Wacky Wednesday--We shouldn’t care what others think of us.

Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.

~Jesus repeatedly warns us that we will suffer hardship for Him.
~Jesus did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
~Only those who aren’t really Christians care whether people like them.
~If our identity in Christ is secure, we are completely indifferent to what others think of us.
~Caring about other people is idolatry.
~If Jesus suffered persecution, who are you to try to avoid it?
~All who live Godly in Jesus will get persecution.
~If you really know who you are, you won’t care what others think
~If other people have trouble with you, that’s their problem.
~My only job is to be the me that God made me to be, and if other people don’t like it, well they should take it up with God.
~How many people in history have been damaged or destroyed because they tried to fit into some ill-fitting set of social expectations?
~We’re supposed to get our identity and approval only from God, not from other people.
~There’s really no difference between doing something for social approval and doing something for money. Both are just reward schemes designed to get us to compromise on who we really are.
~How many people become slaves to the opinions of others?
~History isn’t made by people who try to fit in and get approval but by people who stood out and did their own thing.
~Conformity is just another word for destroying who you really are.

Response:
It's a false dilemma
There’s a vast spectrum of midpoints between placing a high or even an ultimate value on the opinions of others and placing no value on it at all.
We should care about people liking us, but we should not be defined by it.

Sometimes we shouldn’t care, but most of the time we should care.
As long as our care is a something and not an ultimate thing.
Productive social units require mutual consideration and compassion and forbearance
The council at Jerusalem was about bearing with each other’s weaknesses.

The person who says we shouldn’t care is fighting nature
And you see it in how much he tries to convince you that he doesn’t
We are hard-wired to crave the acceptance of other people.
This isn’t a defect, it’s a design feature.
We know that neglectful parents fail to give kids the acceptance and approval they crave in their souls by nature

The message to the popular is: don’t think too highly of yourself
The message to the unpopular is: don’t think too lowly of yourself.

Consider the Westboro folks as the ultimate example of “We don’t care what other people think.”

There’s something very strange about a person who doesn’t care what others think.
We care because we respect their judgment.
Being indifferent to their view of us is another way of saying they don’t matter. But how can we say that someone made in the image of God doesn’t matter?
God is about more than just individual salvation, but about restoring community, which presupposes relationship built on mutual concern and submission.

Caring about what God thinks is far more important than caring what men think.
But part of loving people is caring about them and what they think.

We care to gain and preserve influence.
The Bible talks about having a good reputation with those outside the Church for this reason.
Isn’t it interesting that the most apathetic, individualistic, selfish culture would tell us to not care about what others think and that some religious people would think this is also correct?

Love your neighbor as yourself. Love and care seem tightly interconnected.

Conformity can be good.
It can be authentic
Rebellion can’t be universalized
Although traditional cultures are properly criticized for stifling the individual, our culture is properly criticized for worshipping the individual.

The Bible is full of praise for getting along with others
Blessed are the peacemakers
So far as it’s possible, be at peace with all men
Elders should have a good reputation in the community
Jesus was well loved by sinners, a fact we know but don’t dwell on quite as much as the fact that He offended religious folks

Comparing ourselves to Christ
He was sinless
We are sinners. We tend to look at His examples that encourage our flaws and to overlook His examples that expose our weaknesses.
As sinners, we are prone to twisting good things into bad things, such as the proclamation of God’s truth.
If I’m offending people, I start from the premise that it’s probably a result of my own sinfulness rather than from the premise that I’m doing everything so properly that the real flaw must be in them and they’re just reacting against the pure, undefiled message of God I think I’m presenting.

Love that isn’t truthful isn’t really even love. Truth that isn’t loving isn’t really even true.
A person who has no one in his life who cares enough about him to care about his plight is a very terrible and pathetic person.
Self-inflicted lack of popularity. People may dislike you because you’re a Christian or just because you’re obnoxious.

Social skills are a wide-ranging set of human competencies that are like the rules of music. You might sometimes violate them for effect, but you can’t just ignore them and hope to make anything beautiful.
Two defects in the person who can’t sing on tune in society
Don’t recognize good pitch
Don’t know how to produce it.
Paul Foote and social ineptitude. Can a person be healthy and also be socially weird, or does personality unhealthy always show up as social awkwardness? Are we defining them as the same thing?

People who tend to be on the side that doesn’t care enough about people say it’s a virtue to not care. People who tend to be on the side of caring too much about people say it’s a virtue to care. The truth is that for both natural dispositions, Christ gives the ability to not have to be that way but to be His way for His purposes.

If you get killed for doing the will of the Holy Spirit, that’s one thing. But if you get killed for being a jerk about it, that’s not glorifying to God in any way.

Fruit of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Boy people hate people like this.