accepted
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [7]
before Him. It dawned on him one day
that faith, righteousness, and grace are
gifts to be received and cannot be earned
or worked for. The reformer was trans-
formed first before he could carry the
message of grace to others. Oh, that we
might learn this! What a burden is lifted!
Salvation is God’s gift. We cannot earn it.
Forgiveness is a gift. We do not merit that
pardon. Receiving it is to truly understand
God’s love.
Fifty years after Martin Luther King,
Jr., America is still struggling with these
matters because we have forgotten what
really matters in life. In his acceptance
speech when he received the Nobel Peace
Prize, Dr. King said, “Unarmed truth and
unconditional love will have the final word
in reality.”
Think of that statement. Think again.
What are we teaching in our schools?
That science will save us. Science is the
queen of the disciplines. Or, our laws will
save us. Really? Which science tells us
that truth and love are the answers? That
does not come from matter. That comes
from the soul. We are already a nation of
laws. What laws have changed your heart?
The mirror can tell you that your face is
dirty, but the mirror will not wash your
face. The law can tell you that you are an
outlaw. But the law will not help your
heart love the law.
This is the time to go to the ultimate
heart surgeon who will help us love with
his love. It’s time to turn from hate to
love. Time to turn from prejudice to an
embrace. Time to admit we are proud and
wrong-headed. Time to see in each other
the face of God. That can only happen
when we are first reconciled to God. Then
we can be reconciled with one another.
Until then, the one from whom we
have not sought forgiveness or that we have
not forgiven will control us, and we move
into the vortex of the worst kind of slavery,
a prison of hate, a cloud of amnesia, or the
domination of a thirst for revenge.
[8] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
That’s why Jesus did not deal with
the symptom. He dealt with the source. Our
hearts need to receive God’s forgiveness,
and then we can become instruments of
true reconciliation. When you find your true
master, you find we are all slaves to God,
because that is the ultimate freedom. Ah!
What a Master we have, who gave himself
for us, who came to earth as a servant so
that we might know we are destined for a
kingdom. As C.S. Lewis observed, “His
compulsion is our liberation.”1
The hymn writer John Oxenham
said it well:
In Christ there is no east or west,
in him no south or north,
but one great fellowship of love
throughout the whole wide earth.
In Christ shall true hearts everywhere
their high communion find;
his service is the golden cord
close-binding humankind.
Join hands, disciples of the faith,
Whate’er your race may be.
All children of the living God
are surely kin to me.2
So may we follow the call of another
hymn writer:
Let every tongue and every tribe
responsive to his call,
to him all majesty ascribe,
and crown him Lord of all. 3
Ravi Zacharias is Founder and President
of Ravi Zacharias International
Ministries in Alpharetta, GA.
1
C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My
Early Life (New York: HarperOne, 2017), 280.
2
John Oxenham, “In Christ There Is No East
or West” (1908).
3
John Perronet, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’
Name” (1780).
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IN THIS
HOUSE
By Margaret Manning Shull
As a young girl, I had the unique opportu-
nity to travel to South Africa. We stayed
for a month in December when I was just
five years old. My father’s parents and sis-
ter had immigrated to South Africa from
Britain, and it was a rare opportunity to
travel to see them. I can still remember the
excitement of climbing into the Pan Am jet
that would take me to what was surely a
land full of adventure. The year was 1971.
Never in my young life had I experi-
enced a place so unlike anything I knew.
Growing up in the suburban Midwest of
the United States, my world was filled with
snow and concrete, with winters lasting
long into April with rows and rows of
houses lined with sidewalks. South Africa,
by contrast, was a land of bright sunshine,
[10] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
vast horizons, beautiful ocean beaches,
rugged mountains, and diverse land-
scapes—from the dusty Kalahari Desert
to the mountainous coast of Cape Town.
Every place was a startling, new discovery
of sights, smells, and experiences.
One such experience remains with
©2018 [KEN ORVIDAS] C/O THEISPOT.COM
me to this day. Thirsty after an afternoon
at a trampoline park with my South
African cousins, we went in search of
public drinking fountains. Seeing just such
an area not too far beyond where my tired
legs could carry me, I ran ahead of the oth-
ers in order to quench my thirst. Just as
I leaned over to drink, a hand grabbed my
shoulder and a loud, gruff voice told me
not to drink from that fountain. It was for
“coloreds” only.
This was the first time, as I reflect
back on the event, that my skin color
determined my standing in relation to oth-
ers. I was too young and too thirsty to
notice the posted placards on the foun-
tains, or, sadly, to notice that there were
only whites on all of the beaches where we
frolicked as a family. Moreover, there were
only white diners in the restaurants where
we ate, and only whites in most of the
areas and venues we visited. In fact, there
were posted designations for “whites”
and “coloreds” at all the public places
where the two groups might meet. I didn’t
understand that apartheid, at that time,
was the national policy.
For all the contrasts, here was a simi-
larity between my suburban childhood and
my visit to South Africa. Where I grew up,
there were only two children of color in
my elementary school and one was of
Asian heritage. I do not remember any
African Americans in the suburban neigh-
borhoods in which I grew up, and there
was no racial diversity in my church. This
segregation was far less obvious to me
than the intentional policies that made up
the apartheid system. Yet, hidden or inten-
tional, the effects of a racist system were
the same. How could I not conclude, as a
young girl, that race determined where
one lived, went to school, or worshipped?
 A seminary internship working with
young children in Atlanta, Georgia, afford-
ed me an alternative experience. I would
be the only white person in my internship.
I was surprised at how readily boundaries
seemed to give way to acceptance. I didn’t
seem to be as strange to them as they
might have been had they visited me in the
suburbs of my childhood. Sharing the
same curly hair prompted one young girl
to ask me if I was a “light-skinned black.”
I felt honored that racial differences were
not the only thing she saw.
Yet, I would have been blind not to
notice that the opportunities afforded to
me simply were not available in this place.
And while other principalities conspired
to decrease opportunity, I knew then that
much of what I took for granted did not
exist for these young children. A simple,
nutritious breakfast—always available to
me—consisted of a soda or a bag of tostada
chips from the local Taco Bell for many of
the kids I met here.
All these experiences—from the sub-
urbs to South Africa to the urban South—
reveal aspects of the human tendency to
separate and divide. Yet, an alternative
narrative is presented in the Christian
gospel. The redemption offered in the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus is univer-
sally available. The reconciling work of
Jesus Christ did not recognize the typical
categories of human division and power
but reached out to Jew and Greek, male
and female, bound and free persons. The
apostle Paul reminded the Ephesians that
they “were at that time separate from
Christ, excluded… and strangers to the
covenants of promise…. But now in Christ
Jesus you who were formerly far off have
been brought near…. For Jesus is our
peace, who made both groups into one,
and broke down the dividing wall.”1
The Scriptures challenge our human
tendency to separate, divide, and control,
and invite us to be transformed by the
peace and unity found in Jesus Christ.
But is this just something to hope for in an
as yet unrealized future?
F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela
could not have been more different, but they
worked together to help end apartheid in
South Africa. Even their most significant
differences (which went far beyond the
color of their skin) did not thwart their
work toward a peaceful transition of power
—when most thought bloodshed and vio-
lence would ensue. Both men understood
that unity and peace were not simply a
vision of an other-worldly future, but
something that could be undertaken even
in the very messy, fraught, and difficult
world of the here and now.
“Peace does not fare well where
poverty and deprivation reign,” said de
Klerk. “Peace is gravely threatened by
inter-group fear and envy…. Racial, class,
and religious intolerance and prejudice
are its mortal enemies…. In our quest for
peace we should constantly ask ourselves
what we should do to create conditions in
which peace can prosper.”2
We can look at the world around us
and despair over human differences that
feel insurmountable. There is so much
that can engender cynicism and a sense
of futility. Yet, for those who would seek a
different story, we are invited to a house
where there are no dividing walls that
segregate human beings from each other
and from God. Built upon the foundation
that is Christ Jesus, this house is framed
by restoration and renewal, forgiveness
and reconciliation, generosity and grace,
identity and belonging. In this house, No
one is shut out and all may come in.
Margaret Manning Shull is an adjunct
member of the speaking and writing team
at RZIM in Bellingham, Washington.
1
2
Ephesians 2:12-14.
F. W. de Klerk, Acceptance and Nobel Lecture,
Editor Tore Frängsmyr, (Nobel Foundation),
Stockholm, 1994, https://www.nobelprize.org
/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1993/klerk-
lecture_en.html.
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [11]
[12] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
 T
here’s an Arabic saying
that often makes me
smile: “Kulna fil hawa
sawa.” It literally means
“We’re all in the same
air,” roughly conveying
the same idea as the
English saying, “We’re all in the same
boat.” But Arabic sayings tend to have

