Duck Dynasty- Their Goose is Cooked?

Are there perfect people on earth, people that don't mess up, hurt others, regret words, wish they said things differently?  No, we are all sinners, sinners who still mess up... who still think selfishly at times, who still struggle to put ourselves aside and think of others first. I think our actions, the way we display love, is the only way they will see Christ.   Our call is that of a peacemaker,  building peace within the church and making peace with those outside of it.

Jen Hatmaker stated it this way:   We should refuse to contribute to someone’s pain by speaking about them abstractedly, distantly, as if they aren’t real human beings whose lives bear actual repercussions of our casual public conversations. The sterile public sphere outside of the protective confines of relationships is not a safe place for such weighty discussions, and we should not add to the pile of condescending, degrading comments about real human people. These precious, fragile conversations belong among people who love one another, who've earned the right to be heard, who can look each other in the eye and listen with grace and humility. We are not judges, because how could we possibly be?? How dare we? What right do we have to cut someone to the quick when we are nothing but sinners saved by grace? Sanctification is Jesus’ territory, and we can safely leave Him to it; He can handle the human heart. Our only sane offering to our fellow man is mercy. ...As for me, I care deeply for all the watching eyes, waiting for something real, something that heals instead of wounds. I dream of a faith community that demonstrates a love so scandalous and embarrassing that only the foolish and the rejected and the misfits and the cynics will find any solace in it. My heart’s cry is that someone far outside the sphere of Christian endorsement might whisper, “Even me?” and be stunned by Jesus’ answer: “Always you.”


Did you know that you don't know every "believers"past sins or present sins?  Did you know you likely "entertain/ spend time with" thieves, adulterers, homosexuals,  drunkards,  people who covet other people's stuff, etc? (1 Corinthians 6 9-11)  You are likely to at least in the past have been one of those things.... as stated : "And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our  God." (I CORINTHIANS 6:11).  So what do we do when Phil of Duck Dynasty quotes that verse in an interview?  Do we say his goose is cooked?  Do we bail on the show or start a "stand with Phil" petition?   I think we all learn and give grace. 

I think we remember what Jen Hatmaker said: I think of my gay and black friends watching the outcry this week, and I can’t help but think the gospel yet again feels like a bludgeon to them, not a real balm, a real grace, a real sanctuary. And the tragedy is, Jesus is the most real source of mercy in the history of time, and He loves us all with a fierce, indescribable love, and none of us deserve it any less than anyone else, and THAT is the shocking headline we should be proclaiming.


Ann Voskamp said it this way on her blog: Hear me, get this, don’t ever forget this: The tongue is the tail of the heart. The heart is known by how the tongue wags. There is something else, kids, and I say this as a woman who scratches down words, writes books, who speaks words:You are going to get the words wrong.  And so is every one else. The guy from Louisiana and the jet-setting PR exec Africa bound and the neighbor next door and the pastor on Sunday morning and the friend over coffee and your wife in the car and your husband at the back door and your kids everywhere and I have and I am going to and you are and you are going to.  100% guaranteed.
The only words that are infallible — is the Word of God Himself.
So — we grant grace.  Grace is air — without it we all die.
And can I, chief among sinners, who sins daily with words, confess, kids?
Sending word-offenders to their room, figuratively or literally, may only polarize the situation and freeze positions. Cold hearts never changes words. Silencing people may not be the most effective way to educate people. Here’s a life truth to ink somewhere into you:
When you disagree with someone — don’t dismiss them. Dialogue with them.
Exiling them, firing them, dismissing them doesn’t change them — or you.
It’s a strange but powerful paradox that upends everything: Listening is what changes words.
And words are the explosives that aren’t meant to injure people but explode new inroads — that can rightly demolish walls, destroy chains, dynamite through the impossible to the possibilities of new vistas, new ways, new destinations.  Welcome every conflict as the best possible growth opportunity. Conflict is always a blinking cursor to start a conversation toward change. Remember what G.K. Chesterton said? That bigotry is “an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.”  If Chesterton’s on to something — and time has proven he usually was –then is it that…. bigots end conversations and big people start change through conversation?

So what do we do?  Give Grace.. assume the best of EVERYONE  (Christian or not) .... Assume reality TV isn't really reality.  Assume the face we see of even our friends isn't 100%  reality, because people are afraid of being judged, of being rejected, of being hurt.... or they struggle with pride and don't want you to know they still struggle with different hurts or sins, or the effects of others sins.  Love people and display your knowledge that they are precious to the Lord. 

 I know when I die, God isn't going to ask me to explain Phil's behavior, my husband's behavior and choices, etc.... I am just going to have to explain my own behavior and choices....

Until that time, I rejoice that He came!  It's Christmas. John 1:14 tells us that the "Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us".  We know the grace of Jesus because He became poor, so that we, through His poverty, might become rich... 2 Corinthians 8:9.  He became poor by laying aside of glory; a volunteer restraint of power, an acceptance of hardships, isolation, ill treatment, malice and misunderstanding, a death that involved such agony.  God became vulnerable, taking the form of a little baby so that our relationship with Him would be restored. In the midst of our hostility, God decided that despite how distorted the other person had become because of anger, God wanted us to Himself.   In the coming of Jesus, the omnipotent, loving Father became a baby born in a stable, giving us the ultimate example of letting our defenses down...    We see God's willingness to enter the world of suffering to suffer with us and for us.  That's our charge! Still not clear?

Philippians 2:5-7  New International Version (NIV)

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;⁷ rather, he made himself nothing  by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,    being made in human likeness.

Still don't get it?  Here it is in modern language: 

Philippians 2:5-8 The Message (MSG)

^5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

 Love people.... even if it hurts...   Live lives that reflect God's character... spend time enriching man, giving time, providing love and concern, doing good to others. Why?  Because He has done so much for us...an overflow of a grateful heart.   

I run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free- Psalm 199: 32. 

What about Phil?  Don't look to vilify him because he is different from you: a  Christian man with his master degree, who has been married since 1966, a successful businessman, who will not always say things just right.... just like all of us (Christian or not).   

Here is a very eye opening interview.  I hope this helps give a little more light to the picture. 

Merry Christmas!