Cretans! You're all evil!!

"If you get that tattoo, you're going to hell as sure as the sun comes up!"

"Only dope heads and rebels wear their hair like that. Are you one of them??"

"Kid's these days don't care about nothin. None of 'em are any good."

"Why don't they go back to their own country where they belong instead of wrecking ours?"

"This country is going to hell in a handbasket....."

There all Cretans!!


I've heard these statements in the last year, some of them more than once. Well, except for the Cretan line but I read that one in the Bible.

Paul's letter to Titus, a minister, says in chapter 1:10-12 that people are no different today than they were 2000 years ago. People will always want things their way, always want to decide what's right based on their own opinions and will lump people into their own defined categories.

Here's what Paul wrote, "For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach - and that for the sake of dishonest gain. Even one of their prophets has said, "Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons."

Doesn't sound much dfferent than today does it?

I wonder if more people would reach out to Jesus if they didn't have the impression that we Christians thought they were all Cretans?

Why is it that we will tolerate back biting, gossip, coarse talk and get easily offended in the body of Christ but we label an unbeliever evil if he acts like, well, an unbeliever? Let me get this straight. We'll not call out a Christian for acting like he's NOT supposed to but we'll call out a unbeliever for acting like he's SUPPOSED to. Anybody else confused?

Then to make the pile even higher, we believers get bent out of shape when WE get criticised by unbelievers and then we call the prayer chain for strength because we're being persecuted.

Criticism is an ugly word. A few verses later in his letter to Titus, Paul writes, "To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure." 1:15

What that verse says is that pure people see the pure in whatever they see. Corrupted people see nothing pure in what they see. Does that mean that EVERYTHING IS PURE? No, of course not. What it does mean is that the pure person focuses on that which is pure in everyone. The corrupted person focses on that which is impure in everyone because that is all he can see.

I wonder how people in our city would react if instead of criticising them we actually began to see what was pure in them? There's something to appreciate in everyone. Yes, maybe we will have to dig under some pretty crusty stuff to get to the pure, but it's there. How do I know? Because God made us all in His image. Before we were conceived, we were in the mind of God. We are the passion of His heart, the joy of His desire. God is pure and behind all the failure, the muck, the stain and filth, he sees what is pure. To the pure all things are pure.

I can evaluate the condition of my heart with this understanding. If I see the pure in people I'm displaying the pure heart of God, when I'm critical I'm not. Sounds simple but so true.

Today as you go about your day you'll probably run into a few Cretans along the way. Remember, don't criticise. To the pure all things are pure. Besides it's most likely that you're a Cretan to someone else!