Where the Gospel Takes Us

Jack Miller, 1981, in a letter to another pastor with whom Jack has had some disagreements:

What is the gospel all about? It is the reconciliation of sinners to God through the blood of Christ and the reconciliation of men to one another as the fruit of that reconciliation to God. . . .

It must be greatly offensive to the Lord to see us defending the gospel in a manner that puts us at a distance from one another. . . . I fear that none of us have done all that well in living out [the gospel] as Christian brothers together. What has developed all too often is an adversary relationship among us, much like that in a court system. I am thinking of the tone, the pitting of position against position, the lack of mutual listening, and sometimes a breach of our covenant calling by bitterness and backbiting. . . .

How shall we give an account of ourselves when we are suddenly brought before our all-holy Father and asked to explain our divisions and quarrels?

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R 2004), 167-68