To trust that you will not hurt your friend unnecessarily
understands that intervention pain can actually be a part of friendship. To believe you will not own him or her is more
serious. Ownership is God’s prerogative. The belief that you will not
knowingly mislead him or her requires your willingness to distinguish
between truth and your opinion based on truth. All of these trust issues include the possibility of
failure and room for repentance, confession and restoration of trust. In fact,
the process of working through such failures can reinforce true brotherly love.
Jesus modeled this in response to Peter’s failure.
Violation, on the other hand, is the deliberate ensnarement of a friend. It
defiles his personhood; it minimalizes her self-worth and self-respect; and
it can harden their heart toward Christ and the Gospel.
Violation may involve
luring a friend into a sexual experience or using sexual satisfaction as
leverage for control in a marriage. It can be sordid manipulation – maneuvering him into a position where you control him under threat of exposure. It is
the very core of both emotional and physical abuse. It is the heart of a bully and it is the trap of every
cult which dominates its followers with a self-proclaimed power to withhold
salvation.
The
person who can commit such criminal behavior toward one who trusts him as a
friend has already
abandoned major absolute self denial categories in his life. Those areas will be found in orientations against which he has ceased to do
battle. These he knowingly covers with enough of a persuasive veneer to satisfy
a community without boundaries. Sadly, the church, which should be the last
place he would go undetected and accommodated, can, through a false
understanding of love, be his safest haven.
Previous: I Believe You Will Not Mislead Me