“US” zestier connotations than their Western

counterparts. “Kulna fil hawa sawa” real-
ly conveys the message, “We’re all in the
same stink,” particularly the stink of the
human condition. It’s a pungent reminder

VERSUS
that all of us—yes, all of us including
Christians—have contributed to the
Culture of Confusion’s stench.
In mid-2015, my news and social
media feeds were abuzz with urgent-
seeming headlines bemoaning, “It’s

“THEM”
By Abdu Murray
Already Starting!” and “That Didn’t Take
Long!” The articles insinuated that an
LGBT activist leveraged the United States
Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v.
Hodges legalizing same-sex marriage to
file a federal lawsuit to outlaw the Bible
as hate speech.
Just three minutes of investigation
revealed this narrative was bogus—and
obviously so. Yes, a gay man filed a lawsuit
in a Michigan federal court1 against two
Christian publishers. But he did not seek
to have the Bible “banned.” He sought
money for emotional distress, claiming the
publishers had mistranslated the Bible to
be unfavorable to homosexuals. And he
©2018 [GREG MABLY] C/O THEISPOT.COM

didn’t file his lawsuit after the Obergefell

decision. He filed it in 2008—seven years
before the Supreme Court’s ruling. Not
only that, but the lawsuit was dismissed
almost as soon as it was filed. The judge, a
principled jurist I had the privilege of
appearing before as an attorney, dismissed
the case because it had no basis in the law
and was “largely incomprehensible.”

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [13]

 In less time than a TV commercial
break, I learned that this alarmist story
was false. And yet so many people were
quick to believe an obviously untrue story
and propel it to viral status. The irony
saddened me because some of those who
perpetuated the falsehood professed to
follow Jesus, who claimed to be the very
embodiment of truth (John 14:6). Whether
the story was propagated by those who
knew it was false or by those who were
duped into believing it was true, the fact
remains that Christians should have
behaved differently. A common phrase
in Christian circles is that the church is
supposed to be “in but not of” the broader
culture. In other words, Christians are to
engage with the culture but not be unduly
influenced by it. But so pervasive and
seductive is the post-truth mindset that
the church, at least to some degree, has
become in and of the Culture of Confusion.
Part of this behavior is a reaction to
society’s growing perception of Christians
as enemies of progress and freedom. Some
Christians believe that battle lines have
been drawn, which is why they get seduced
into believing and spreading false stories
about people they see to be the enemy.
That’s what makes the seductions of a post-
truth Culture of Confusion all the more
insidious. It plays on partial truths to goad
us into believing and spreading untruths.
This is doubly sad because when the
church has doubled down on its commit-
ment to truth, especially in the face of
opposition, it has flourished, brought
credibility to the gospel, and benefited
society. For Christians, now is not the
time to be seduced into making “them”
look as bad as possible while making “us”
look as sympathetic as possible. Now is
the time for compassionate, yet uncom-
promisingly expressed, truth. If the
church’s caving to the post-truth mindset
has contributed to the larger cultural
problem, then perhaps Christians’ redis-
covered commitment to the truth can
lead us back to the solution.
[14] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
FIXING WHAT BUGS US
Not long ago I spoke at a major university
in Canada on the topic “Disagreeing Without
Being Disagreeable.” A member of the
audience took to the microphone to pose
an interesting question. “I’m a software
engineer,” he began. “Once we’ve designed
the software, we test it for things that bug
us about it. Not just glitches, but things
about the software we personally don’t
like. If you were to do the same test on
the church, what would bug you about it?”
The audience nervously laughed at
the hot-seat question. How would I, as
someone who’s spoken at many churches
around the world, respond? While I think
the church is doing great things locally
and across the world, there are things
that could use changing.2 But first we
have to understand what we’re hoping to
debug when we reference “the church.”
Consider the fact that many people today,
still the vast majority in the United
States, call themselves Christians. But
donning a label doesn’t equate to being
the genuine article. Peering behind the
veils, we see that only three out of ten
Americans are practicing Christians,
meaning that Christian living, Bible read-
ing, and regular church attendance are
important to their lives.3 And given that
America is still more religious than most
European countries, Australia, or Canada,
it’s safe to say that an even smaller per-
centage of people in Western countries
are practicing Christians. “Legacy
Christians,” as Dave Kinnaman and Gabe
Lyons call them, are those for whom
Christianity is “background noise that
can safely be ignored.”4 While “three out
of four U.S. adults have some Christian
background . . . about three in five
American Christians are largely inactive
in their faith.”5 Given these numbers, the
sensationalistic or false stories purveyed
in the trending social media posts come
largely—but not solely—from people for
whom being Christian is little more than
 Too often, Christians
conveniently forget the
fact that like everyone
else, they need a Savior.

