Dear Brothers and Sisters,

But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people.
He did not need testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.


John 2:24-25 (NIV)

Should we be shocked?


Should we be shocked, or shouldn’t we?  We hear of the latest scandal in public life, or in the life of a church leader, or even in the life of a Christian friend.  Sadly, it happens all too often for this to be a merely theoretical question.  Should we be shocked, or not?

On the one hand, we shouldn’t be shocked.  What the Bible tells us about human sin is that any and each of us is capable of the most appalling things, given the opportunity and the resources.  It was clear that Jesus himself “knew what was in each person.”

Jesus knew that “all these evils come from inside and defile a person” (Mark 7:23).  He even said to those around him, “you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children” (Matthew 7:11).  The surprise, then, is not that essentially good people can occasionally do evil things, but that fundamentally sinful people can do anything good.

It is right, then, that we respond to such scandal and sin by saying, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”  We should know that we, too, are capable of doing the same things that at other times would scandalise us.  There is a deep crookedness in fallen human beings.

At the same time, we should still be shocked.  Yes, each of us is capable of such things, but not each of us does them, and more should we.  The Bible, and so God, still holds us to the highest standards, God’s standards.  Jesus himself did, and so did the apostles.

There’s an expectation of godliness in Christian leaders who are to be “above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:2) and “blameless” (Titus 1:6), while all believers are to “live holy and godly lives” (2 Peter 3:11).  It must be possible to live like that, then – not in our own strength, but in the power of the Spirit.

We should never get to the point where we treat such scandals as inevitable, as if everyone is doing it, and as if it doesn’t really matter.  We should be neither naïve about human nature, where we can hardly believe such things are possible, nor cynical, where think they’re inevitable, and we expect nothing else.

Rather, we should remain both realistic and hopeful: realistic, because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23); hopeful, because any one of us can be “washed … sanctified … justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

Prayer


Lord, may I be neither naïve nor cynical about my fellow human beings – including myself – but remain both realistic and hopeful, as Jesus himself.  Amen.

Yours warmly, in Christ

Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)