Wheat, Chaff, Fool, Wise, Sheep, Dog, and Wolf

In the grand scheme of spiritual authority figures, I am nobody. I am a wife and mom who teaches math part time at the local community college. I wrote some books. People seemed to like them. And I have a blog that some have enjoyed reading. But that’s it. This blog remains a lecture to myself. Today’s post is something I want to document long term for myself—working out my own convictions on an issue that troubles me much, how we categorize people within and without the Body of Christ. Speaking harshly to people based on false Biblical categories is a sacred cow for some spiritual leaders. I can’t do anything about that, but I do feel free to articulate my personal convictions here. You are welcome to read along.

The Bible mentions lots of types of people. Wheat, chaff, fool, wise, natural, spiritual, shepherd, sheep, dog, swine, wolf. Each of those categories is mentioned a few times in passing. Other than the foolish man and the spiritual man, about which the Bible is pretty specific, we are given very general impressions of these categories without much in the way of identifiable traits for each. In other words, the Bible does not set these categories up with clear-cut boundaries.

There is a single category in Scripture with clear-cut boundaries, about which all of Scripture circulates, and it is the elect. This category is easily defined—the elect are known by the gospel. Period. “If you will confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). And the evidence of a correct understanding of the gospel is love. “By this will all men know you are my disciples, that you love one another” (John 13:35). So there is the verbal articulation of the gospel that defines the elect, and there is the practical outpouring of the gospel that is evidence of the elect. All of Scripture centers on the relationship of this singular category of people to their God and each other.

What about the other categories? Most importantly, they are all simply analogies, and none are absolute. Except for one case in Acts, all the Scripture on wolves in particular use the phrase like or as. In other words, it’s an analogy with helpful parallels. I generally know there are people who won’t receive truth (swine), and there comes a point where I should no longer throw my pearls of spiritual ministry in their direction. I also know that there are some who distort the truth of the gospel (wolves), and I must watch out for them diligently. But dog, wolf, sheep, or swine are not dogmatic categories in which we can put people and lock the door. You could say that Paul was a wolf before he walked the Damascus Road. Then he became a shepherd. But at both points, he was elect. Then there is Peter, who was both shepherding the sheep and bearing the rebuke of Paul as a wolf for his legalistic view of the gospel possibly at the very same time.

There are many pitfalls to making hard and fast categories of people, especially when we assign ourselves different obligations to each. The primary pitfall is that such categories simply give us an excuse to sin against people who are hard for us to love. I’ve watched it again and again and again throughout my history in the church. If I categorize someone as swine, dogs, or wolves, I’m off the hook. I don’t have to speak the truth in love. I don’t have to bear long in love. My words don’t have to minister grace to the hearer. I can give voice to my sinful anger problem.

Scripture does give us categories that are hard and fast. And our instructions for how to talk to someone in these categories are equally spelled out in Scripture. There are the evidently elect—those brothers and sisters in Christ who claim the gospel for themselves. And Ephesians 4 is clear—crystal, sparkling clear—on how we speak to each other in His Body, be it husband, wife, parent, child, slave, master, or any other relationship within the church. We are to be humble and gentle, bearing long in love. We speak the truth but within the constraints of love articulated in I Corinthians 13. We speak to minister grace, not condemnation, to the hearer. And we forgive as Christ has forgiven us.

Scripture is equally clear on how to relate to those who are not evidently elect, even those who are not just passively unbelieving but are actively opposing us.

2 Timothy 2 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

It is noteworthy that the rebukes of Scripture most often used to justify harsh speech center around one consistent theme—the gospel itself. Paul’s classic rebuke in Galatians is fully about the gospel. In contrast, we often choose much lesser topics as the line in the sand over which we will harshly, sarcastically rebuke. We also project onto our reading of Paul’s rebuke in Galatians a tone based on our own desire to justify our anger problems. I wrote about the unbiblical idea of righteous anger in another post that generated thoughtful discussion. Did Paul violate his own instructions to Timothy when he rebuked Peter to his face? I don’t think so. Paul himself is concerned about his tone in Galatians 4:20. Elsewhere, Scripture is clear that the anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God (James 1:20). Scripture is the best commentary on itself, and Paul likely obeyed his own, Spirit-inspired instructions to Timothy, even when the gospel was at stake. And we should too. Speak the truth. In love. With gentleness (strength under control). With patience. Not rudely.

You don’t need to be rudely caustic to strongly rebuke. The rudely caustic rebuke has only one goal – to win its point. It is always at the expense of the heart of the one being rebuked. When your point trumps their heart, you have truly lost the battle. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you have somehow preserved the gospel when your very presentation of it denies the gospel’s own core values of love and grace to those least deserving of it.

Certainly, we all experience anger. Paul’s wording in Ephesians 4 indicates that anger doesn’t HAVE to turn sinful. It needs to be pored out to God in prayer (as the Psalms regularly demonstrate). We either bring it to God in prayer where it is transformed by His grace into something He can use, or we will be doomed by it, giving Satan a foothold to destroy the work of God in our homes and our churches. But don’t be fooled into thinking that anger can ever accomplish a righteous outcome. That’s just ignoring Scripture to justify an anger problem.

There are fools. A lot of them. There are also pigs, dogs, and wolves. And there are stupid sheep. But if I really get Ephesians 2, I know that I was by nature the fool, the pig, the dog, and the wolf, justly deserving of God’s wrath. And I now know the antidote for that kind of behavior—grace through faith in Christ. And I know, as the great wolf Saul who then became Paul did, that it is not of my own works that I no longer subvert the gospel and seek to scatter the sheep, but the gift of God’s grace lavished on me so undeserving. Then and only then am I equipped to turn to my opponent and be a conduit of God’s grace to him or her. And it is only God’s grace that will save them. They may be my opponent, but they are not my enemy. As Paul tells Timothy, my opponent is the prisoner of my enemy, “captured by him to do his will.” Be clear on this – we have one singular enemy, and he is not flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). God forbid I accept the grace God has lavished on me that freed me from my chains of slavery, yet withhold it from the next person because they seem so undeserving of grace and deserving of harshness. But for the lavish grace of God, there go I. That is the gospel.