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That principle of hermeneutics I have been seeking to teach the world can be quite helpful. It affirms \u201cWhenever you see someone in the Bible doing something really, really stupid, do not say to yourself, \u2018How can he be so stupid?\u2019 Instead say to yourself, \u2018How am I stupid just like him?\u2019\u201d That means that we should learn to recognize ourselves in the foibles of those in the Bible.<\/p>\n
Consider this common failure among the disciples. How many times do we see them jockeying for position, arguing who will be at the right hand of Jesus, bickering over who will be the greatest? We\u2019re so familiar with it yet somehow we manage to miss the same spirit in us. We, fools that we are, turn their folly into an occasion for pride, thinking, \u201cI thank you Lord I\u2019m not like other men.\u201d We may not literally clamor for the seat at Jesus\u2019 right hand. We do, however, compete with all the zeal of an Olympic athlete in a good game of spiritual king of the hill. We parade our piety, display our doctrine, sing our spiritual gift. We confess with our lips our utter unworthiness to receive God\u2019s grace, then turn around to see if everybody noticed how humble we are.<\/p>\n
Which is why scandal can be such a potent means of grace. While I still face the same temptation to present myself as better than I am, while I may have once earned a black belt in self-deceit, my very public scandal eliminates me from the game. When you can\u2019t win, you\u2019re free to stop playing. When you are lying on the ground at the bottom of the hill, your nose bloodied, your legs broken, covered in muck, all from your own folly, you get a deeper understanding that the victory is found on a completely different hill, one the real King climbed- Calvary.<\/p>\n
Sure, it means people, even your brothers and sisters in the Lord, consider you a by-word. They scoff and they mock, treat you with contempt, determine you are not worthy of grace and forgiveness. This too is a means of grace, because I am a by-word, due scoffing and mockery, owed contempt and utterly unworthy of grace and forgiveness. It helps to be reminded of that. It helps me remember that it is all of grace. It helps me to rest in Him, and to praise Him. And it helps keep me from looking longingly at that other hill. <\/p>\n
My sin is shameful, dishonoring to my Lord. It is something to be repented of, not something to be celebrated. What we celebrate instead is first the forgiveness of the sin, because of Jesus. Second, we celebrate how the Spirit uses something so ugly to beautify me, something so dirty to wipe me clean. He covers the scandal with grace, and in His grace, reveals the grace of the scandal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That principle of hermeneutics I have been seeking to teach the world can be quite helpful. It affirms \u201cWhenever you see someone in the Bible doing something really, really stupid, do not say to yourself, \u2018How can he be so … Continue reading