A child who says “I want some coke” means something very different from a drug addict who utters the same words. If the addict first interprets the sentence relative to the child’s own context, he might not be so quick to agree, that is, unless he also wants some soda.

You must interpret the Bible relative to its own context first, not relative to your own context. You must ask what “gentleness” meant to Paul in his world, and not what it means to you or your culture. In Paul’s culture, religious differences were often settled with slander and force. His enemies would lie about him, beat him, stone him, and so on. The Bible commands us to spread the message of Christ with gentleness relative to this context, and not the context we live in now. Your culture has been “christianized” in an external sense. It has been shaped by the texts like those you mentioned, and then gone much further in that way, to the point of perversion. Our message of peace has influenced even the non-Christians, so that in many places they no longer try to kill us when we preach the gospel. Our message is so powerful that even when their hearts have not been changed by us, some of their values and actions have been shaped by us. But in most cases Christians have gone too much in that direction, so that it is like we do not even care. Paul would probably say that you have been too compromising and too effeminate toward the cessationists.

Consider how Jesus and his disciples practiced religious gentleness. Was Jesus “gentle”? But he turned over tables and insulted many people. He called people hypocrites, tombstones, blind guides, and cursed them with woes about hell. This seems very acceptable to me, but when I do the same thing, evangelicals would complain that I am not christ-like. You see, they have a different Christ. Was Paul “gentle”? But he told the circumcision group to go all the way and castrate themselves. He called people morons, dung, and so on. Yet he was indeed gentle, because he did not use false witnesses to put people to death, he did not poison people, he did not stone people, and he did not overturn governments. Relative to the people at that time, he was strangely gentle.

There is also the matter of the audience. Jesus and his disciples were less harsh with those who were ignorant and who were willing to immediately agree and change. Even with such people, they were still more blunt than Christians today would like to admit. On the other hand, Jesus and his disciples were totally severe, showing no sympathy, toward opponents who claimed to have knowledge and those who had hardened their hearts, who did not wish to learn or change, but only wished to argue, to justify themselves and to suppress the truth. The Pharisees and their followers were the best examples. Who are most like the Pharisees today? “Christians” who consider themselves sensible and educated, but who have made up their minds against the truth. This describes most cessationists. Some people are cessationists only because they have been taught this way and have never considered an alternative. They also have sinned because they have the Bible and could read for themselves, so that they have no excuse. Still, if they will change immediately when you talk to them, then there is less need to be harsh — Jesus probably would have rebuked them a little anyway. However, with most cessationists, who deny the gospel like those who deceived the Galatians, I cannot see any way that you can be too harsh as long as you do not use violence.

Finally, you failed to observe the context of the very text you cited. Go back a little and Paul referred to “the passions of youth” (2 Timothy 2:22) and “foolish and stupid controversies” (v. 23) Thus when it comes to content, the text tells us to avoid arguing about useless things, and when it comes to style, it calls for patience and gentleness in contrast to immature emotions. It does not censor harsh rebukes when it comes to important gospel issues, such as circumcision and cessationism. Verses 17-18 indeed refer to a serious doctrinal issue, but there Paul says that we should not be like the heretics (v. 16). He is not discussing the acceptable way to correct them. Read the text before you use it.

Paul said to Titus, “Rebuke them sharply” (Titus 1:13), but you said nothing about that. There he was thinking about “those of the circumcision group” (v. 10) — a serious gospel matter. Paul was again talking to someone in his own culture, and he told him to rebuke the people sharply. In a culture that would cause riots and murder people because of religious disagreements, this text must authorize a rebuke that is frighteningly harsh, to a degree that I have never performed or witnessed. Depending on the topic and the target, we must often be much, much, much more harsh than we have been. I have demonstrated again and again that the issue of cessationism relates to the core of the gospel. If you must be harsh about anything, this is it. We must strain with all our strength and imagination to attain the harshness that Paul commands and direct it against the cessationists. This is a harshness so extreme that it would stun the people even in a culture accustomed to deadly religious violence.

From: email