Proud of the Wrong Things

April 18, 2009

Today's Reading: Judges 5-6 and 1 Corinthians 5

Of course, pride is considered a sin by the Bible. However, I would think that there are certain things that are good to be proud about. It is probably good to proud that you are saved, and that you can talk to God. There is a difference between simple pride and bragging. I’m pretty sure I covered this in another entry.

Today’s reading had some interesting things to say about what we should be proud of and ashamed of. I’ll start with the Old Testament.

Gideon starts a rebellion against the Midianities. He is afraid to rebel, and apparently, everyone else feels the same way. For when Gideon tears down an idol of Baal, the people don’t exactly rally to his cause. Instead, all they can think about is the terrible things that are going to happen to them as a result of this. It’s nice to know that the people realize that there are consequences to their actions, but this is really one of those times when you have to do the right thing and say “to hell with the retribution”.

Instead, all they do is get hostile. I got to give kudos to Joash, Gideon’s Dad, for having a great say in the matter: "Are you going to plead Baal's cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.”.

In other words, he was saying: “Just whose side are you on, for crying out loud? Do you want Baal to be worshiped here? Is this how you would have responded if he would have trashed the temple? Seriously.”

I’m sure you can see my point. Paul discovers an interesting thing in Corinthians. Apparently, someone was having sexual immorality with his father’s wife, and according to Paul, the people were proud of this!

I wonder how this guy played this. “Hey, everybody! You know those sections about sexual relations in Leviticus? They don’t apply now because of the death of Christ? This is how a lot of sexual immorality has been justified over the years. (Here’s where most Christians would go into detail about how gay people are doing too much recently, but I really am not in the mood.)

In short, it’s like society has been completely flipped, and we are proud of the things that we ought to be ashamed of, and shamed of the things we should be proud of.

How did we get so 180-ed? Who knows, but I intend to do things that I will be proud about later, and shun the things that I would be ashamed of.