There is a reason that the festschrift recently published in honour of John Frame is titled Speaking the Truth in Love—it is because there are few who deal with the thought of others in such a gracious and humble manner, even when they fundamentally disagree. The reference comes from Ephesians 4:15, where Paul is encouraging the Christians in Ephesus to seek the unity of the Church. It has been an incredible blessing to be able to study under Dr. Frame in my time here at Reformed Theological Seminary and to follow him for these last few years as he works tirelessly to bring that unity to fruition, especially through his writings. Without a doubt his thinking constitutes one of the most formative influences in my own thought.

I have been taking the course on Pastoral and Social Ethics that Frame teaches over the past few months, and I finished working through the lectures this afternoon. Toward the very end of his lecture on the ninth commandment of the Decalogue, Frame had a few things to say about how we interact with the thought of others, especially in the internet age. The ability of anyone to publish anything online these days with little to no accountability makes it easy for people to slander and malign others, and to misrepresent and distort their thought so as to make them appear heretical. Frame has frequently been the victim of this sort of thing and he makes a plea to those who have blogs to interact with others in love and seek to build each other up. Here is a short clip from the lecture:

I thought it was amusing that Frame used the label "Reformed Controversialists." He's referring to that disproportionately vocal and hyper-critical group of Reformed bloggers who do nothing but tear down those they disagree with. You would know right away when you've landed on one of their sites and for the sake of your health, it's best just to hit the back button.

Our responsibility as Christians is to build each other up and seek unity. If our interaction lacks either of these characteristics, then we need to step back and examine ourselves. For without these, we do great harm to the body of Christ.

Loading mentions Retweet