Some evangelicals think we should only proclaim a gospel of salvation of individual souls, and have no concern for the world around us. Liberal Christians can put all their emphasis on making the world a better place with little or no concern about getting people saved. Both positions are wrong and unbiblical

The other day in a radio interview I spoke about Christ the controversialist. I also mentioned that John Stott had a book by that title. So I just grabbed my copy of it from the shelves and am revisiting it. It first came out in 1970, and I consider it to be a modern Christian classic.

In it the British pastor and theologian looks at a number of contrasting positions, such as: authority: tradition or Scripture; salvation: mercy or merit; and morality: outward or inward. Here I look at chapter 7: “Responsibility: Withdrawal or Involvement?”

Stott begins by noting the contrast between Jesus and the Pharisees. He reminds us that their concerns were based on some good and biblical notions: to be holy, and to be a distinct people of God. But Israel failed to be a holy people and were sent into exile. He notes how the repatriated exiles started heading in a wrong direction:

Misunderstanding the nature of the holiness God required of them, they began to cultivate a false separatism. They forgot the prophetic description of their destiny to be ‘a light to the nations’. Instead, they withdrew from all contact with the nations around them. And so Pharisaism was born. The real parting of the ways arrived when Palestine became absorbed into the far-flung empire of Alexander the Great, and Greek influence started to infiltrate into Judaism. Some Jews surrendered to it (the Hellenists) while others resisted it (the Hasidaeans, from Hasidim or ‘pious ones’). Out of the Hellenists came the Sadducees, out the Hasidaeans the Pharisees.

The very word ‘Pharisees’ is an accurate description of them, for it is in fact an Aramaic term for ‘separatists’. The Pharisees were the religious exclusives of their day. In their determination to conform strictly to the law they held aloof from any and every contact that (in their view) might ‘defile’ them. This entailed an avoidance not only of Gentiles, not only of hellenized Jews, but of the ‘common people’ as well, who through ignorance of the law no doubt broke it and as law-breakers, were unclean.

Thus the Pharisees developed a “superior and scornful attitude” towards the common people. They refused to associate with sinners, and sought to remain socially distant from them—quite unlike Jesus:

So the Pharisaic doctrine of holiness, of separation from the world, was a perverted doctrine. Instead of seeking to be holy in thought, word and deed, while retaining relationships of love and care with all men, they withdrew from social contact with ‘sinners’ and despised those who did not follow suit. They became a ‘holy club’—as the early Methodists were called—a pietistic enclave which virtually contracted out the world. They also became harsh and censorious; they had no pity for people in ignorance, sin or need.

Stott spends a few pages in contrasting the way that Jesus dealt with others. He then writes: “The Pharisees’ first concern was themselves, how to preserve their own purity, whereas Jesus Christ’s first concern was others, how ‘to seek and save the lost.’

He looks at various parables Jesus told to illustrate this way of dealing with the lost, and then says this: “Christ’s fraternization with outcasts was interpreted by the Pharisees as an inexcusable compromise with sin; they did not see it for what it really was, an expression of the divine compassion for sinners.”

Stott then applies this to the church today. He looks at four common attitudes of Pharisees: self-righteousness; fear of contamination; an unbalanced relationship between evangelism and social concern; and laziness and selfishness. I will here dwell on his third point.

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