DON’T BE A GULLIBLE CHRISTIAN: DON’T BE A SUCKER
P.T. Barnum purportedly said, “There are two kinds of people in the world, con men and suckers. Thank God for the suckers.”
Today we’re going to talk about suckers. Unfortunately, many Christians are suckers, and therefore are easily manipulated. I’m going to tell real life stories about the various ways we are manipulated, and how sometimes we are our own worst enemies. The final story is just from this past week when I realized I’d been sucker for years—and had no idea. At the end, I’m going to give you three questions to ask yourself and others to help make sure you aren’t a Christian sucker.
In effect, we are going to talk about what Jesus meant in Matthew 10:16 when he commanded his followers to “be a shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.” In modern parlance, Jesus might well of commanded his followers, “Keep your hearts pure, but don’t be suckers.”
There are many areas where we need to be shrewd: Lies, Half-truths, Rumors, Innuendo and Spin. They overlap, but I list them to help you better define in your own mind what to look for. Being shrewd doesn’t just happen. It is a deliberate process.
The CATALYST for this specific podcast is because of what has been happening to MIKE JOHNSON, the new Speaker of the House. He has been under malicious attack because he actually believes the Bible is true.
Bill Maher attacked him, implying he is only one step below a mass murderer because he believes the Bible is true.
Jen Psaki pounced on him.
Joy Behar took a shot at him.
Many others have piled on as well.
Rolling Stone Magazine even took a swipe at him for trying to be a good dad to his 17-year-old son. Their headline November 5th read: “Mike Johnson Admits He and His Son Monitor Each Other’s Porn Intake.”
Wow! That sounds really creepy. You know what the gossips are going to do with that. For a gossip, that’s just too juicy to pass up.
What Mike Johnson and his son actually did is hold each other accountable to NOT look at porn. I did the same thing with my son when he first went away to college —because I deeply cared about him. Technically, Rolling Stone didn’t say anything that was false. However, they deliberately gave a false impression by twisting the truth— just a bit.
That’s a pretty easy one to see through. Only the vilest gossips in the Church will repeat that one. But it got me thinking about the many ways Christians often are SUCKERS.
STORY: P&G LOGO – “SATANIC”
I remember in college seeing how this dynamic does real harm to the cause of Christ. Because of GOSSIPS in the CHURCH. Many in the church were SUCKERS! If you were one of them— shame on you! You can imagine what people at P&G and the business community were saying about Christians as a result.
That reflects poorly on our Lord. Don’t be a part of it.
STORY: CARLOS LUCERO
My first job in politics, working for WLA. He was a CHRISTIAN SUCKER!
RUMORS ABOUT ME:
Because of my family name I’ve heard rumor after rumor after rumor about myself for years. Usually, they are half-truths. However, sometimes, they are blatant fabrications.
For the first 15 years of our marriage my wife would get upset whenever she heard another rumor about me. She wanted to find the person who spread the rumor and rebuke them. I never let her because I knew that we’d never get anything done if we ran around trying to squelch every rumor that came along.
Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the tares where he made it very clear that Christians should focus on growing wheat, not pulling up tares. Trying to squelch every rumor is like pulling up tares.
But let me tell you the juiciest rumor I ever heard about myself.
STORY: “BRAD WORKS FOR THE NRCC DURING THE DAY AND A GAY BAR AT NIGHT.”
I’m 90% certain I know who planted the rumor, but I never bothered to try to confirm it. I told the truth about him to members of Congress, who it was my job to protect. Since he didn’t have anything on me, he made something up to try to discredit me. And it was a whopper!
I heard there were a few gossips (including Christian friends) spreading the rumor at the time, but frankly, I found it all rather humorous. But I had often heard my dad say, “I don’t count my critics, I weigh them.” So, while they were gossiping about ME, I was weighing THEM.
I’ve heard similar rumors about politicians, pastors, and Christian leaders. If I can’t confirm the rumor, I don’t repeat it, because I know that most of the time it will be false.
“CHARACTER ASSASSINATION”
Don’t have anything to do with it. There will always be gossips who are willing accomplices in the slander game. Karl Marx referred to such people as “Useful Idiots.”
- You see them in government.
- You see them in the media.
- You see them in the Church. Unfortunately.
When you hear rumors, don’t repeat them unless you first confirm them.
DON’T BE A GOSSIP!
DON’T FALL FOR GOSSIP!
DON’T BE A USEFUL IDIOT!
DON’T BE A SUCKER!
Includes Online Gossip:
I get forwarded emails all the time from Christians that contain falsehoods because they did not check out the stories before they forwarded them.
Ditto for Facebook.
My wife sees this stuff on Facebook all the time. She says that when she does a little research, they’re false about half the time.
STORY: COMMENTER WHO SAID, PALESTINE WAS DIVIDED AGAINST THEIR WILL
For instance, last week a guy commented on my podcast tthat Palestine was forcibly divided in 1948, against the will of the Palestinians. True statement.
He failed to mention that the Arab Palestinians had sided with the Nazi’s in WW2. They were not innocent bystanders. They were active combatants. Just like Germany was divided against its will, so was Palestine. Without knowing the whole truth, you feel bad for the Palestinians. Once you know the whole story, it changes how you view it.
You can technically tell the truth but still intentionally mislead people. I don’t know if the commenter was deliberately leaving out half the truth in order to mislead people, or if he had been misled himself. In either case, the information he gave was a half-truth, which is often more dangerous than a blatant lie.
Don’t share something if you don’t KNOW it is true.
Don’t pass it on until you have confirmed it.
Let me be blunt:
If you share information that you don’t know is true, you ARE a GOSSIP. God likes gossips about as much as he likes murderers, adulterers, and fornicators.
DON’T BE A GOSSIP!
DON’T FALL FOR GOSSIP!
DON’T BE A USEFUL IDIOT!
DON’T BE A SUCKER!
3 BASIC QUESTIONS:
1) HOW DO I/YOU KNOW THIS IS TRUE?
2) IS THIS INFORMATION FROM A PROVEN RELIABLE SOURCE?
3) HAVE I CONFIRMED IT FROM A SECOND RELIABLE SOURCE?
The Bible is very clear, you need at least two separate sources (2 witnesses) to confirm truth.
Story: My daughter texted me 3 days ago. She wanted to find the source for the information I had given her. I was a sucker. I work hard to not be a sucker. I work hard to ask good questions of the guy in the mirror. I ask God to give me discernment. But things still slip through.
You will never be perfectly shrewd. I will never be perfectly shrewd. Only Jesus was. But hopefully, as time goes on we become less and less gullible.
Don’t settle for being a Christian sucker. Jesus calls us to a higher standard.
Today, we talked about 2 things
you can do to be shrewd, as Jesus commanded:
- Don’t fall for gossip.
- Ask good questions. First of yourself. Then of others.
In either December or January I will do a podcast on the other four things you can do every day to become more shrewd over time. And then I want do another podcast on how to shrewdly respond when someone starts throwing terms at you like:
- Christian Nationalist.
- White Privilege.
- Maga Extremist.
- Fascist.
- Climate Denier.
- Hater.
- The list goes on and on.
We’ll talk about the underlying dynamic of such terms, and then how to quickly and effectively respond on offense rather than defense —a skill Jesus modeled throughout the Gospels.
Keep an eye out in December and January.
DON’T BE A CHRISTIAN SUCKER. BECAUSE SUCKERS ARE EASILY MANIPULATED.
BE SHREWD as Jesus commanded.
And remember, part of being shrewd is realizing that God really is the issue —in every issue.
This is Brad Bright and the God is the Issue Podcast. If you found this podcast helpful, don’t forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE.
