Jerry Jenkins, the co-author of the Left Behind series, states that as Christians, we are "called to excellence." While I am a student of Jerry's, I disagree with his assertion, especially in the context he says it.
He often laments to new authors how difficult it is to get published. Therefore, your manuscript must be flawless before submitting the final draft. "After all," he reiterates, "as Christ followers, we are called to excellence."
He, like other followers, gets this idea from 2 Peter 1:5:
"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith excellence, to excellence, knowledge."
In full disclosure, this NET translation is the only one (that I know of) to use the word excellence without qualification. Most other translations use the word virtue or something to denote moral purity.
Nevertheless, we as mature believers can get too caught up in the word excellence when we see it in the bible. We often judge our fellow church members by their achievement instead of their moral behavior. We may even catch ourselves saying under our breath:
Now, I realize that you probably have never heard anyone in your church blurt out such crass statements. Still, you have to ask yourself if you have ever held onto these kinds of thoughts a bit too long.
Tying our spiritual maturity to achievement is a bad idea. Instead, maybe we should judge each other by our spiritual excellence. After all, most of us would rather have slightly less in this life, so we can have infinitely more in the next.
Am I right?
He often laments to new authors how difficult it is to get published. Therefore, your manuscript must be flawless before submitting the final draft. "After all," he reiterates, "as Christ followers, we are called to excellence."
He, like other followers, gets this idea from 2 Peter 1:5:
"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith excellence, to excellence, knowledge."
In full disclosure, this NET translation is the only one (that I know of) to use the word excellence without qualification. Most other translations use the word virtue or something to denote moral purity.
Nevertheless, we as mature believers can get too caught up in the word excellence when we see it in the bible. We often judge our fellow church members by their achievement instead of their moral behavior. We may even catch ourselves saying under our breath:
- He must not be following Christ if he can't even find meaningful employment
- She needs to get right with God if she's going to make it through med school
- If he would just follow Christ as I do, he would probably do as well as me
- They must not be real Christians if they're driving around in that
Now, I realize that you probably have never heard anyone in your church blurt out such crass statements. Still, you have to ask yourself if you have ever held onto these kinds of thoughts a bit too long.
Tying our spiritual maturity to achievement is a bad idea. Instead, maybe we should judge each other by our spiritual excellence. After all, most of us would rather have slightly less in this life, so we can have infinitely more in the next.
Am I right?
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