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The Story:G. K. Chesterton was once invited to submit an essay on the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” He answered in two words: “I am.” Chesterton was saying that each of us brings our own sin to the world’s problems, and each of us must be primarily responsible for reining in that sin, lest it add to the world’s ills. It’s not our business to blame others for the world’s problems because of their sins; rather, we must encourage them to be responsible to live before God and according to His economy. Solomon might have felt justified in blaming the women in his life for all his problems. Instead, he pointed the finger at himself – the “one man” who is to blame for the mess that is his life. This is as clear a statement as we’ll get in Ecclesiastes of Solomon’s sense of having been the architect of his own downfall. We must all follow his example.
The Structure:In a day such as ours, when so much sin is obvious on every hand, the Church errs when it spends all its efforts in denouncing sin by pointing out the evils that exist in the world. Those are obvious to most people, and the ones that aren’t will be soon enough. The Christian community needs to be more vigilant over its own household. We have too easy an attitude toward such transgressions as pornography, sexual license, materialism, and pride as these flare up within the community of faith. If we spent more time dealing with our own sins, striving to become a holy community, one Body before the Lord, the quality of our character and service to the world would make our message more credible (cf. Mic. 4.1-8). As it stands, our practicing of blaming the world for all the ills in the world has marginalized us in our society and made us the scorn of our enemies.
What does Jesus mean when He refers to the Church as a city set on a hill (Matt. 5.13-16)? Does Micah 4.1-8 shed any light on this?
Each week’s studies in our Scriptorium column are available in a free PDF form, suitable for personal or group use. For this week’s study, “Telling it Slant (2),” simply click here.
T. M. Moore
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.