This is a good quote to remember.   Reading 1 Timothy 4.15-16 this morning.  I am reminded again by Paul to watch not only my doctrine but my life.   How easily it is to forget that the purpose of the teaching is to transform our lives into displaying more clearly the Imago Dei.

Paul’s  present imperatives give urgency and concern towards Timothy.  Timothy must continually and constantly follow them.  So must we.   Paul is concerned that success or giftedness never trump character.  So should we….

Schizophrenia

From the moment of the Fall, humankind has suffered from moral schizophrenia:  neither able to deny sinfulness nor to acknowledge it for what it is. Alec Motyer, Look to the Rock.

Some of the best books are out of print.  Look To The Rock, by Alec Motyer, is no exception.  Motyer reflects on Genesis 3:7-10 and what these verses detail in regards to the breakdown that occurred as a result of Adam and Eve’s failure to trust God’s word and His Character.

From external to internal temptation

Genesis 3:7: “their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked.”  Notice that the temptation of Eve came from outside – from the serpent.  Now – this side of the fall -  our temptations come from within (James 1:14).   In the Garden, it seems obvious that the innocence of Adam and Eve implied that they had no experience of evil.   God’s design was that mankind should “know the good by direct personal knowledge and experience the evil only as an external and theoretical contrast.” Unfortunately the fall made the evil become a first hand experience and now internalized.  “From now on temptation would not come from the outside but from within themselves.  From now on immediate, personal knowledge will be of the evil, and the good will only be known by contrast. The Fall stood the divine purposes on their head.”  This is massive!   The basis on which all knowledge rests has been corrupted and changed!

Moral Schizophrenia

Genesis 3:8: Motyer continues with a discussion of the personal breakdown that the Fall provoked.  When Adam and Eve discovered that the Lord God was walking in the Garden they hid themselves.  Motyer comments:  In Genesis 3:8 there is an inadequate awareness of the seriousness of sin, moral perceptions are clouded, and the self-centered view of values is well beneath the God-centered view…. they hide themselves, but within the Garden.  They cannot meet and keep company with the Lord God as before, but neither do they see that the consequence of sin is loss of paradise.  The blindness of sin is beginning to take effect, bringing atrophy of moral alertness, an inability to face the holy, and yet an equal inability to appreciate what holiness is. … Thus, like the man and woman we acknowledge sin but, by nature, we cannot grasp its seriousness.  From the moment of the fall, humankind has suffered from moral schizophrenia: neither able to deny sinfulness nor to acknowledge it for what it is..

Can we grasp how important it is, in repentance and confession, that we declare clearly who and whose standard we have offended and not equivocate?

Equivocate:  use ambiguous language so as to conceal the truth or avoid committing oneself.

Let us continue to pray fervently for deep and abiding repentance.

These days I ponder David’s confession after his great sin. “I have sinned against the LORD! Against You only have I sinned!”  No rationalizations, no excuses!  Simple and concise and directed to the ONE.

“Simplicity, however, marks David’s confession… and precisely this simplicity makes it commendable rather then defective…
The words are very few, just as in the case of the publican in the Gospel of Luke [esv: Luke 18:13]. But that is a good sign of a thoroughly broken spirit… There is no excuse, no cloaking, no palliation of the sin. There is no searching for a loophole,… no pretext put forward, no human weakness pleaded.  He acknowledges his guilt openly candidly, and without prevarication.”
(quoted from Dale Ralph Davis, Focus on the Bible commentary on 2 Samuel 12)

There is an analogy here.  Just when we get comfortable with the seascape, we become careless and the wave comes and strikes.   I suppose most survive but some don’t.  It struck me that each of us probably has a sneaker wave waiting to overcome us.

Alexander Strauch in his book on Biblical Eldership refers to all of us having a “fatal flaw”  and quotes CS Lewis:

And you see, looking back, how all the plans you have ever made always have shipwrecked on that fatal flaw – on “X’s” incurable jealousy, or laziness, or touchiness, or muddle-headedness, or bossiness, or ill temper, or changeableness…

This is the next great step in wisdom – to realize that you also are just that sort of person.  You also have a fatal flaw in your character.  All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.

It is no good passing this over with some vague, general admission such as “Of course, I know I have my faults.”  it is something which gives the other just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you.  And it is almost certainly something you don’t know about – like what the advertisements call “halotosis” which everyone notices except the person who has it.

But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn’t  “take it.”  Perhaps a good deal of what you call their “nagging” or “bad temper’ or ‘queerness” are just their attempts to make you see the truth.  And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully.

Strauch continues…. These fatal flaws or blind spots distort your judgment. The deceive us. They can even destroy us.    This is particularly true of multi-talented, charismatic leaders.  Blind to their own flaws and extreme views, some talented leaders have destroyed themselves because they had no peers to confront and balance them and, in fact, wanted none.

Granted, this is written in the context of eldership and most of us are not charismatic leaders.  And granted,  as a description of our blind spot, fatal flaw may be a little strong, and just like the sneaker wave, it may  not be fatal to everyone.. But I believe the point is still valid.

I take a couple points from this

1.  It is easy to see blind spots in others and be blind or deny our own

2.  It is human nature to discount our own flaws while magnifying those of others

3.  It is great wisdom to hear confrontation, exhortation, or rebuke.

4.  There is great exposure to danger in continuing in the self-deceiving belief that we have no flaws.

What is also inferred is how important accountability is.   I will write on this in part 2 and 3.