Pentecost 2026: Lev. 19:17-18, 32-34
Prayer: Father, I pray that Your Holy Spirit would use this, Your Word, to convict our hearts and teach us wisdom. Make us a people who cling to Your Word without any shame or fear. Grant us courage and boldness in Your Word, in Jesus name, Amen.
Introduction
Because we live in a time where the dictionary has been ripped up and reassembled every few years and then weaponized against Christians, we live in a time that faces peculiar challenges. And this is overlaid on top of the usual temptations that have faced all people of all ages: animosity, envy, pride, and fear – frequently related to different nationalities, ethnicities, etc.
But the Holy Spirit has been poured out to remake this shattered world. The Holy Spirit is the wisdom and power and clarity of God’s Word restoring meaning, justice, and love, and with these gifts, over time, true community.
The Text: “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him…” (Lev. 19:17-18, 32-36)
Summary of the Text
The Second Greatest commandment is found here in Leviticus 19, and it is stated twice for emphasis. Initially, it applies to brothers and countrymen, with the exhortation that tension and trouble ought to be addressed in a straightforward way, including confrontation for sin (Lev. 19:17). This law forbids seeking vengeance and harboring any bitterness (Lev. 19:18). This golden rule applies to previous generations and the elderly, standing up in their presence and honoring them – this is one of the greatest ways we fear the Lord (Lev. 19:32). But this law also applies to strangers and foreigners, whom God’s people must not mistreat in any way (Lev. 19:33). God’s people are required to treat foreigners with the same standard as they treat native born citizens (Lev. 19:34). God’s people are to do this, remembering that they were once foreigners in the land of Egypt (Lev. 19:34). And this includes equal weights and measures of every sort – for the Lord is our God, and He brought us out of Egypt (Lev. 19:35-36, cf. Eph. 2:13-18).
Clearing Away Distractions
God’s Word does not require that we pretend that everyone is the same. Our physical differences are glorious, and we need not be embarrassed by them and we ought not demean what God has made (Act 17:26, Rev. 7:9). We can and must do this without giving in to egalitarianism, relativism, or sentimentalism. There are different kinds and levels of beauty, and sin has affected every tribe and family.
God’s Word does not require that we pretend that cultural differences are all the same. There are gifts and strengths in various cultures, and there are weaknesses and atrocities in various cultures. All things being equal, the more of the gospel that penetrates a culture, the more fruitful that culture will be, and the less the gospel penetrates a culture, the more enslaved and perverse it will be. Nevertheless, “who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Cor. 4:7)
God’s Word does not require that nations have no process for orderly immigration or protection against foreign threats. It need not be hateful or bigoted to have immigration laws and to enforce them. The command to practice hospitality does not mean you must have everyone over tomorrow or that you must entertain a trespasser who broke in. But we should keep an eye out for fleshly instincts looking to freeload on otherwise righteous train cars. When people keep accusing you of malice, you can be tempted to get bitter.
Weaponization of Christian Virtue
Cultural Marxism and identity politics have been termites eating into our Christian culture for a number of decades, intentionally trying to stir up animosity by identifying people primarily by ethnicity and sex, and now all manner of increasingly narrow “intersectional” oppression points (e.g. black, female, homosexual, etc.). But the thing you must not miss is that this has been aimed squarely at Christians accusing us of hate and bigotry because we believe in the reality that God made: male and female are permanent differences that matter, sexual intimacy is reserved for monogamous heterosexual marriage, and we also refuse to apologize for any part of the Bible, including texts that allow for certain, biblically-limited forms of slavery.
So the initial play has been guilting Christians over some sins (racial slavery, racial prejudice) in order to burn down Christian civilization (e.g. homosexuality, transgenderism, and mass immigration). If someone objects, they clearly are “racists.” It’s gotten to the point where a “racist” is apparently anyone who disagrees with a liberal. At one point there was a chart on the Smithsonian website that defined “whiteness” as emphasizing things like math, the scientific method, hard work, and the nuclear family.
