The Really Bad People

When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Deuteronomy 25:11-12

I grew up understanding that those who used drugs were bad people. I knew that addicts and alcoholics weren’t Christians, and I knew that Christians didn’t struggle with drugs or alcohol. No one explicitly taught me this but rather, I simply saw the world the way I wanted to. There were the really bad sins and then there were the negligible sins with which I struggled. Because I never committed the big sins, I was a pretty good guy who’d earned the right to look down on those degenerates whose failures were far worse than mine.

I’d have never said that out loud, but that was my mindset. Then, as an adult, when I struggled with drugs and alcohol, I had a crisis of faith. Suddenly I was one of those bad people, struggling with those big sins. Up to that point, I understood my Christian bona fides to be all the bad stuff I didn’t do. I didn’t murder and I didn’t rob banks. My faith was defined by the bad stuff with which I never struggled anyway. I was like the arrogant Pharisee praying in the temple: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector (Luke 18:11).

If I want to make myself feel superior by comparison, the Bible is full of sins with which I’ll never struggle. Today’s passage, for instance, provides an amusing description a very specific, bizarre sin, which I feel confident that I’ll never commit. If I want, I can look to such passages, patting myself on the back. Look at all the bad things I don’t do. . .

I think I’m not alone here. Many of us have defined our faith and virtue by the stuff with which we don’t struggle. We look at all the sins we don’t commit, and we feel we’ve done something for Christ. We’ve not actually done anything though because even if we never believed in God, we’d never struggle with those things that don’t tempt us. There are a lot of people out there who don’t believe in God but who still live pretty good lives.

Authentic faith, as defined by Christ, is daily abandoning those things that tempt us, so that we may do the good works that he asks (Luke 9:23). As Christians, do we define our faith by the stuff that doesn’t even tempt us? Or do we honestly address our personal struggles so that we may do the work of sharing Christ’s love with those around us?