Choose to Put Others First
Qualifiers allow us to state things without accountability. They are handy when we’re unsure about something though we want to comment on it. They’re useful to let us off the hook when someone tries to hold us accountable. Some of us habitually use expressions which serve these purposes.
This is a tactic we don’t find in the Bible. It gives us Truth with broad strokes of the brush. For example, a variety of New Testament passages challenge slaves to submit to and obey their masters. In our minds, we accept this as good advice, mentally adding the qualifier that if our employer or boss is a gentle and generous person we owe it to him or her to do our best. This comes with the corollary that if he or she is a miserable, demanding person, we are not so obligated. However, Peter takes that option away from us when he writes “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.” (1Peter 2:18)
We unconsciously add qualifiers to many of the absolute statements we find in the Bible. It would seem extreme to take them at face value and expect them to apply broadly to every situation. We are so concerned with getting and keeping the advantage that we assume that anything that would call us to surrender the advantage must be poorly worded, so we interpret it to mean something slightly different, especially for ourselves.
One of these brings this tendency to the front of the line. We all struggle with it, because the demand is made in such general terms. It’s stated in several different ways, but there’s no avoiding the point. Here are a few quotations:
No matter how you read these quotations, and especially if you take them all together, you can’t miss God’s expectation that we put others first. And uncomfortably, there are no qualifiers. We don’t just put the wealthier, more influential, better educated, better looking, and personal benefactors first. We are equally to put the poor, powerless, uneducated, homely and energy drainers first.
Before you protest too loudly, let me refer you to three verses which link selfishness, pride, egocentrism, and the like with
This is one of those cases, where the more you protest the more you condemn yourself by your own words. When we seek to qualify God’s statements about putting others first, we show ourselves to be ignorant, unspiritual, and wicked. Ouch!
As we recognize this weakness in ourselves (the one by which we push ourselves in ahead of everyone else), instead of justifying ourselves, or reinterpreting the statements to pull their teeth, we need to prove our humility by confessing both the primary sin of pride and the secondary ones of lack of understanding, an earth-bound perspective, and an inclination toward evil.
That’s a good starting point. Love the truth. Own it. Then move on. That’s what James talks about in the fourth chapter of his letter when he challenges God’s unfaithful people with these strong words. “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (James 4:4-10 NIV)
Ron Hughes
© July 2009
That the world may come to
Faith By Hearing.
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