The Danger of Good Intentions

“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!” he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’

Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.’” (Matthew 16:21-23 NIV)

Peter had good intentions.  His Lord was talking about suffering and dying and, of course, this was a terrible thing in Peter’s mind.  He believed Jesus to be the Messiah.  He had His best interests in mind when he rebuked Him, but his intentions were based on ignorance.  He didn’t have a full understanding of what the future held.  Imagine if Peter had gotten his way and Jesus decided not to go forward with His sacrifice.  I would not be writing this and you wouldn’t be reading it.  We all would still be carrying the weight and consequence of our sin.  We would be without hope.

Good intentions can often lead to unforeseen, and negative, consequences.  The church growth movement of the 1980’s desired to grow the numbers of people attending church.  It emphasized that people like to associate with others like themselves.  The result?  The unintended segregation of churches along socio-economic and racial lines.  The late Jerry Falwell started “The Moral Majority” in the late 1970’s out of concern of the moral decline of the nation.  He was right to be concerned, but the unintended effect was to convince many believers morality could be legislated and transformation could be achieved through power rather than love.  The 1970’s Christian musicians who began the Contemporary Christian Music movement had the intent of creating music that was easier to sing and more appealing to ears of young people who were rejecting most hymns as “old-fashion.”  The result over the past 40 years is an increasing emphasis on performance-based songs, which are written for professional quality voices and can be properly sung by fewer and fewer people. The gathering of worshippers in many churches has more the feel of a concert these days.  And one last example is today’s desire by many church leaders to destroy the stereotype of Christians by the culture at large as “haters.”  As the culture has become increasingly accepting of behavior once considered sin as normal, they have sought to emphasize grace over judgment.  The unintended consequence of this, however, is the jettisoning of repentance from Christian doctrine, something Paul warned about in Romans 6:1-2.  

Imagine Peter in the years after Christ’s Ascension thinking of his earlier rebuke of Jesus.  I can see him shaking his head in relief that what he so strongly thought was right never came to pass.  He now clearly understood what Jesus had in mind.  In the same way, we can more clearly understand God’s plans and will when we consult His Word and let it speak to us rather than bringing our limited understanding and seeking to find verses to support and justify it.  We may have, like Peter, good intentions, but the consequences may have very bad and unintended consequences.

Today, realize the more you know and understand the Scriptures, the less likely it is you will fall into the same trap as Peter or any modern-day equivalents.  Your good intentions need to be well informed, or what you intended for good may result in just the opposite.

© Jim Musser 2016