Have you ever been in a room full of people when someone spoke something foolish or just plain wrong about what they said, while the entire room remained silent, allowing the misinformed or arrogant one to have their say without challenge?
All too often the one who speaks sinful attitudes or even evil beliefs, gets away with it entirely because everyone else in the room are too nice to cause further discomfort by countering the foolishness.
There are several problems with this, since the majority, whether they agree with the arrogant person or not will align themselves with the stronger personality just to fit in, avoiding shunning, leaves the weaker vessels with the impression that one should never cause trouble by challenging sinfulness. Never mind that the sinful person was allowed to have his say, but the righteous one is intimidated into silence for lack of support.
We have lost the ability as a culture to stand alone for what is right, giving up the opportunities to bring good sense to matters, we have abdicated our responsibility to speak truth, while the evil one has been allowed to carry on, influencing many who are weak.
We are called sheep in God's Word, when one sheep runs, all the others will do it too, without ever stopping to consider if there is a good reason to run.
People act like this often, they will automatically support and align themselves with the one everyone in the room seems to like without evaluating the situation objectively.
If we are all in with Christ, then we will challenge anyone even a dear one we love, to bring truth to the table. No one is so special or elevated that we should risk holiness or truth to make them like us.
There is also an interesting twist to all this, if one person in the room full of people, gets violently angry, many if not most of the onlookers think the victim must have done something wrong. Narcissists count on this tactic to intimidate those who become their targets. Often it is the one who corrects who is seen as the trouble maker, rather than the one who has sinned.
When we have heroes and icons that we look up to, it is very hard to see the side of them that is not quite right. No one is right all the time, so why do sheep choose not to evaluate an icon or hero? The reason is that the person who has heroes, have placed their trust in them rather than in Christ. If a hero has a chink in their armor, they might not have a hero anymore, in fact the hero becomes the target when they no longer measure up.
When we have trusted Christ we are able to love people God's way, with all their warts and personality flaws. When we have heroes we are more likely to fall hard when they don't measure up to our idea of perfection. Those who are prone to elevate people to this degree, cannot love anyone who they think does not measure up to their own ideas of wonderful.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away."
I have had relationships in Christ that were wonderful, some of them here on facebook. We may not agree on everything, but there is honor and respect expressed in the disagreement. Those who fight to win quickly drop off because the meanness is not tolerated, it is met with rebuke and removal if the one involved will not learn respect.
I have written this in a post recently but thought it was worth posting again, the quote from Albert Einstein;
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
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