If you aren’t up on the latest Christian buzz there is a new site called PreachersnSneakers . It is a site calling out preachers for having expensive shoes and clothing items. It started off as a “funny” site and has clearly hit a cultural nerve gaining 60k followers on Instagram in four days.

As funny and as crass as some of the comments are, I think the content of the posts and the content of the comments are very telling and are deserving of more than a cheap laugh. I think the problem we have to ask ourselves as those who are a part of the evangelical world is – In our desire to relate to the world and connect with lost people has our message has been lost? When you are so immeshed in the images and artifacts of culture that you are inseparable from culture your message will always either be dismissed as hypocrisy or changed into another gospel.

Sites like this should make all Christians and especially Christian leaders look at their lives and ask themselves is there anything I am doing that is a hindrance to the gospel of Christ? What we as leaders must guard against is the pride of own hearts that says I would never dress like that or spend that kind of money on shoes. We must also be aware of who we are portraying ourselves to be online. Are we as leaders pointing people to Christ or drawing them to ourselves? Are we unintentionally stirring up in those who follow us the sin of envy?

A famous preacher once said that the dress and style of a pastor should be forgettable so that what you remember is his message, not his clothing. Any Christian minister that upstages the gospel in their methods or lifestyle needs to repent. I think a good guideline for every preacher is to avoid poverty and opulence so that what you say matters more than what you look like.

Why does some Celebraty pastor wearing 5,500.00 sneakers concern me? Because even if you do not wear such things you can be guilty of pride or envy. Pride because you feel that you are better than the person who is wearing expensive things and you do not. The other half of the population wishes they had these items for themselves, the sin of envy. So even if you were gifted items that are very expensive by people who hope you wear them so other people can see and desire them, should you? I don’t think you should. Not because the gospel is opposed to nice things, it isn’t, it views everything we have as a gracious gift. The gospel should make you more aware of inflaming the passions in others tha can not be fulfilled without sin.

One of the greatest problem with expensive and even good things flaunted on Instagram is what it does to the hearts of those who are weaker and are prone to the sin of envy (which is all of us by the way). In The Rule of Love J.V. Fesko says this about the tenth commandment.

The tenth commandment has much to say about motives. In this regard, it is a unique commandment, for few cultures have laws that govern motives. Recognizing that the tenth commandment targets heart motives helps us to see that Christ was not raising the demands of the law in His Sermon on the Mount. Rather, by connecting the demands of the tenth commandment to the rest of the Law, Christ revealed that merely dealing with external behavior was not enough; the Law also dealt with motives of the heart. That is because violating the tenth commandment is often the gateway to violating the rest of the Law.

 J. V. Fesko, The Rule of Love: Broken, Fulfilled, and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2009), 125.

Can you have nice things without nice things having you? I think you can. There are those who with pride say Christians shouldn’t have nice things I don’t think that’s true at all. The problem comes when you are defined by your things more than who you are in Christ. When you have to have certain things because of the crowd you run with. When you think that things and stuff, rather than the fruit of repentance, define your acceptance before God. As Piper famously said, “No one says Jesus is all satisfying because you drive a BMW” or wear Gucci. They say “Did Jesus give you that? I’ll take Jesus.” When we confuse giver and gift we proclaim to a watching world another gospel. Jesus plus nice things equal God’s acceptance. When we properly understand every good and perfect gift I have comes from God and I am a steward of the things he gives me for the glory of God. Stewards are aware of their master’s desire and design, owners are only concerned with their own desires. Servants want to please their master, owners feel they deserve what they have worked hard for. Stewards view what they have as gracious gifts, owners view what they have as entitlements they have earned. The gospel is not opposed to effort it is however opposed to earning.

Let us strive to guard our hearts from the sin of pride in our right judgments of fellow Christians. Let us also protect others as much as we are able from the sin of envy.