When Christians forget

that, they create an “us
versus them” paradigm
leading to Christians
hungrily gobbling up
and passing along iffy
©2018 [GREG MABLY] C/O THEISPOT.COM

articles about how awful

“they” are without a
moment’s pause.

JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [15]

a moniker that distinguishes them from
politically left-leaning people.
Who I want to address here are
practicing Christians— men and women
for whom Christianity is a way of life, reg-
ular church attendance is their practice,
and devotion to Jesus is their ultimate
aim. When I refer to the church going for-
ward, that is who I mean. Although prac-
ticing Christians are less influenced by
the Culture of Confusion, the influence is
significant enough that we have to address
it. So to root out the bugs, we have to
start there.
SEDUCTION IN
TWO -PART HARMONY
The church has succumbed to post-truth’s
expression in two seemingly contrary
ways. On one hand, Christians have com-
promised the clarity of Scripture for the
sake of acceptance and to avoid conflict.
On the other hand, Christians have
indulged the cultural practice of vilifying
those with whom they disagree. These
two seductions seem contradictory, but
when they work together, they harmonize
in a grisly dirge.
Let’s address the first post-truth
seduction: making the gospel pill easier to
swallow to avoid uncomfortable discus-
sions with non-Christians and difficult
Bible passages that challenge our behav-
ioral preferences. In our effort to be liked,
Jesus’s famous statement, “Judge not lest
ye be judged,” is often misquoted. Many,
including those in the church, interpret
this passage to mean that Jesus shunned
moral judgment. And, so the argument
goes, Christians have no place judging the
actions of others in the broader culture.
It’s quite telling that so few people quote
the entire context of Jesus’s words. The
full passage reads:
“Judge not, that you be not judged.
For with the judgment you pronounce
you will be judged, and with the measure
you use it will be measured to you. Why
[16] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
do you see the speck that is in your broth-
er’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in
your own eye? Or how can you say to your
brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of
your eye,’ when there is the log in your
own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log
out of your own eye, and then you will
see clearly to take the speck out of your
brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:1–5).
It’s worth pausing for a moment to
see just how Jesus’s words actually express
a message opposite to what so many want
him to have expressed. Jesus says that
when we remove the log from our own
eye, we will see clearly how to judge our
brother’s actions. Applied today, if the
church gets the post-truth speck out of
its own eye, it can bring clarity to a world
of confusion. In the full context, we see
that Jesus is saying that when we judge,
it is to be for the improvement of others,
not their condemnation.
So why do so many people, including
Christians, misapply Jesus’s statements
as a blanket prohibition against all judg-
ment? There are as many reasons as there
are people who do so. One common
reason is that Christians want to appear
tolerant and likable, especially in a time
when tolerance—though woefully misde-
fined—is a chief virtue. Put plainly,
many Christians have bought into what
Kinnaman and Lyons call “the new moral
code” that people should not criticize
someone else’s life choices. Can we see the
seduction playing out right before our
eyes? The post-truth Culture of Confusion
elevates preferences and feelings over
facts and truth. And by elevating our pref-
erences to be liked and feel accepted,
Christians have misapplied the plain
truth of Jesus’s words and exchanged
them for pleasant cultural comforts.
This brings to mind Dallas Willard’s apt
assessment of the spiritual landscape, in
which “most of what Americans do in
their religion now is done at the behest of
feelings. . . . The quest for pleasure takes
over the house of God.”6 Willard’s indict-
ment is true for some of us all of the time.
And it is true for all of us at least some of
the time.
The second seduction—that of using
the truths of Scripture to bludgeon out-
siders—brings a pendular swing of over-
correcting our desire to be liked. Too
often, Christians conveniently forget the
fact that like everyone else, they need a
Savior. When Christians forget that, they
create an “us versus them” paradigm
leading to Christians hungrily gobbling
up and passing along iffy articles about
how awful “they” are without a moment’s
pause. Worse yet, Christians may make
churches so unwelcoming that they repel
the very people who could benefit from
what Jesus has to offer. Truth is once
again sacrificed, but this time at the altar
of a self-righteous higher agenda to stand
up to “them.” Fair or not, people judge the
credibility of a message by the integrity of
the messenger. If the gospel message of
compassion, forgiveness, and reconcilia-
tion is proclaimed by those who seem to
have none of those qualities, it’s hard to
see how the broader culture’s response
can be anything but concomitant dismay
and anger.
DANCING TO A DIFFERENT TUNE
The way forward tempers both our need to
be liked and the importance of addressing
detrimental ideas and behaviors. A story in
Marie Chapian’s book Of Whom the World
Was Not Worthy comes to mind. She
recounts the story of Jakob, a missionary
to the former Yugoslavia, who encounters
Cimmerman, a farmer who had lost much
to the country’s rampant violence and
corruption. When Jakob tried to share the
gospel message with him, Cimmerman
would have none of it. Angered by the
clergy’s complicity in the ugliness,
Cimmerman refused to hear Jakob out.
“Those men of the cloth tortured and
killed my own nephew before my eyes,” he
spewed. “I saw him die in his own blood,
and then I watched the killers calmly gen-
uflect before the main altar of the church,
cross themselves with holy water, and a
few moments later their forks scraped
their plates as they ate their supper in the
parish house.”7 Obviously, Cimmerman’s
reaction had nothing to do with the gospel
message’s truth or falsity. Church corrup-
tion does not change the facts of Jesus’s
death and resurrection. But the point is
this: Cimmerman dismissed the message
(indeed, he dismissed Christ himself )
based on his experiences with those who
claimed to believe the message.
Today’s Cimmermans distrust
Christians as ultraconservative, hypocrit-
ical judging exclusivists. That is, of
course, a sweeping and unfair characteri-
zation. Nevertheless, that perception per-
sists and even grows. The broader culture
hears Christians lament the erosion of
marriage while believing that Christians
divorce at the same rate as non-Christians.
(They do not, but that is a common mis-
perception.)8 Non-Christians see Christians
supporting conservative political leaders
regardless of their sometimes serious
moral failings, yet condemning liberal
leaders for those same failings. While I
think this mischaracterizes most genuine
Christians, there are those louder-than-
normal voices within the church who
judge with unmitigated bias and give full
vent to their anger at outsiders, “those
people,” without reflecting on their own sin.
The church can recapture its posi-
tive cultural influence if it rekindles its
passion for the principles that revolution-
ized the world so long ago. In sharp con-
