Jesus Wasn’t Always Winsome

In the last few years, I’ve heard many Christians say that all Christians need to be winsome at all times (there are even books saying that). Also, I’ve also heard apologists be so nice and so accepting when talking with those who have rejected the truths of Christianity that I feared that the non-Christian they were talking to might not realize that their eternal destination is at stake. Further, I’ve heard some attack apologists I respect for not being winsome enough (and strangely, when they’ve attacked these apologists, their manner wasn’t winsome)! But what if Jesus wasn’t always winsome?

What Is “Winsome” Anyway?

I think one of the appeals of the words “winsome” is that Christians like the idea that Christians should be out to “win” “some” people to Christ. But, of course, that’s not what the word means. The word “winsome” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “1: generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence…. 2: CHEERFUL, LIGHTHEARTED.” The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “attractive and pleasing, with simple qualities, sometimes like those a child has.” Yuck. Yes, Jesus was “engaging,” but I’ve rarely or never thought Jesus came across in a “childlike charm and innocence” or with “simple qualities… like those a child has.” But to be fair, I think what Christians mean by “winsome” perhaps most closely aligns with the Oxford English Dictionary which defines winsome as “Pleasing or attractive in appearance, handsome, comely; of attractive nature or disposition, of winning character or manners. Cheerful, joyous, gay.”¹ But whatever definition you use, Jesus wasn’t always winsome.

None of these character traits are wrong in themselves, but they’re often not good descriptors of Jesus as revealed in the Gospels. This is important because if we’re going to be disciples of Jesus, then we need to be clear as to how Jesus actually behaved. Also, and this is what motivates my writing this, I don’t see winsomeness as always being compatible with the stern warnings given by the Old Testament prophets, Jesus, and His apostles. Today, many Christians, pastors, and apologists are soooo pleasant, even when encountering unrepentant sin or false doctrine, that the person they encounter may not actually be aware that their belief and/or behavior warrants the wrath of God. Also, we need to be careful that winsome doesn’t become a cloak for cowardice.

Jesus wasn’t always winsome and neither were his disciples.  

“You Brood of Vipers”

In Matthew 12:34 Jesus tells the Pharisees: “You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Here are some reflections.

1. The context is that Jesus had just cast a demon out of a man that caused him to be blind and mute. In other words, Jesus had done something truly compassionate and helpful—life-changing for that man and his friends and relatives. But, in response, the Pharisees accused Jesus of doing this by the power of Satan. In other words, the Pharisees had told everyone that Jesus was Satan’s servant, thus obscuring who Jesus was and what Jesus had come to do. Of course, the average Jew thought the Pharisees to be the most holy people in Israel which made the Pharisees’ claims that Jesus was in league with Satan an enormous problem. Jesus response in v. 32 was to tell them “Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” D. A. Carson in his commentary on Matthew wrote that this was a “rejection of the … truth in full awareness that that is exactly what one is doing—thoughtfully, willfully, and self-consciously rejecting the work of the Spirit even though there can be no other explanation of Jesus’s exorcisms than that. For such a sin there is no forgiveness, ‘either in this age or the age to come.’”² Carson says this is a dramatic way of saying they will “never” (as in Mark 3:29) be saved.
2. Therefore, Jesus’s reply to the Pharisees was not an attempt to win the Pharisees over to His side. Jesus had already made it clear that these Pharisees had blasphemed the Holy Spirit and would never be forgiven.
3. There is a great difference today between Jesus’s ministry and much Christian public discourse. Namely, Jesus wasn’t concerned about scoring political gains, except indirectly as he changed the hearts of those in power.
4. Since Jesus was not trying to win the Pharisees over, He was laying out plain truth for the audience’s sake. Jesus was letting the crowd know that the Pharisees were evil and that their counsel should be rejected. Whenever we’re arguing with someone and we have an audience, our first concern may not be the person we are arguing with. Rather, our first concern may be the audience. After all, most of the time in a debate, we don’t expect those we are debating to throw up their hands and announce that we are right and they are wrong. Rather, in public debate, we are trying to win over the audience.
5. Jesus declared that the Pharisees were a “brood of vipers.” In Matthew 3:7, John the Baptist also called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers” and in Matthew 23:33 Jesus again called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers.”
6. A “brood” is a family of offspring and “vipers” relates to the serpent that deceived Eve. In other words, Jesus is calling them children of Satan. In John 8:44, Jesus did exactly that when He told the Jews, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.” Telling people that Satan is their dad isn’t winsome, is it? 
7. Jesus’s use of analogy is unparalleled and none of his words were ever rash. Jesus even warned two verses later that we would be judged for every careless words. Jesus’s words were carefully chosen. For Jesus then, “brood of vipers” wasn’t a phrase used in anger because He wanted to call them a name. He was portraying them exactly as He wanted the average person to understand: They were venomous sons of Satan.
8. A brood of vipers is the last thing you would want around you or your family. I wonder what “winsome” language Jesus should have used instead? “You Pharisees are treacherous and you use your mouths to kill others”? Would a toned-down description be winsome?
9. What Jesus said then was an omen of destruction for the Pharisees but the severest of warnings to those who might respect the Pharisees.
10. In sum: Jesus was not trying to win those Pharisees. Rather, Jesus warned the Jews who were winnable to stay away from those Pharisees in the starkest of terms.