Don’t Take the Bait
In the aftermath of this Marxist-LGBT Jihad, some Christians are taking the bait. And the bait is to buy into the Cultural Marxist categories and seek so-called “social justice” via the catharsis of vengeance, bitterness, and sinful hatred. For example, having been kicked in the head for a number of decades for being white, male, heterosexual, and Christian, some young men in this category have decided they don’t care if they are racist or sexist or antisemitic. They are fed up. But there is a massive difference between being slandered for false accusations (and rejoicing) and embracing the accusation and wearing it like a prize. You must not believe any of their lies – the fundamental target of their hatred is not white skin – they hate God’s world. They hate Jesus Christ. They hate God’s law.
But since these angry young men would get fired if they went full blown KKK, they hide their bitterness in various ways. Some call it “race realism,” claiming that they don’t hate other races – they just tell the truth, they’ve just “noticed,” but there’s often an obvious biting edge. Or they try to hide their bitterness under the guise of jokes, stereotypes/generalizations, and just having fun. And what’s wrong with you old boomers, can’t you take a joke?
The problem isn’t a good-natured joke, the problem is being rude, and the seething bitterness that is often very clearly just below the surface. The problem is putting your finger on the scale because that’s what they’ve been doing. The problem is your double standards. While there’s nothing wrong with being white, loving America, or wearing pit-viper shades, there is all kinds of wrong clapping back with Marxist tropes and memes. To identify our primary divisions as racial or ethnic is to buy into the Marxist scheme. As Trufflehunter said about inviting ogres and hags to join Caspian’s rebellion, “We should not have Aslan for friend if we brought in that rabble.”
“Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, “I am only joking!” (Prov. 26:18-19 ESV). There is a kind of joking that is actually malicious, deceitful, and murderous. There is a kind of joking that is impolite, boorish, and insolent – it is not loving your neighbor as yourself, it is not equal weights and measures. And it is particularly tone deaf in the mouths/hearts of God’s people who were once strangers but have now been made God’s friends (Eph. 2:12-13).
Conclusions
What Christians are called to is biblical absolutism and clarity. When the storms of accusations and woke mobs scream, we want to be found clinging to God’s Word. God’s Word is our light and truth and justice. But humanism is a dark hole. God’s Word gives us plenty to offend the liberals with – and on those issues, we must continue to cultivate our Tom Petty Biblicism – and not back down in the slightest. But actual ethnic bitterness, resentment, animosity, vainglory, rudeness, and disrespect – those are actually sins. And we are at war with all sin.
This means that your sweet Christian grandmother is not the standard for speech and conduct, but she is to be honored greatly and listened to carefully. An older Christian minister is not the standard, but he is to be honored greatly and listened to carefully, especially if he has been in this fight for longer than you have been alive. Patting him on the head (with eye rolls, emojis, gifs, or snide comments) is not honor, and it betrays a distinct lack of the fear of God (Lev. 19:32). And you don’t want to be paling around with people like this (friends, podcasts, influencers, etc.). You might be sick of the impotent church that refuses to fight, and at least that guy is willing to fight. But that is a false dichotomy. The Holy Spirit holds joy and courage together.
What only the Holy Spirit of God can give us is a jovial militance, a joyful ferocity – we want to be a band of happy warriors against sin. And this is only possible when the cross has taken away all our sin, all our angst, all our envy, all our pride – “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Gal. 5:24). Notice that: the fundamental division is between man and God. It is that enmity that creates all the other enmity. The guilt of Adam is the stain on the human race that only the blood of Jesus Christ can remove. And it is the Holy Spirit that does that work. The blood of Christ does not remove our differences, but the blood of Christ removes all the enmity.
In that fertile soil grows the fruit of the Spirit, and against such things there is no law (Gal. 5:22-23).
Prayer: Father, I pray that Your Spirit would drive this word into our hearts and apply it in exactly the right way. Remove our enmity, our animosity, and teach us true wisdom – the wisdom that is from above that is full of peace and courage. We ask for this in Jesus’ name…
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