trast to our current adversarial attitudes,
Jesus told us to love our enemies and to
pray for those who persecute us
(Matthew 5:44). Christians are to be “the
salt of the earth” and “the light of the
world” (Matthew 5:13–14). But if the
church sees everyone as enemies to be
vanquished, it will lose its savor and its
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [17]
brightness. What we need is neither com-
placency nor indignation. What we need
is wisdom.
A WISE TEMPERAMENT
The book of Proverbs provides a template
for how Christians can once again be as
savory as salt and illuminating as light in a
bitter and dark time. If there is a word
other than confused to describe the current
cultural mood, it has
to be angry. From
protests that flare up
at a moment’s notice
to knee-jerk branding
others with epithets,
we seem to have lost
our ability to be civil
to one another in the
thick of debate. And
there seem to be fewer and fewer excep-
tions in either secular or religious circles.
And yet, thankfully, I experienced some
refreshing exceptions recently.
I was blessed with the opportunity
to speak at an open forum alongside Ravi
Zacharias at my alma mater, the
University of Michigan, on the topic
“What Does It Mean To Be Human?”
Every one of the 3,500 seats at Hill
Auditorium was filled by atheists, agnos-
tics, Christians, and people from different
religious faiths. During the question-and-
answer period, an erudite young man
identifying himself as an atheist opened
his question with an interesting com-
ment: “I first want to thank the university
for allowing this event to happen on cam-
pus so that we can hear and interact with
differing viewpoints. I didn’t see any cars
on fire or broken windows.” Of course, he
was referring to recent incidents at the
University of California at Berkeley
where protestors ignited fires and dam-
aged property in reaction to a lightning
rod speaker who had come to that cam-
pus. In the weeks surrounding the
Berkeley incident, the news was awash
[18] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
with similar stories at other prestigious
universities. In March 2017, students at
Middlebury College in Vermont protested
a speech by controversial scholar Charles
Murray. The protest erupted into physical
assaults against both Murray and a
Middlebury faculty member, leaving her
with a twisted neck and a visit to the ER.
The stunning applicability of ages-
old biblical wisdom shows how holy writ
remains eternally
contemporary. In
Proverbs 29, Solomon
wrote that “Scoffers
set a city aflame, but
the wise turn away
wrath. . . . A fool gives
full vent to [anger],
but [the] wise …
quietly holds it
back” (Proverbs 29:8, 11). At Berkeley,
Middlebury College, and other similar
institutions, some protesters gave full
vent to their anger, yet those protests
could have happened without mayhem
and violence.
Contrast has a way of clarifying
things, as author Os Guinness would say.
Our open forum at the University of
Michigan had its share of challenging
questions. In fact, most of the questions
came from skeptics. The evening was lively,
yet civil. The students didn’t shut us
down; they engaged with ideas they may
not have agreed with. And thankfully Ravi
and I were able to articulate our Christian
positions on life’s biggest questions with-
out compromise, all the while holding
each questioner’s dignity as sacrosanct.
Happily, that same civility carried over
to an even bigger crowd the next day at
Michigan State University and again the
following week at Indiana University. We
were able to disagree because we intend-
ed to do so agreeably. In the days follow-
ing those events, we had the pleasure of
seeing some who started out disagreeing
end up agreeing and embracing the
gospel. Weeks before taking the podiums
at those schools, we prayed specifically
for ears to be sensitive, tongues to be
judicious, and hearts to be compassion-
ate. Again, in the wise words of Solomon,
“Whoever restrains his words has knowl-
edge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man
of understanding” (Proverbs 17:27).
Let’s pause once more for self-
assessment. Lest Christians think that
Solomon’s wisdom applies only to others,
we must remember that in the Culture of
Confusion, we are as susceptible to the
kind of anger that erupted at Berkeley,
Middlebury, and elsewhere. As I write
this, I’ve just read a message from a
Christian friend lamenting how Christians
cast aside Solomon’s advice and accosted
both him and a Muslim for just having a
calm conversation about their different
religious beliefs. The group of Christians
began yelling at the Muslim for being a
“liar” and my friend for being a “charlatan”
just because he refused to polemicize the
discussion. In the Culture of Confusion,
it’s seductively easy for any one of us to
turn civility into a vice.
What a contrast to the attitude the
apostle Paul passed down to his protégé
Titus. “Remind them . . . to speak evil of
no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle,
and to show perfect courtesy toward all
people” (Titus 3:1–2). Paul wasn’t against
engaging in reasoned argument, but he
was against quarreling, especially the
kind that results in vilifying someone
else. Why is it so important for Christians
to speak evil of no one (yes, no one) and to
show perfect courtesy toward all people
(yes, all people)? Because the gospel mes-
sage teaches that all of us are broken peo-
ple, given to sin, anger, and even hatred.
Those who claim allegiance to Christ are
to be washed of such things, not by their
own goodness, but by God’s mercy and
grace. As Paul continues, “For we our-
selves were once foolish, disobedient,
led astray, slaves to various passions and
pleasures, passing our days in malice
and envy, hated by others and hating one
another” (v. 3).
One wonders if the people who
accosted my friend and the Muslim he
was chatting with had taken time to
reflect on Paul’s words before giving full
vent to their anger. What result did they
expect? Did they expect the Muslim to
suddenly drop all of his deeply held con-
victions because the decibel level had
increased? Or, more likely, did they
expect to set the situation aflame and
bring heat, not light? Thankfully, my
friend stayed in the conversation and
nurtured his friendship with the Muslim.
It is when we have a cool spirit, turn away
wrath, and withhold our anger that our
words—the message of the gospel of peace
and clarity— can be heard. Students heard
the gospel at the universities we visited
because we were able to express our con-
victions without degrading anyone. And,
thankfully, my friend was able to share his
beliefs because he saw a person, not a target.
With this kind of renewal and regeneration,
Christians can—and should—speak with
conviction and courage in the face of
opposition, but we must do so in a way
that recognizes that “we” were once—and
in some ways still are—“them.”
WISE WORDS
I often remind myself of another popular
saying: “It is better to remain silent and be
thought a fool than to open your mouth
and remove all doubt.” That contemporary
idiom is a paraphrase of Solomon’s cen-
turies-old advice: “The tongue of the wise
commends knowledge, but the mouths of
fools pour out folly” (Proverbs 15:2).
Today it’s not only incredibly easy to
broadcast our opinions or spread dubious
stories, it’s also fashionable to do so hastily.
With the advent of YouTube, Twitter,
Facebook (a digital triumvirate Conan
O’Brien has called “YouTwitFace”), and
other social media platforms, everyone
