I recently received a four-page handwritten letter from a friend and GES partner. After greeting me, he wrote, “I hate GES.”

I thought, “What does he mean? Have I offended him? Did I do something wrong?”

He explained that his grandson had said that to him. He was shocked since he loves GES, and his family knows it.

It turns out that the boy’s parents had been reading a book that is highly critical of GES. They became angry and conveyed their feelings about GES to their son. He, in turn, became angry, even without knowing the issues.

I’m not fond of criticism. I especially dislike hatred directed toward me and GES. But I remember the saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”

From 1980, the year I met Zane Hodges, until he went to be with the Lord in November 2008, he was vigorously criticized. I watched as he was constantly under attack, often by world-renowned Evangelicals. He bore up with it well. While I know he didn’t like it, he saw it as a necessary part of the Christian life. He taught me that we are called to share in Christ’s sufferings (Phil 1:29; 3:10; Col 1:24; 2 Thess 1:5; 2 Tim 1:8, 12; 3:12; 1 Pet 4:13).

I realize, of course, that we sometimes suffer because of our failures. If we promote a false gospel (Gal 1:6-9), we deserve to be cursed. If we teach false doctrine, people should be mad at us.

How do we respond to criticism?

We constantly evaluate everything we write, both for tone and content. It is not enough to have sound content. We also must maintain a godly tone.

I have staff and a board. They check everything GES publishes: blogs, magazines, journals, books, Bible studies, and booklets.

Our blogs are less edited than our other writings. Only two people, Bethany and Frances, edit most blogs, but they change a fair amount. They are great gatekeepers.

However, I get more feedback when I write a blog (or article) that I know is especially controversial. Every year I send about twenty-five blogs to my board for evaluation. Each year they reject about a dozen of those blogs for various reasons. I do not chafe at that. I’m so glad I have people who care enough to help me get things right. Better not to publish something than to publish something that is inaccurate, untimely, tone deaf, or perplexing.ⁱ

We take Jas 3:1 to heart, “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” Here is what Zane Hodges wrote about that verse:

In the early Church, the gatherings of believers were less formal than the morning worship service familiar to so many today. …Any brother might rise to give the church instruction, whether or not he was particularly suited, or gifted, for this task. James…believes that not many of you should become teachers. The…man who used his tongue to teach would be held to a higher standard, a stricter judgment, at the Judgment Seat of Christ…It was a solemn responsibility to assume the role of a teacher in the Christian Church. James thinks most of his readers will be better off to avoid this role (James, pp. 77-78).

Our aim is to please the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Bob Dylan song says:

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

We long for the Lord Jesus to say to us on that Day (the Bema), “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Keep grace in focus.

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i One key to being a good photographer is taking lots of pictures and discarding most of them. The same is true of writing. When I wrote my first book, Confident in Christ, I gave the editor fifty short chapters. She discarded thirty-four of them! Two-thirds of the chapters disappeared. But it was a much better book as a result. When I write, I discard lots of words, sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters.