Killing The Messenger

If by character assassination, ignoring the truth, condemning as factional, or in some other way, the message of faithful men is silenced. However, it never changes the truth of the gospel.

In ancient Oriental kingdoms, messengers who brought a monarch bad news sometimes suffered the penalty of death. In Washington D.C., politicians often attempt to destroy the political careers of their enemies. If they are under investigation for suspected crimes, they seek not the truth to clear their name, but most often they seek to silence all those who would accuse them. If they can defame their accuser’s name, morality, or ethics, then they can escape scrutiny themselves. In rare situations, Presidents and statesmen are assassinated in order to silence their message (e.g. Lincoln, Kennedy, King). Even so, eventually the message continues on in future candidates, and eventually even the guilty of criminal acts against the state is made known.

Such events are not unknown in biblical accounts. Upon hearing that Saul and Jonathan were dead, David slew the messenger who brought the news. Of course, the extenuating circumstance on this occasion was that the messenger was an Amalekite who lied, claiming to have slain Saul at Saul’s request. It infuriated David that a pagan had dared to deal so with King Saul, saying, “How were you not afraid to stretch forth your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?” (2 Sam. 1:14). The messenger paid with his life.

King Herod likewise cut off the head of John the Baptizer since John had boldly opposed the sinful marriage of Herod to Herodias, Philip’s wife. John stated: “It is not lawful for you to have her” (Matt. 14:4). Though Herodias and her daughter were implicated in the plot to kill John, the ultimate power was Herod’s, and he slew the messenger of God who condemned his sin. Again, killing John did not change the truth that he declared, but he was effectively silenced because of the message he delivered; the messenger paid with his life.

Various Ways To Kill The Messenger

We live in “kinder and gentler” days and messengers are not slain today when they deliver bad news. But messengers are not immune to ill-treatment when a communication carries unfavorable tidings. There are more subtle, albeit effective, ways to vent one’s displeasure. These “civilized” methods of dispatching unwelcome messengers are even found among members of the church who do not like the truth of God. Gospel preachers have sometimes been on the receiving end of this “kinder and gentler” method of dealing with the messenger: fire the preacher, cut off his support, throw him out of the parsonage, and haul him over the coals in a business meeting. Paul was no stranger to ill-treatment by brethren, raising the question, “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16). He stated that he had been in “perils often,” even among “false brethren” (2 Cor. 11:26). Paul understood the danger of being the bearer of bad news.

Messages and Messengers Today That Face Opposition

Every generation faces its own issues, its own controversies, its own forces of iniquity. In one generation it is called Gnosticism, in another institutionalism, in another doctrinal unity-in-diversity. However the titles are changed, the battle remains the same. The battle is truth versus error, law versus iniquity, right versus wrong. The actors on the stage change with each succeeding generation, but the plot remains the same. And one constant that is still with us is, “Kill the messenger.” Diotrephes threw some out of the church who received John’s letters (3 Jn 9-10). John was exiled (Rev. 1:9). We don’t have the custom of beheading people in our times and no one has been stoned to death like Stephen in centuries (Acts 7:58). But don’t think modern iniquity hasn’t developed effective means of dealing with those who preach the truth when it is “out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2).

The tongue can be as effective as a sword in such controversies. Faithful messengers of the Word have had their characters assailed as “brotherhood watchdogs,” “creed makers,” “meddlers in other men’s matters,” and “guardians of truth” so many times that even the innocent and naive are led to believe the lie. Such barbed comments are smilingly pronounced against brethren while they decry the mean spirit of the “name callers” and “busybodies.” Even while those who teach error are militant in their spread of compromise, they berate those who oppose them as “too militant.” Those who travel across continents to teach error attack those who write in papers such as this one as desiring to direct brotherhood affairs, to control the church universal.

Kill the messenger in the church today? Oh, we are much too polite for that. But this approach is just as deadly, lethal to a fault, and has the advantage of shedding no blood. And, sad to say, it is effective. Those who are guilty can stand in shocked dismay and claim innocence while they continue to spread error and refuse to study. They are the ones with the sweet spirit, who rise above controversy, who refuse to sully their hands in debate. Meanwhile, error continues its destructive march and compromise eats away at the heart of conviction.

The Message Is Not Changed by Killing the Messenger

Stephen told those who were to stone him to death: “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it” (Acts 7:51-53). These words will face his murderers at the Judgment.

Herod must still hear the haunting echo of John saying, “It is not lawful for you to have her.”

The splash of the water could not wash away the guilt of Pilate even as he consented to the death of Jesus. Pilate is gone but the gospel remains.

And so will it be in our generation. If by character assassination, ignoring the truth, condemning as factional, or in some other way, the message of faithful men is silenced, it doesn’t change the truth of the gospel. Doctrinal unity-in-diversity is still compromised no matter if every voice of opposition is stilled. It remains comforting to know, even as Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). You may kill the messenger, but you can’t stop the message.