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [19]
has become a journalist. But few of us
take the time to verify our sources. This
is true of the wider culture and sadly of
Christians as well. Recall the Bible law-
suit discussed above. That was fake news,
plain and simple, propagated at a break-
neck pace by those bearing the name
Christian. When we hear the term “the
speed of light,” we think of the fastest
something can travel. But in the social
media age, perhaps we should change the
phrase to “the speed of lies.”
Thankfully, there are many
Christians who take great pains to share
accurate stories and engage honestly with
others. When they do, they emulate
another biblical proverb: “One who walks
in integrity will be safe, but whoever fol-
lows crooked ways will fall into the Pit”
(Proverbs 28:18, NRSV). Integrity is the
key word here, and we desperately need
more of it. Integrity takes years to build
and only moments to destroy. With all of
the misinformation and disinformation, it
would be easy to say that we should aban-
don the whole enterprise of social media
engagement. Judging by the hunched
gazes I observe at airports, though, social
media use doesn’t appear to be fading. If
Christians are to meaningfully contribute
to the cultural conversation through social
media, they must do so with integrity.9
Now the temptation is to quickly spread
stories that uphold Christian views and
values (perhaps even with some exaggera-
tions) because “the other side” allegedly
spreads misinformation so quickly that
we have to level the playing field regard-
less of which “side” we’re on. That tactic is
emblematic of what the post-truth Culture
of Confusion is all about. It must not be
the church’s teacher.
When our digital or verbal discussions
lack integrity, there are consequences
beyond mere misinformation. The shrap-
nel of our hasty and angry explosions
wound real people. Christian social com-
mentator Ed Stetzer called his fellow
[20] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
Christians to account for perpetuating a
debunked conspiracy theory about the
tragic death of Seth Rich, who once
worked for the Democratic National
Committee.10 The barrage of conspiracy
theories that followed his murder forced
Seth Rich’s parents to relive the tragedy.
In their anguished words, “With every
conspiratorial flare-up, we are forced to
relive Seth’s murder and a small piece of
us dies as more of Seth’s memory is torn
away from us.”11
It’s a deep enough wound to bury
your child. To have your memories of him
stripped of sentimentality because of
political machinations inflicts a deeper
wound yet. Regardless of your politics or
your religion, the Rich family’s waking
nightmare ought to give us pause before
we carelessly click “share” even one more
time. Indeed, Jesus’s words on this point
are direct and convicting: “On the day of
judgment you will have to give an account
for every careless word you utter; for by
your words you will be justified, and by
your words you will be condemned”
(Matthew 12:36–37 NRSV).
Those should be soul-shuddering
words for followers of Christ. Words are
meant to convey truth and bring life, not
peddle falsehood or foster pain. That’s
why God judges careless words so severe-
ly. In Christ, God himself is the Word
made flesh (John 1:1, 14). If Christians are
his ambassadors, then they are called to
carefully choose their words. Do our
words convey truth? Do they convey life?
Only then will our words be wise and
clear in a Culture of Confusion.
Anger isn’t necessarily opposed to
wise and compassionate words. When
exercised with wisdom and restraint,
anger can lead to positive change. Greed,
racial discrimination, sexual harassment,
and other injustices ought to anger us.
But may I say that anger, even if legitimate,
can become sinful if unchecked by godly
love for others and for the truth? Anger—
even when directed at the appropriate
things—can be sinful if it causes us to
sacrifice clarity and truth for the sake of
self-vindication. Susanna Wesley, famed
preacher John Wesley’s mother, wisely
taught her children about sin’s invidious
creep into even our most legitimate moti-
vations: “Whatever weakens your reason,
impairs the tenderness of your conscience,
obscures your sense of God, or takes off
your relish of spiritual things: in short,
whatever increases the strength and
authority of your body over your mind,
that thing is sin to you, however innocent
it may be in itself.”12
We would do well to heed her words.
Our indignation over the deterioration of
the culture may be legitimate, but it can
lead to sinful bitterness. Our anger over
sickness, poverty, and moral decay may
lead us to act, but it can also ensnare us
into caring more about causes than about
the people those causes were meant to
help. That’s the fundamental danger
inherent in failing to wisely use words.
When we dance with the post-truth
Culture of Confusion, the culture doesn’t
change. It changes us, and not for the
better. When we are so eager to believe
the worst about others, we bring out the
worst in ourselves. C. S. Lewis warned us
against letting that darkness creep in:
Suppose one reads a story of filthy
atrocities in the paper. Then suppose
that something turns up suggesting
that the story might not be quite
true, or not quite so bad as it was
made out. Is one’s first feeling,
“Thank God, even they aren’t quite
so bad as that,” or is it a feeling of
disappointment, and even a determi-
nation to cling to the first story for
the sheer pleasure of thinking your
enemies are as bad as possible? If it
is the second then it is, I am afraid,
the first step in a process which, if
followed to the end, will make us
into devils.13
We may see ourselves reflected
in Lewis’s words more than we care to.
May we rise above such heart-clouding
cynicism. May the church have a wise
temperament that leads to wise words
saturated with integrity and tempered
with grace. And may those wise words
lead to wise actions.
WISE ACTIONS
A central Christian principle is that all
people are made in the image of God.
Accordingly, all people must be treated
with dignity and respect even (especially)
when their ideas or behaviors challenge us
or must be challenged by us. In Jesus’s day,
a teacher of the law challenged him to
identify which commandment was the
greatest. “You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind. This is the great
and first commandment.” He continued,
“And a second is like it: You shall love your
neighbor as yourself. On these two com-
mandments depend all the Law and the
Prophets” (Matthew 22:37–40). Jesus
emphasized loving God and loving the
people he created.
It’s fascinating that Jesus paired
the command to love people with the
command to love God. The legal scholars
of his day would have thought this to be a
blasphemous elevation of humanity. But
Jesus did so because the person challeng-
ing him was a Pharisee, one who had
dedicated his life to following all 613 laws
in the Torah, but who had forgotten about
caring for others in the process. In other
words, in his zeal to express his love of
God, he failed to love people. And in doing
so, he actually failed to truly love God.
One cannot love God but fail to love the
people he created. That doesn’t require
unconditional agreement or affirmation
with everything a person believes or does.
But it does entail compassion for that
person. That love has motivated
Christians historically. Paul Lee Tan
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [21]
expressed that “a Christian is a mind
