While there are times we as Christians must speak out, there is never a time we can speak to a fellow Christian or about a fellow Christian in a way that fails to reflect the love of our common Savior.

It’s not a memory I’m proud of, but every now and again I feel the need to revisit it. I guess if Peter could tell the tale of betraying Jesus—after all, how else would the biblical writers have known the fine details?—, I can tell my tale of failing to be like Jesus. I can tell it for my ongoing benefit and hopefully for yours.

While a right acknowledgement and right assessment of my youth should have constrained me, a total failure to acknowledge and assess my youth empowered me.

It goes back to my early days of blogging, back in the days when I was a lot younger than I am right now. But even though I was a lot younger, I was a lot more self-assured. It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it? I still maintained too much of the arrogance of youth. Foolishness and the pride that goes with it are closely associated with youth and I may as well have been the poster child. While a right acknowledgement and right assessment of my youth should have constrained me, a total failure to acknowledge and assess my youth empowered me. And in my arrogance I launched a broadside against a good man.

I was a man with little life experience, he was a man with substantial life experience. I was a man with no formal theological education, he was a man with a great deal of formal theological education including several advanced degrees. I was a man with few accomplishments, he was a man with many accomplishments. I was a man marked by little godliness, he was a man marked by much more godliness. But when I detected an area of doctrine in which he and I disagreed, I went on the offensive. I wasn’t vicious, but I also wasn’t gentle. I wasn’t savage, but I also wasn’t humble. I used my blog and social media to go after him over a lesser doctrine, a disputable matter. I was interested in defending truth, but not interested in speaking that truth with love.

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