What follows are more examples that I’ve put in bold so you can skim if you wish to.

If anyone does not hate his children he cannot be my disciple

So here are some more examples of Jesus perhaps being less than winsome. In Matthew 22:18 we read, “But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, ‘You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?’” Then in Matthew 23:13-33: Jesus said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. Woe to you, blind guides!… You blind fools!… You blind men!… You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee!… Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness… You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”

In Luke 11:29 we read, “As the crowds increased, Jesus said, ‘This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.’” Then in Luke 12:49, 51-53, he said:”I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!… Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” Here’s Luke 14:25-27: “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.’” 

In John 2:14-15 we read that “In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.” After Jesus fed the 5,000 He told the crowd in John 6:53, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you….” I doubt that when Jesus said that He had a smile on his face and a twinkle in His eye. And how did the crowd react? In v. 66 “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” I wonder if some today wouldn’t encourage Jesus to attend a church growth seminar! Jesus said in John 7:7 that the reason the world “hates me” was because “I testify that what it does is evil.” Then later in John 8 we find Jesus arguing with the Jews (it doesn’t say “Pharisees,” it says “Jews”—average folks), and in v. 43-44 He said, “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire.”

Maybe Christians Shouldn’t Be Like Jesus?

Here’s the odd thing. I’ve had people reply to me that Jesus is God in the flesh so Jesus can say things that we Christians can’t. Of course, I find that bizarre because we are commanded to be like Jesus. I’ve sometimes replied, Are there any other behaviors that Jesus did that we shouldn’t imitate? That’s always met with crickets. WWJD apparently doesn’t always apply? As it says in 1 John 2:5-6: “By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

Paul

Consider also that Paul said that we should imitate him. In 1 Corinthians 4:6 Paul wrote, “I urge you, then, be imitators of me.” Then in 1 Corinthians 11:1: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” In Philippians 3:17 Paul wrote, “Brothers, join in imitating me.” So how did Paul act?

In Acts 13:10-12, Paul told Elymas the magician “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.”

Galatians 3:1: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” 5:12: “To the circumcision party, “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” Ouch!

In 1 Corinthians 4:21, Paul asked the Corinthians: “Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?” Later Paul told them in 16:22: “If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him.”

Titus 1:12: “Even one of their own prophets has said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith.” Then in v.16: “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.”

Sadly, some authors and pastors, such as Gregory Boyd see themselves as more spiritual than the Apostle Paul. Boyd writes, “I consider it beyond question that some of Paul’s language about opponents reflects a hostile and mean-spirited attitude.” Not only that, Boyd writes, “I certainly cannot deny that Paul’s occasional nasty name-calling is inconsistent with his teaching that followers of Jesus are to ‘do everything in love’ (1 Cor 16:14, italics added)—an instruction that surely includes referencing theological opponents.”³.

Good thing we have Boyd to tell us how a mature Christian should act.

John

1 John 3:8: “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil.” 2 John 10: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him.”

Peter

In Acts 8:22-23 Peter told a magician, “Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”

2 Peter 2:12-14: “But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!”

Stephen

In Acts 6:8 we learn: “Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people.” Then Acts tell us that when the Pharisees argued with Stephen, “they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke” (v. 10). Then it says in v. 15 that “they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.” But in Acts 7:51-52 where Stephen is preaching to the Jews: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered.” How did the crowd respond? They stoned Stephen to death (The image at the top of this post is Rembrandt’s The Stoning of Stephen).

I’ve seen some Christians preach the truth of the Gospel only to the point that the person they are sharing with just barely begins to get miffed and then they back off. What if Stephen had done that? After all, aren’t we supposed to, on occasion, be like these Christian leaders in these ways? Sure we are.

Conclusion—Let’s Be Gentle… But Tough When Needed

Now we’ve all seen Christians and sometimes apologists who were anything but gentle and that’s bad. Our default witness should be gentleness. After all, gentleness is a fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5:23) and we are told to correct our opponents in gentleness (2 Tim. 2:25, 1 Peter 3:15). So, again, our default witness should be done with gentleness. But as the devil put it in C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, “The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers when there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.” It’s easy for Christians to point to someone who is needlessly harsh but (and sadly, they’re quite a few), but in my experience, the majority of Christians I know are more likely to be in danger of failing to sufficiently warn those in sin. Of course, we must be gentle, but there’s also a time to rebuke.

1 Timothy 5:20: “As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.”

1. That being said, Jesus wasn’t particularly physically attractive: Isa. 53:2: “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” [↩]
2. D. A. Carson, Matthew—Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 291-292. [↩]
3. Gregory Boyd, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Interpreting the Old Testament’s Violent Portraits of God in Light of the Cross (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), 590. [↩]