May/June 2001
Who's on the Pedestal?
by Steve Brown
I've spent most of my life trying to find people to put on a pedestal. God has spent most of my life destroying the pedestals and reminding me that nobody belongs on one except him.
Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of people I admire. There are a great number of Christians I can look up to because they are more committed than I am, know more than I do and are more faithful than I think I could ever be. But, every time I try to make them more than sinners in desperate need of God's grace, God takes great delight in showing me the truth about my heroes.
It is very dangerous to worship at any altar other than God's altar, and when we do, the inevitable result is a major increase in the stupid factor.
I've often been asked by publishers to write a book on marriage and family. I always refuse for three reasons:
First, there are already thousands of books on marriage, and most Christians already know more than they do.
Second, I've noticed that most of the time when there is a new book on "Christian" marriage, ten thousand Christian marriages go down the tube trying to do the impossible by living up to those impossible standards.
Third, I'm not going to do a book on marriage and family because all of that is still in process. While I love my wife and she loves me, and I have been married so long I don't remember what it was like not to be married and can't imagine in my wildest dreams any scenario where we would ever get a divorce, one never knows what is going to happen tomorrow.
Anna, my wife, could simply say, but probably won't, "Enough is enough. I'm out of here." I could, but probably won't, decide to get a Harley and a gold chain and become a washed out hippie.
Our wonderful and committed Christian daughters could, but probably won't, become Buddhists, and our grandchildren could grow up to be serial killers.
So, when I'm on my deathbed, ask me about marriage and family, and I might have something important to say. Even then, before you tell anybody, wait until I've been dead for at least 25 years before you chisel anything I say on the subject in concrete. It is dangerous to have a hero who is still alive.
But, frankly, it's dangerous to have a hero who is dead, too. I've given up reading "puff" biographies of "famous" Christians. When I've taken the time to do the research, I've found out that those kinds of biographies have done Christians a great disservice. They have created non-existent people whose example doesn't inspire excellence -- only despair.
In fact, if you are reading a biography of a "great" Christian and that biography doesn't tell you the bad as well as the good about him or her, burn the book. It's a lie, and it will only make you feel guilty.
I remember when I found out that Donald Grey Barnhouse was jealous of Billy Graham, that C.S. Lewis had a "weird" relationship with a substitute mother, that Spurgeon went through months of depression, that Luther wrote anti-Semitic pamphlets, that... well you get the idea.
Each time one of my "heroes" fell off the pedestal, I was devastated until I realized that God was teaching me something important: He uses sinful and flawed human beings because they are the only kinds of human beings he has.
Whatever you think about the Bible, it certainly doesn't contain "puff" biographies. In fact, God has been very careful to allow us to see the greatness and the smallness of Bible characters. Throughout the Bible we encounter "heroes of the faith" who have major flaws, serious sin and embarrassing failures.
Adam and Eve messed it up big time for themselves and for the rest of us; Noah was a drunk; Abraham offered his wife in return for his own safety; Sarah offered her female servant to Abraham so Abraham could have a son; Jacob was a con artist;
Moses was a murderer; David was an adulterer; Jeremiah was a big time failure; Rahab, a relative of Jesus, was a prostitute; Paul was contentious, and Peter was a hypocrite.
At a gathering of conservatives where the moral failures of President Clinton were being discussed, it was asked, "What am I going to tell my children when they see our president acting this way?"
"Madam," said a wise Rabbi in attendance, "just tell them the same thing you say when you read the Bible to them."
Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not suggesting, of course, that we are to rejoice in the sin, that we praise it or that we emulate it. God forbid! However, we do a great disservice to ourselves and to other Christians when we pretend that anybody in our family is exempt from the need for redemption.
In fact, the size of a problem can be measured by the degree to which one must go to remedy the problem. In the case of our sin, God resolved the problem by sending his Son to die on a cross as our redeemer. If we could be as good and faithful as some would suggest, God would have sent a book instead of his Son.
You say, "Steve, thanks a lot! My day wasn't that good anyway, and now you have made it worse." No, I haven't, because I have something else to say.
Most Christians are not as bad as they could be. I'm a Calvinist and Calvinists don't have a very high view of human nature. The Bible says that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"
Most of the world's really stupid and destructive political, educational and social movements were based on the false anthropological view that human beings and human situations are perfectible. They aren't.
However, while the Bible is the story of flawed human beings, it is also the story of how God used those flawed human beings in some exceptional ways. The bad news is that sinful human beings are... well, sinful and human. The good news is that human beings sometimes do things that are beyond what one would expect.
Paul said, "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body" (2 Corinthians 4:7-10).
God isn't interested in great people (there aren't any). He is interested in available people. Don't tell him how fortunate he is to have you. It will make him laugh. Just tell him that you are available, and watch what wonderful and surprising things he will do with your life.
He told me to remind you.
-- Steve Brown