Ashamed of the Words of Jesus
If you were to read Luke 9:23-27 carefully, you would notice that there are a number of the more well-known teachings of our Lord packed into that one short passage. When there is such a dense section of Scripture, it can be quite easy to overlook certain words or phrases, but we do so to our own detriment.
Included in that passage is this statement from Jesus: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (verse 26).
I don’t know how many times I have heard people talk about how we do not need to be ashamed of Jesus. Without doubt, that is taught there and is necessary if we are to be considered faithful to Christ.
But that is not all Jesus said there. He did not speak only of being ashamed of Him, but also of His words.
And I have to wonder: how many people–many of whom wear the name “Christian”–are ashamed of at least some of the words of our Lord.
For example,
Jesus spoke clearly of one church (Matthew 16:16-18), but many Christians are ashamed of that close-minded view, so they espouse the idea of many churches.
Jesus gave clear teaching about divorce and remarriage (Matthew 19:9), but many Christians think that is out-dated and so do not speak about such “controversial” passages.
Jesus tied the essentiality of baptism to salvation (Mark 16:16; cf. Acts 2:38), but many have friends and loved ones who are devout, but who have never been baptized. So, we just soft-shoe around that issue and act like it isn’t there.
Even in this same passage, Jesus spoke of the fact that, by following Him, it is not all easy, but that we have to “deny” ourselves and “take up [a] cross daily” in order to follow Him (Luke 9:23). But we would far rather present Christianity as some easy walk, so we can overlook such passages as that.
The fact of that matter is that we may not be ashamed of Jesus, but we can easily be ashamed of His words when they don’t fit a narrative we wish to present to the world. It is far easier to present Jesus as just love and acceptance and helpfulness, and leave off the controversial parts.
When we do that, however, we are ashamed of His words, because we cannot take part of Jesus without taking all of what He said. If I am ashamed of either Him or of His words, Jesus makes it clear that He will be ashamed of me.
And no one should ever want that to be true.
To Receive Every Post from A Legacy of Faith through Email for Free, Click Here
AUTHOR: Adam Faughn