through which Christ thinks, a heart
through which Christ loves, a mouth
through which Christ speaks, a hand
through which Christ helps.”14 In the days
of the Roman Empire, both before and
after Emperor Constantine’s conversion,
Christians founded hospitals to care for
all the people who needed help. And it
was Christians, suffering under tremen-
dous persecution in the Roman Empire,
who aided the Roman pagans and bound
their wounds nevertheless. As David
Bentley Hart explains, “Even the
[pagan] emperor Julian, who was all too
conscious of the hypocrisies of which
Christians are capable, was forced to
lament, in a letter to a pagan priest, ‘It is a
disgrace that these impious Galileans care
not only for their own poor but for ours as
well.’”15 From the second century through
the fourteenth and beyond, Christians
rushed into plague-infected areas to aid
the sick and dying while others fled,
sometimes dying from the plague them-
selves. It was Christians who led the
charge in England and the United States
to end the vile slave trade.
Mark Twain is credited as saying,
“History doesn’t repeat, but it sure does
rhyme.” Today, although there are good
secular and non-Christian organizations
making a difference, Christians often still
lead the way. From starting universities
like Harvard, Oxford, and others to
founding hospitals, to caring for the sick
in Ebola-stricken West Africa only to con-
tract Ebola themselves, those Christians
whose actions are consistent with their
words are helping to change the hearts of
the very people who once opposed them.
The coupling of wise words and wise
actions doesn’t just get things done, it
gets things— and people—changed.
Matthew Parris, the well-known atheist,
describes how the gospel message out-
paces secular efforts to change the des-
perate situation in his African homeland.
[22] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
In an article entitled “As an Atheist, I
Truly Believe Africa Needs God,” Parris
wrote that secular “education and training
alone will not do. In Africa, Christianity
changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiri-
tual transformation. The rebirth is real.
The change is good.”16
Pause for a moment on the paradox-
ical depth of Parris’s carefully chosen
words. He’s saying the Christian message
has made the difference in Africa. That
message is at once about the depravity of
every human heart and the dignity of
every human being. History indeed has
rhymed. And when the gospel is the cen-
tral chorus, the melody can be beautiful.
WEARING THE TRUTH AS A COAT
And so we return to Jakob and Cimmer-
man. Jakob had tried to share the gospel
with Cimmerman, and Cimmerman
resisted by pointing out that the corrupt
church leaders wore their fancy clothes
and holy garments to conceal the filthiness
of their hearts.
Jakob posed a question to the
embittered Cimmerman. He asked
Cimmerman to suppose that someone
had stolen his coat and boots and then
robbed someone. What would
Cimmerman say when the authorities
came to arrest him as the misidentified
perpetrator because the robber wore his
stolen coat? Obviously, he would say that
someone had stolen his coat, pretending
to be him. Still unmoved, Cimmerman
replied, “I do not believe in the name of
your God.”
In the ensuing year, Jakob cultivated
a friendship with Cimmerman. Cracks
formed in Cimmerman’s stony veneer.
He not only heard Jakob’s words but saw
his temperament and benefited from
his kindness. One day, looking at his
friend through tearful eyes, Cimmerman
expressed his newfound love of Jesus. He
told Jakob, “You wear his coat well.”17
 The post-truth Culture of Confusion
is angry at Christians and rejects the mes-
sage we carry. We must honestly assess
our part in perpetuating the confusion
and fomenting the anger. Centuries after
Solomon, the apostle Paul wrote that
when Christians encounter non-Christians,
we are to be wise. “Let your speech always
be gracious, seasoned with salt,” Paul tells
us, “so that you may know how you ought
to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6).
Notice that Paul didn’t say that we are to
answer each question, challenge, contro-
versy, or political issue. We are to answer
people. Questions and controversies don’t
need answers. People do.
The confusion and anger swirling
about can be daunting. But if we have
integrity and courage, we can change per-
ceptions of the church and the gospel it
carries. Integrity is the currency of truth.
Courage is its backbone. When we adopt
both, and perhaps only then, can the
church wear Jesus’ coat well for all to see.
Abdu Murray is North American Director
at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
Adapted from Saving Truth by Abdu
Murray. Copyright © 2018 by Abdu H.
Murray. Used by permission of Zondervan.
www.zondervan.com.
1
See Fowler v. Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2009
U.S. Dist. Lexis 17245 (E.D. Mich. 2009).
2
My initial response was that it sometimes
bugs me that people, especially Christians, are
a bit too eager to pick at flaws they see in their
local churches’ pastors. Any critique should
be measured with due respect for what the
church is doing right. The fact is, being a pas-
tor is a much tougher job than it used to be.
3
David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, Good Faith:
Being a Christian When Society Thinks You’re
Irrelevant and Extreme (Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker, 2016), 27.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Kinnaman and Lyons, Good Faith, 59, quoting
Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today (New
York: HarperOne, 2009), 199–200.
7
Marie Chapian, Of Whom the World Was Not
Worthy (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1978), 122.
8
Bradley R. E. Wright, Christians Are Hate-Filled
Hypocrites . . . and Other Lies You’ve Been Told
(Bloomington, MN: Bethany House, 2010).
9 For guidance on ethical uses of social media,
see Brian Wassom, What Would Jesus Post?
(Nashville: Westbow, 2013).
10
Ed Stetzer, “Christians, Repent (Yes, Repent)
of Spreading Conspiracy Theories and Fake
News — It’s Bearing False Witness,”
Christianity Today Online, May 31, 2017,
www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2017/
may/christians-repent-conspiracy-theory-
fake-news.html.
11
Mary Rich and Joel Rich, “We’re Seth Rich’s
Parents: Stop Politicizing Our Son’s Murder,”
Washington Post, May 23, 2017, www.wash-
ingtonpost.com/opinions/were-seth-richs-
parents-stop-politicizing-our-sons-murder/
2017/05/23/164cf4dc-3fee-11e7–9869-
bac8b446820a_story.html?utm_term=.21f23f
46aec9.
12
Adam Clarke, Memoirs of the Wesley Family
(London: J. Kershaw, 1823), 270 (emphasis
mine).
13
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 118.
14
Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700
Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX:
Bible Communications, 1996).
15
David Bentley Hart, quoting Julian, Epistle
22, Atheist Delusions: The Christian
Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 45.
16
Matthew Parris, “As an Atheist, I Truly
Believe Africa Needs God,” December 27,
2008, www.thetimes.co.uk/article/as-an-
atheist-i-truly-believe-africa-needs-god-
3xj9bm80h8m (emphasis mine).
17
Chapian, Of Whom the World Was Not
Worthy, 123.
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [23]
 A CRY
Vincenzo Ricardo. If that name does not
mean much to you, you are not alone. It
does not seem to have meant much to
anyone else except, perhaps, him who
bore it. In fact it was not even his name.

