Imagine going to school, you bring a bunch of cupcakes, cookies, and brownies for your friends, classmates, teachers, and principals—and they really love it! In the middle of class, your classmate next to you realizes he doesn’t have a pencil, so you give him your favorite and only pencil so that he can use it while you wait to use it later. At the cafeteria, someone falls and drops all of their food. You help them up and you also help the custodians to clean the mess. You are always on time and you pay attention in class. You are always in dress code, and you never pick a fight with anyone. After school, you stay back to help your teachers clean the room or file papers. You also go to the front office to help direct traffic or clean the hallways. Then you go to the library to tutor a classmate.
You are the star student! You don’t expect anything from anyone else either. You are doing all these nice things so that others can have a nice experience at school
You are the star student! You don’t expect anything from anyone else either. You are doing all these nice things so that others can have a nice experience at school
The next day you get to school, and the friend who you gave your pencil to, trips you so that you fall flat on your face. The other person who tripped in the cafeteria the day before starts to yell insults at you and makes fun of you in front of everyone. Your classmates who you gave the cupcakes, cookies, and brownies to start to gang up on you and want to beat you up. The teachers and the principals who you helped the other day decided to look away when people start to beat you up. They want to expel you from school forever. They want you gone.
Sounds like a clear case of bullying, right?
Last week, I introduced a new newsletter series that I am doing on bullying. Bullying can happen
anywhere—on the playground, on the Internet, on Facebook, at school, after school, even at home.
The reason that I feel that it’s important to talk about bullying from a Christian perspective is because it is a huge issue facing youth today in very impactful ways. Eventually I will want to explore how bullying is a direct result of sin and how our reactions to bullying are examples of our brokenness because of sin. But I first want to show you that the situation I described above is exactly what happened to Jesus.
Jesus Christ was bullied, and bullied in the most dreadful way. He came to the earth, gave gifts and blessings and healings to everyone around Him, and then everyone turned their backs to Him. They wanted Him dead and gone. They wanted to put him on the cross.Jesus was being bullied by the people He came down here to save. What if after they expelled you from school, beat you up, and made fun of you, all you wanted to do was make sure that they were all okay? You still wanted to help them. You still wanted to give them blessings. You probably wouldn’t want to do that. But Jesus did. He still wanted to shower blessings on us.
That is the beauty of the gospel. Jesus was bullied and had no reason to love the people who bullied Him. But He did because of his surpassing love for all of us. Every time we sin or go against God, we are in a way “bullying” God and yet He still chooses to love us each day.
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5
Until next time,
Last week, I introduced a new newsletter series that I am doing on bullying. Bullying can happen
anywhere—on the playground, on the Internet, on Facebook, at school, after school, even at home.
The reason that I feel that it’s important to talk about bullying from a Christian perspective is because it is a huge issue facing youth today in very impactful ways. Eventually I will want to explore how bullying is a direct result of sin and how our reactions to bullying are examples of our brokenness because of sin. But I first want to show you that the situation I described above is exactly what happened to Jesus.
Jesus Christ was bullied, and bullied in the most dreadful way. He came to the earth, gave gifts and blessings and healings to everyone around Him, and then everyone turned their backs to Him. They wanted Him dead and gone. They wanted to put him on the cross.Jesus was being bullied by the people He came down here to save. What if after they expelled you from school, beat you up, and made fun of you, all you wanted to do was make sure that they were all okay? You still wanted to help them. You still wanted to give them blessings. You probably wouldn’t want to do that. But Jesus did. He still wanted to shower blessings on us.
That is the beauty of the gospel. Jesus was bullied and had no reason to love the people who bullied Him. But He did because of his surpassing love for all of us. Every time we sin or go against God, we are in a way “bullying” God and yet He still chooses to love us each day.
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5
Until next time,
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