It must have been a heartbreaking meeting, one filled with guilt and remorse—the manager went back to church…Tom led him out of sin and not into further sin. Not always easy, but for Tom, a Christian had only one way to respond, and that was to follow Jesus and honour God and His Word.

Don’t Lead Your Brother into Sin
Paul tells us in Romans 14:13, “to never put a stumbling block or hinderance in the way of a brother”. That’s sound advice, as relevant today as it was back when Paul wrote it. We read on the reference here is regarding food and drink, but it has other applications.
My friend, we will call him Tom, because that might be his name, is an architect. One morning over a cup of tea I was busy complaining to him about all the issues I was facing with a construction tender package I was managing.
Tom was our architect on what was a relatively small refit of a retirement village facility, something around a million dollars or so in value. After Tom had completed the drawings, we had gone through all the standard processes of issuing sealed tender documents to four building contractors.
As often happens, there are a raft of questions asked by contractors during the tender period and it was my policy to reply to questions from one contractor to all four contractors, hence ensuring an even playing field, and complete transparency. The reality is that this usually helps the job run with fewer hiccups.
It came about that one contractor nominated by a manager from head office had taken to circumnavigating this process and gone directly to this manager…who in turn was then calling me on what appeared to be on behalf of the contractor and asking questions when tenders had officially closed.
Enjoying the tea, Tom opened to me about an incident that happened to him over 40 years ago when he first kicked off his practice. Tom had applied to do some work for a major corporation so off he headed for the long drive from his office to Sydney where he met with some of the corporation managers. Hoping for a good outcome Tom put his best foot forward at the interview and it must have paid dividends because not long after he received a phone call from one of the interviewing managers who advised him, they were very impressed, so impressed that they would be offering him ongoing consultancy work.
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In light of the cross and everything Jesus would have to endure at the hands of Pontius Pilate and the Jews, this is a profound statement! Jesus “loved His enemies” to the point that He would lay down His life for them while praying “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” That is…mind-blowing! This flies in the face of religion and our modern “progressive” Christianity/ cancel culture. 

Last Friday morning, I awoke early (like before the crack of dawn early!) and meditated on a well-known, often-quoted-out-of-context passage of Scripture. I’ve read these verses countless times and it hits me anew even now.
27. “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28. bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”
LUKE 6:27-28 (ESV)
He Who Has Ears to Hear…
Jesus’s first words were for those “who hear” which tells me that there were some—perhaps many—sitting in the crowd who wouldn’t be able to hear His message (including more than just the Pharisees and Sadducees). In light of our modern era, Jesus’s words pierce just as deep.

…pray for those who abuse you.

When I read those words last week, they gave me pause. (Imagine that, getting triggered by Scripture!) An intrusive memory flashed through my mind like a movie. A familiar scene that tried to form into a flashback (if I hadn’t been so focused on writing notes while I was reading, it definitely would have!): my college abuser—who had groomed me so well he didn’t have to use force—kissing me, his hands in places they shouldn’t have been. For 6 months, various incidents happened. Most times, I didn’t fight him. I didn’t know I should have.
As an abuse survivor with PTSD, I know there have been a myriad of times when I didn’t want to obey that part of Scripture—especially when the PTSD symptoms spiked. Hours, days, lost because of dissociation caused by night terrors and intrusive memories, nocturnal panic attacks, and flashbacks that made me lose sense of reality. With PTSD comes flashbacks, where my brain goes back to and believes it’s 2014 even though the calendar says otherwise. For example, I’ll think I have a class I’m late for or homework I forgot about when, in reality, I don’t; I haven’t since I graduated. And in almost every single one of these flashbacks, I see… him. He’s still 29; I’m still 22.
Jesus’s words are hard to hear, harder still to obey, especially when coming out of a flashback or panic attack. It takes a while for my body and brain to catch up. And in response to the trauma, sometimes too often for my liking, I would harm myself; it was easier than trying to forgive him when I knew I didn’t mean it. When you start abusing yourself in response to someone else abusing you, things get complicated fast. My prayers, especially the first few years after graduation, were more along the lines of “God, please kill him!” or “God, please come get me, come save me from this hellish nightmare!” while I was in the midst of self-harm and would soon after have to pray for repentance.
Biblical Math vs Trauma Reality
As a student of the Word, I know what Scripture says about forgiveness and loving your enemies. Jesus has a math formula for that: “70 x 7” right? But then… the pain of trauma worsened and I started questioning YHWH.
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We all tend to have an exalted view of our oratorical abilities, but strength is not always in the length. Sometimes, brevity is better. Yet, honoring the sufficiency of Scripture in our delivery is best of all. 

We were discussing the length of the preacher’s sermon in one of Paul’s letters. “Which rabbits are you chasing?” my friend asked rhetorically, “Are you chasing Paul’s rabbits or your own?” Often, our sermons are too long because we’re chasing the wrong rabbits.
As mentioned, actual sermons in Scripture (and in church history) vary in length (see our previous survey). We agree with Calvin and Luther: Often, we preach “too long” (Luther) and/or fail to consider “what the weakness of men could bear” (Calvin). Or, as my faithful deacon (a retired school teacher) stated, “The mind can bear no more than the rear end can endure!” We’ve all been there before.
Rather than quibble over whether to preach 60-minutes vs. 12-minutes, though, we are interested in a more pertinent issue: The minutes you allot to each point within the sermon (no matter the sermon’s length). We feel the implications of those “minute-allotments” have a direct bearing on the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. No preaching book I know of makes this connection. We wonder why.
To truly uphold the sufficiency of Scripture, you must “weight” your points in alignment with the biblical author’s emphases (see prior articles: here, and here). Ultimately, this comes down to assigning a specified number of minutes to each point, sub-point, sub-sub-point, etc. To allot more minutes to a minor point and less minutes to a major point “could” misconstrue the biblical author’s intent. Who grants us the authority to take such liberties? If God has spoken in Scripture—and He has—isn’t it only fair (and right) that we reflect His “breathed-out” emphases in our presentation to men?
For instance, our sermon may have three points, but the biblical author might emphasize the last point more than the others. The last point demands more minutes within the sermon than the other two. Otherwise, we implicitly deny the sufficiency of Scripture by over (or under) emphasizing points more (or less) than did the biblical author.
Again, imagine someone stood to explain a short letter you wrote about an urgent issue. In their 30-minute explanation, suppose they spent 2 minutes on the urgent issue and 28 minutes expounding your 3-word salutation? How would you feel about that? In principle, it’s no different than Joel Osteen accentuating the positive portions of a preaching-text and minimizing (or ignoring altogether) the negative injunctions. It denies the the sufficiency of Scripture in the delivery.