FOR HELP
His real name was Vincenzo Riccardi, and
nobody seemed to get it right after the
sensational discovery of his mummified
body in Southampton, New York. He had
been dead for thirteen months, but his
television was still on, and his body was
Until we are properly propped up in a chair in front of it.1 The
related to God, our true television was his only companion, and
identity and potential though it had much to tell him, it did
not care whether he lived or died.
will always elude us. No Riccardi’s story raises many unset-
virtual reality or gadget tling questions. How can a human being
can even begin to address vanish for over a year and not be missed
by anyone? Where was his family? What
the problem, for they about his relatives? Why was the power
only give back to us what still on in his house? Whatever the
we have put into them. answers are to these and other questions,
one thing is clear: Riccardi was a lonely
individual whose life can be summed up
in one word, alienation.
By John Njoroge You see, Riccardi was blind, so he
never really watched television; he needed
this virtual reality to feed his need for

[24] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

real companionship. Moreover, his violent
outbursts and paranoid behavior may
have played a role in driving people away
from him.2
This is indeed a tragic and extreme
tale, but it makes a powerful statement
about how cold and lonely life can be for
many across the globe. Even those who
seem to have it all are not immune to the
pangs of loneliness and alienation. The
Christian story attests that alienation
affects us at three different levels. We are
alienated from ourselves, from others,
and most significantly, we are alienated
from God. That is the reality in which we
exist. The restoration process involves all
three dimensions, but it begins with a
proper relationship with God. We cannot
get along with ourselves or with others
until we are properly related to God. The
good news of the Christian gospel is that
abundant restoration is available to all
who want it.
This process is well illustrated in an
encounter Jesus had with another deeply
wounded man who lived in a cemetery
(see Mark 5: 1-20). Relatives, and perhaps
friends, had tried unsuccessfully to bind
him with iron chains to keep him home.
He preferred to live among the tombs
(alienation from others), cutting himself
with stones, his identity concealed in his
new name: “Legion” (alienation from
self ). His mind and body were hopelessly
enslaved by Satan’s agents, and his life
was no longer his own (alienation from
God). It took an encounter with Jesus for
the man to be fully restored, “dressed and
in his right mind” (verse 15). Only then
could he follow Jesus’s command to go
back to his family and tell them what God
had done for him.
The restoration process remains the
same today. Until we are properly related
to God, our true identity and potential
will always elude us. No virtual reality or
gadget can even begin to address the
problem, for they only give back to us
what we have put into them. They are like
the message in a bottle which a castaway
on a remote island excitedly received,
only to realize that it was a cry for help
that he himself had sent out months
before. As Augustine prayed, “You have
made us for Yourself, and our hearts are
restless until they find their rest in You.”
We are finite creatures, created for a rela-
tionship with an Infinite Being, and no
finite substitute can ever meet our deep-
est needs. Trying to meet our real needs
without Christ is like trying to satisfy our
thirst with salty water: the more we drink,
the thirstier we become. This is a sure
path to various sorts of addictions.
But when we turn toward the Bread
of Life who offers himself up, calling each
one of us to the table by name, loneliness
is countered with the hope of embrace.
We become members of God’s extended
family. With Abraham, we look “forward
to the city with foundations whose archi-
tect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10).
Day by day, we learn to trust God as we
travel with others along a heavily trodden
path that never disappoints. Friends and
relatives may desert us, but we are never
alone. We may grieve and lament, but
never like those without hope. We have
peace and joy within, and even in our own
hour of need, others can still find their
way to God through us. The alternative
is a crippling sense of isolation and alien-
ation within a worldly system whose
offerings, however sophisticated and
well-intentioned, can never arouse us
from spiritual death.
John Njoroge is a member of the speaking
team at Ravi Zacharias International
Ministries in Nairobi, Kenya.
1 Erika Hayasaki, “He Died in Vast Isolation,”
Los Angeles Times (March 31, 2007), online at
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/mar/31/nati
on/na-alone31.
2 Ibid.
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [25]

