Sunday, May 27, 2007

Pride

'Any Christian is at risk in any of the temptations. But those of us who do work explicitly defined as Christian-pastors, teachers, missionaries, chaplains-live in a especially hazardous environment, for the very nature of the work is a constant temptation to sin. The sin, to put an old word on it, is pride. But it is often nearly impossible to identify pride, especially in its early stages. It looks and feels like energetic commitment, sacrificial zeal, selfless devotion. We become Christians because we are convinced that we need a Saviour. But the minute we enter into a life of ministry we set about acting on behalf of the Saviour'

Eugene Peterson

2 comments:

revtmcg said...

there goes old eugene again giving us more law...my expereience is that it is jesus who acts not us. even at conversion. jesus acts on his own behalf whether we are in or out of 'an official ministry' and does not necessarily need us or really need us at all to act on his behalf. also all christians have a ministry. no christian is more in ministry than any other no matter what kind of frock he wears or title she gives herself. in fact it is perhaps the exact opposite to what peterson says.. temptation is perhaps more hazardous to those away from the spotlight because they and the sin can hide...what he probably means is that sin can cause more damage to communities of jesus by those who are in the spotlight. it is not the sin that is the problem, sin is universal, its the pride engineered by the spotlight that is the problem, the spotlight which is sought after by the ego and the spotlight which is given to the ego by the expectations of others, in our case lazy church goers who give their leaders too much power...christians man... they do my nut...

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Saturday blog-sweep

 Some interesting books for pastors The State we're in Attack at dawn Joseph Scriven Joy comes with the morning When small is beautiful