Christ is Proclaimed from Envy and Rivalry
Chinese Marxists oppose the cross of Christ
“ Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”
This recent article is a master class on the politicization of the Gospel - ironically couched as a denunciation of the politicization of the Gospel. The author, a Baptist minster, openly and honestly shares his extreme political leftism and his open woke racialism - and attempts to wed it to the Christian faith.
He mentions “Jesus” sixteen times. And that is certainly more than many such articles. But he mentions “Trump” twenty-two times (amazing, given that Trump has not been president for very nearly a year). The author uses the word “white” a whopping fifty-three times! Incidentally, the words “atonement,” “cross,” “forgiveness,” and “Gospel” never make an appearance. He lambasts “white evangelicals” fifty times. Our Lord Jesus Christ is essentially just a foil to promote his political, social, and racial agenda. A quick experiment is to do a Google search for “Jesus black” - which yields 909 million hits vs. “Jesus savior” which brings up only 65 million. This is where our culture is. Western Man no longer knows the real Jesus. Like the derelict Old Testament Israelites wandering in the wilderness, we seek to make God in our own image.
In these gray and latter days, we do well to “preach Christ crucified” until we are blue in the face, to constantly speak about the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Gospel, and the Resurrection - and to take control of the narrative to repeatedly draw people to Calvary and the all-atoning blood of Christ.
And it is fitting that we remember St. Paul’s words of rejoicing that Jesus is being discussed at all - even if only as a pretense, and only out of envy and rivalry - for the Holy Spirit is at work. I’m reminded of one of my Russian friends who pointed out his exposure to the Word of God in the USSR by means of contact with Soviet “scientific atheism” apologetics works designed to debunk Christianity. Such books, of necessity, must present the Word of God. For even if Christ is being proclaimed for reasons of envy and rivalry - as envy is one of the motivations of Marxism (economic and cultural), and rivalry, especially in terms of politics and race - are all the rage, nevertheless, “Christ is proclaimed.”
And that is cause for rejoicing!