THE FORGETTABLE
POWER OFEMPATHY
P ERCHED ABOVE THE altar in St. Mark’s
Basilica in Venice hang the Ciborium
Columns.1 Its artist is unknown. Constructed
in the early 1300s from alabaster, the
columns hold numerous carvings depicting
various stories, among them, the life of
Jesus. There are so many stories—108 in
fact—that one can easily lose track of all
that is displayed.
On one particular panel, apparently,
Jesus talks to Zacchaeus, who reaches out
[26] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
©2018 KEN ORVIDAS
By Lowe Finney
of some tree branches to participate in
what must have been a truly entertaining
conversation. After all, this conversation
with Jesus resulted in a divine home-visit,
a meal, and a turnaround in Zacchaeus’s
life profound enough to warrant its
recording and retelling by Doctor Luke
(see Luke 19:1-10). Over the last 25 years,
I’ve seen the Ciborium Columns and,
presumably, this panel a few times. But I
remember nothing about it.
 Some of us remember the story of
Zacchaeus for various reasons described
to us as young children in song and story.
He was a “wee little man.” He climbed up
in a sycamore tree. He was a despised tax
collector.
But like this work of art, is there also
a piece of this story that is forgettable?
Maybe we have forgotten that the
story of Zacchaeus is a story about the
human heart. Here, it is easy to overlook the
fact that Zacchaeus’s heart was changed
because Jesus intentionally engaged
Zacchaeus where Zacchaeus was. Jesus did
not have to do this in the way described in
the story. As God, he could have had the
same result by simply waving his hand and
leaving Zacchaeus in the tree. He could
have gone to Zacchaeus’s office and
confronted him in the midst of cheating a
poor resident of Jerusalem. He could have
revealed himself to Zacchaeus in a vision.
Jesus had an infinite number of ways to
make himself known, and arguably, each of
these ways could have resulted in the change
in Zacchaeus’s life.
So why interact with the corrupt Jewish
official in this earthy, tedious, personal
fashion? Too bad the Ciborium Columns
are not helpful here.
In her book The Empathy Exams,
Leslie Jamison describes her time as a
“medical actor” as she role-played differ-
ent patients for the benefit of medical
school students.2 Following the exchanges,
Jamison documents how the medical stu-
dent performed and to what extent the
student was able to empathize with the
“patient.” She points out that the students
were not expected simply to possess an
attitude of concern for the patient but that
the student was expected to appropriately
give life to that concern and, hence, make it
evident in the heart of the patient.3 Within
this setting, Jamison describes empathy:
Empathy isn’t just something that
happens to us—a meteor shower of
synapses firing across the brain—
it’s also a choice we make: to pay
attention, to extend ourselves. It’s
made of exertion, that dowdier
cousin of impulse. Sometimes we
care for another because we know we
should, or because it’s asked for, but
this doesn’t make our caring hollow.
The act of choosing simply means
we’ve committed ourselves to a set
of behaviors greater than the sum
of our individual inclinations: I will
listen to his sadness, even when I’m
deep in my own.4
And so the point of Zacchaeus’s story
comes into focus: empathy. Empathy is
about choosing a common vantage point
and an intentionally shared perspective.
Jesus knew that prior to any change in the
heart of Zacchaeus, he needed to confront the
despised tax collector. But his confrontation
did not come in a confrontational manner.
It came as an invitation. He had to get
close without encroaching. He had to
reveal himself in a way that would spur
Zacchaeus to decide for himself that he
wanted to follow this non-traditional king.
Jesus didn’t just go eat with Zacchaeus to
share a meal. He went because it was
important that Zacchaeus see Jesus eating
in Zacchaeus’s home. Zacchaeus needed to
see Jesus seeing Zacchaeus’s world as
Zacchaeus himself saw it. Zacchaeus needed
to see Jesus choosing to see and stay with
Zacchaeus. This is the whole point of
empathy. Not just that it’s done, but that
the other person sees and experiences
another’s kind regard of them, another’s
effort to try on the same pair of shoes.
So what was the effect of Jesus
coming to Zacchaeus? In Zacchaeus’s
eyes, Jesus is now cloaked in a robe of
undeniable credibility. His view of life has
now, to his eyes, been honored, and this in
turn opens him to desire living a changed
life. Instead of taking, Zacchaeus began
giving. Instead of cheating, he restored
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [27]
abundantly. As Luke records, “Zacchaeus
stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord!
Here and now I give half of my possessions
to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody
out of anything, I will pay back four times
the amount’” (verse 8).
Empathy—the choice to sit and pay
attention—was the door through which
Christ walked into Zacchaeus’s life. Have
we forgotten this crucial detail?
Even at a time when “Choose
Empathy” shirts adorn those striving for
social change and in an age where interac-
tion is based increasingly on technological
means and remote interface, there is yet an
ever-present challenge to engage person-
ally and across the boundaries of culture,
race, status, or tribe. Empathy reminds us
that we need to be old-fashioned in our
relationships. It is the ultimate first step in
our understanding of and love for others.
It requires effort. It requires more than
simply saying, “That’s too bad” or “I feel
for you” or “I feel your pain.” It demands
extending ourselves.
Jesus routinely modeled this kind of
empathy by pushing his listeners into the
place of the “other.” He positioned his
ministry so as to show that others do more
than simply open our eyes to their problems.
They can open our hearts to what it means
to be forgotten, hurt, and crushed, and
likewise, accepted, forgiven, and healed—
and thereby prompted to go out as a
changed community.
Jesus declared (in what is now known
as the Golden Rule), “Do to others as you
would have them do to you.”5 The Judeo-
Christian worldview is unique in its ability
to explain why empathy matters, for
empathy is the response to the recognition
that another person has inherent worth.
The British theologian Richard
Bauckham writes:
God’s approbation and appreciation
of every part of his creation are
conveyed by the refrain, repeated at
[28] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES
each stage of creation: “God saw that
it was good.” This indicates that each
part of creation has its own value
that does not depend for its value
on other parts.6
Did you catch that? Any other frame-
work for assessing the worth of another—
for example, utility or power—is dismissed.
Rather, the created thing simply inhabiting
those characteristics endowed by its creator
gives the creation its self-contained value.
God made it able, and it was good?
Not quite. God made it useful, and it was
good? Wrong again. God created it, and it
was good. Yes!
Sensing and understanding this
indwelling, objective value—the very
image of God in each of us—leaves us little
option but to peer into another person’s
context and join them in their journey.
And so Zacchaeus’s alabaster face
beckons from the top of the altar to look
past the tree and into a life. Even the best
art cannot completely convey the need and
certainly cannot fully extend the balm. Jesus,
however, by going, entering, sitting with,
and listening to, does both. Lest we forget.
Lowe Finney is a member of the speaking
team at RZIM.
1
The ciborium columns stand at the center of
the presbytery of Basilica di San Marco, San
Marco, Venice. There are 108 with one or
more figures representing the life of Mary
and the life and passion of Jesus Christ.
For further information, see
http://www.basilicasanmarco.it/basilica/
scultura/le-colonne-del-ciborio/?lang=en.
2
Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams
(Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2014).
3
Ibid., 3.
4
Ibid., 23.
5
See Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31.
6
Richard Bauckham, The Bible in the
Contemporary World: Hermeneutical
Ventures (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), 82.
 THINK
AGAIN
TRAVIS GITTHENS
By Ravi Zacharias
No Longer Bound
YOU MAY RECALL me telling the story of
being in a country some years ago where I
was introduced to a man who had a daily
habit of taking his little boy up a hill. The
man would point over the border and tell
his son, “Your duty in life is to kill as many
of them on the other side as you can.”
Even today it is hard for me to com-
prehend this. Tragically, this man could
never shut the gate on the past. And so he
dragged the heavy carcass of historical
prejudice and draped that corpse over the
shoulders of the next generation as a
reminder to continue the carnage.
Sadly, we discover the seeds of hate
and separation in the opening pages of
Scripture and within the very first family.
Incredibly, the first murder in the Bible
did not occur because of two irreconcilable
political theories. The murder of a man by
his own brother was an act unmistakably
borne out of their differing responses to
God! Trapped by the temporal, Cain was
deluded by the belief that he could vanquish
spiritual reality with brute force. God saw
the inevitable result of the jealousy and
hatred deep within Cain’s heart, and in a
challenge that would determine his des-
tiny, warned him to deal with it. “If you do
what is right, will you not be accepted?
But if you do not do what is right, sin is
crouching at the door; it desires to have
you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7).
Tragically, Cain ignored God’s words,
and taking matters into his own hands, he
killed his brother Abel.
As extreme as these life experiences
may sound, who of us has not struggled
with anger, forgiveness, and pride? Yet we
are called as followers of Christ to love our
JUST THINKING • VOLUME 26.3 [29]
neighbors as ourselves and to “Be kind to No longer are we bound by chains of the
one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one past, never to shut the gate. Rather, if we
another, as God in Christ forgave you” are in Christ, we are filled with God’s
(Ephesians 4:32). Why? Because Scripture Spirit and “the fruit of the Spirit is love,
tells us that every life is valuable to God: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
“For you created my inmost being; you faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”
knit me together in my mother’s womb,” (Galatians 5:22-23).
uttered the psalmist David. “I praise you What a hope and what a promise!
because I am fearfully and wonderfully
made” (Psalm 139: 13-14). Warm Regards,
At its core life is sacred and of ines-
timable value, whether it is the life of a
darling child in the fresh blossom of child-
hood, or the life of an elderly, weak, and frail Ravi
recluse. We are each made in God’s sacred
image. Think of this truth! That is why
murder is described in Scripture for what
it is: an attack upon God’s image. That is
also why we are told, “Everyone who hates
his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15).
Murder and even hateful words are
attempts to destroy God’s image in anoth-
er and to deny one’s value and spiritual
essence. It is that essence which gives us
our dignity and our worth. It is that
essence which is our glory and true home.
I find it quite remarkable that Jesus
did not specifically address some of the
pressing social issues of his day. Rather,
he went to the heart of what separates
us from God and what transforms: we
are sinners in need of God’s cleansing
forgiveness and restoration.
The truth is, we desperately need a
Savior, every one of us, whatever our past
and whatever our present. We need a God
who not only changes what we do, but
what we want to do. Scripture promises
that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation. The old has passed away; behold,
the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

[30] JUST THINKING • RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

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