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Proverbs 13:17 "A bad messenger plunges men into trouble, but a faithful envoy brings healing."

 

There are different ways to be a bad messenger. One way is by delivering the truth without compassion or mercy, and thus hurting the person to whom the message is to be delivered, perhaps even driving him further away from a truth he is not yet ready to hear spoken with such firmness. Many in the Church, including people like Pope Francis, saw the risk of this and tried to avoid it. They were, and are, attempting to walk with people where they are, speaking with mercy and love, so that sinners are more willing and able to hear God's Word. The example I have heard used was of Jesus on the road to Emmaus. He joined a couple who were walking away from Jerusalem, away from the Church, filled with sadness and disappointment because they did not yet know the truth. Jesus walked with them, speaking to them with great love until they realized they should turn back.

 

This is the model for the kind of message delivery we should be practicing, but it brings us to another way that it is possible to be a bad messenger. Essential elements of this kind of ministry include a rock-solid, unwavering commitment to the truth, and a willingness to acknowledge sin as sin. Jesus did not further, or even sympathize with, the misconceptions of the two on the road to Emmaus. He spoke instead of all the ways Scripture reveals that there is cause for great joy and hope in the place they left. He did not waver and He was not unclear, but He always remained loving and kind. Many who try to practice this compassionate method of message delivery are too willing to sympathize with the mistakes of those with whom they are walking, they seem to be unwilling to recognize sin, or call it what it is. This leads to a reluctance to speak the message fully and with clarity, and thus leads to confusion and lukewarmness on the part of the listener. People going the wrong way thus do not turn back to the Church, because they do not see that there is any difference between going back or proceeding along the path they are on. The Church seems to be both ahead of and behind them. They are not told, with clarity, that the way forward leads to more sadness and despair, while turning back will lead to the forgiveness of their sins and completeness in Christ.

 

Another way to be a bad messenger is to corrupt the message: to spin it, or deny it entirely, and substitute one's own message. We see so many examples of this among the media and our "expert" class, who have allowed their own biases or attachments to power, money, or position, to keep them from doing the very thing they are responsible for doing - finding and delivering the truth to the people. We see all around us the trouble into which this has plunged us. Drastic, terrible, harms have come about due to this substitution of lies for truth. We see or saw this corruption of the message in the reporting on the fitness of Joe Biden for office; the Hunter Biden laptop; the real risks of COVID; the truth about the testing, safety, efficacy, and necessity of the COVID "vaccine"; the possibility of men becoming women, and vice versa; the true story behind George Floyd's death; and on and on. 

 

We are living in a country and a time when our accepted sources of information, our message deliverers, have become very bad messengers. Those who can see that the messages have been corrupted and seek for truth are punished for it, and men are plunged into trouble. The fruits of all these bad messages are only beginning to bud. We have much more to see, and, I am afraid, more trouble to go through before we return to having faithful messengers who bring healing through truthful, compassionate delivery of the messages they are supposed to deliver.