I just listened to an impassioned video by Jim Caviezel, the actor who portrayed Jesus in the movie, The Passion of the Christ. The video struck a chord in me. He is a straight-up follower of the Lord in real life, not just on the screen. You could hear the dismay in his voice asking of the Church, “Where is our voice?” He noted a deafening silence in the Church regarding issues that are in clear opposition to God’s truth. Caviezel said since his faith became vocal and he stepped away from the demand to be silent into the public sphere that he has been ostracized by social commentators, lost two longtime agents, and suffered the scorn and rejection of the media. Like John the Baptist, he said he was willing to lose his head for the cause of Christ if that is what was required. 

Across the expanse of Scripture, from the first verses in Genesis until the last verse of Revelation, a distinction is clearly made between light and darkness, good and evil.  The psalmist wrote, “Joyful are the people of integrity who follow the instructions of the Lord. Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts. They do not compromise with evil” (Psalm 119: 1-3). 

A compromise with evil is taking place in some parts of the Church revealed in acts of misguided expressions of love. Jan and I met with a couple from Canada whose church is installing a trans bathroom celebrating the installation as an act of love. They are looking for a new church home.  I wondered if next a private bedroom will be installed to allow for sexual encounters or surgery suites allowing a person to undergo a sex change or get an abortion. This sounds crazy and extreme. It’s not. Hell wants to mock God by helping us creep so far from the truth and common sense that we become peddlers of hell’s delusions.

Churches that fail to preach the full counsel of God are leaving those attending services with the impression that anything goes as long as we are nice and accommodating. The choice to be nice at the expense of truth is a form of dishonesty, especially when the people living in blatant lifestyles of sin want to serve in the Church, assuming they can even hold positions of leadership in direct contradiction to the instructions and qualifications laid down in Scripture.

Living as Jim Caviezel does or for any following of Christ who has not abandoned biblical truth will no longer allow us to remain silent in the face of encroaching evil. “You have charged us to keep your commandments carefully. Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees!” (119:4-5). Paul addressed this when he was writing to the Ephesians about training and equipping the Church. Our maturity, the result of being trained and equipped, is reflected when we have been influenced and directed by God’s truth, not the lies we are told to believe. At that point, “We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever, they sound like the truth” (Ephesians 4:13). Instead of remaining uninformed, immature, and silent on issues that have crept into the Church and larger society that are in opposition to God’s word and are harming people, we will “speak the truth in love” (4:14). The sound and content of our voice will determine the depth of our maturity.

In the video I referenced, Caviezel asked, “Would you lose your head for Christ?” Sticking our heads out for truth is not just about theological issues. It is sticking our necks out for issues that violate God’s truth, the original intent of His Creation, or where people are being victimized, and in some cases, mutilated. To fail to do so is not loving our neighbor as ourselves. When we stick our neck out for truth, we will become vulnerable to the blade of censorship, dismissal, and the loss of those things a free people hold dear. It’s the risk we take when we live out the laws, commandments, and decrees of the Lord as a mature expression of our faith.