Gamaliel's Desk
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Checklist
For those of you who are working hard to be a better Pharisee, I’m attaching a checklist for you to self-evaluate your progress.
How do you relate to other Christians who are making their way toward Heaven?
- I condemn their feeble attempts at living the Christian life and weigh them down with a lengthy checklist of items to make them spiritual.
- I speak authoritatively to them on how best to live the Christian life, advising them where they have erred and instructing them in how they can improve.
- I respect them as they practice their faith and try very hard not to be judgmental when they fail to measure up to my expectations.
- I often help carry those who are weak in the faith with a compassionate concern and provide consistent encouragement during their missteps along the way.
- I work extra had to appear far more religious than those around me.
- I’m not a fanatic but I make sure that everyone knows I’m a church-goer.
- I don’t make a big deal of my appearance but trust that my impeccably godly life will testify to my holiness.
- I don’t give any attention at all to my appearance and am genuinely surprised and more than a little puzzled by the comments of others when they complement me on my Christ-like character.
How much importance do you place on your appearance?
- I make sure that everyone knows how spiritual I am and delight in the public praise and adulation of those who see me for the deserving Christian I am.
- If there is no opportunity that I am going to be recognized for my efforts at being a godly Christian, I won’t even waste my time with it.
- I don’t go out of my way to draw attention to myself or make a big fuss, but I feel grateful when others notice my efforts and a bit disappointed if they don’t (but I try not to let it show).
- I generally discourage others from drawing attention to anything I do.
- I own every T-shirt, ball cap, refrigerator magent and bumper sticker with a Christian logo or saying that I can lay my hands on so everyone knows exactly where I stand.
- I still wear my WWJD bracelet.
- I don’t brag about being a Christian or announce it to others but take a smug pride in knowing that I’m more spiritual than the average person.
- I am honestly baffled and humbled as to why a holy God would send His son to die for me.
- I condemn their feeble attempts at living the Christian life and like to burden them with a lengthy checklist of items to improve their spiritual health.
- I speak authoritatively to them on how best to live the Christian life, advising them where they have erred and instructing them in how they can improve.
- I respect them as they practice their faith and try very hard not to be judgmental when they fail to measure up to my expectations.
- I often help carry those who are weak in the faith with a compassionate concern and provide consistent encouragement during their missteps along the way.
- I thank God every day that I am not in the sorry state as all those poor lost sinners and trust that God in all his holy justice will treat them as they deserve.
- I say, “But for the grace of God, there go I,” and feel genuinely sorry that they have not been as mercifully saved by God
- I earnestly pray for those who are more unfortunate that I am and wish someone would do something to help the plight of those poor, suffering people.
- I give them what they need from what I have whether they need food, clothing or shelter.
- I actively work to convince other Christians within our denomination that they are in the wrong church and that they need to join our particular brand of church if they want to be right with the Lord.
- I spend most of my time looking for new Christians in other denominations since they are apostate and people need to be rescued from them. While I recognize that there are a variety of beliefs in our denomination, I don’t think our churches are apostate and I generally don’t recruit members from other churches in our denomination.
- I think it’s despicable the way some people only recruit other Christians so I do most of my personal evangelism among respectable people who are lost but, in my opinion, will make good church members if they were to get saved.
- I reach out to the fallen, poor, wicked and those whom most would consider the “scum of the earth” to find the most likely candidates for new members.
How closely do people have to resemble you in worship style and expression of their faith in order to be right with God?
- Every single jot and tittle has to fall exactly in line with what I believe and practice in order for them to be right with God.
- I am satisfied that as long as they are in the same denomination as me, they are pretty close to being right with God.
- If they ascribe to a basic core of beliefs and traditions similar to mine, then they are close to being right with God even if they are not the same denomination as me.
- I don’t believe that I should lay any greater cultural burden on them than to follow the teachings of scripture expressed through the cultural context in which they find themselves
Comments:
Hi, photini. Nice to have you visiting.
Try not to think of the last answer as the "right" one. Think of the answers in the aggregate representing an attitude scale with the first and last responses representing the directions one can go.
And you find the final answers self-righteous? This leads to a question I might ask. How would you portray genuine righteousness in such a venue as a self-graded quiz? I hope you can see my difficulty. Besides, the adjective "honestly" is my qualifier that prevents it from being merely self-righteous rhetoric. If the "honestly" is genuine, then they truly are humble. If it's not genuine, then it is indeed hypocritical. So back to my question: How can you design a self-graded quiz that distinguishes from self-righteousness and genuine righteousness?
As for the remainder, I think you're missing the forest for the semantic trees. The vehicle here is a self-graded quiz. Did you notice that I didn't provide a final score that lets you rate yourself on a Pharisee scale? This was no accident. I'm uninterested in how someone scores on the quiz and hope no one really uses it to score themselves (you did note that this is a satirical column, right?). Instead it is intended as a thought-provoking post and it appears to have worked - at least on you. You've given thought to the issue and taken the time to respond. Thank you. Now if we can just get the people who need this the most to give it as much thought as it warrants.
And who might those people be?
The ones in the mirror, of course.
Post a Comment
Try not to think of the last answer as the "right" one. Think of the answers in the aggregate representing an attitude scale with the first and last responses representing the directions one can go.
And you find the final answers self-righteous? This leads to a question I might ask. How would you portray genuine righteousness in such a venue as a self-graded quiz? I hope you can see my difficulty. Besides, the adjective "honestly" is my qualifier that prevents it from being merely self-righteous rhetoric. If the "honestly" is genuine, then they truly are humble. If it's not genuine, then it is indeed hypocritical. So back to my question: How can you design a self-graded quiz that distinguishes from self-righteousness and genuine righteousness?
As for the remainder, I think you're missing the forest for the semantic trees. The vehicle here is a self-graded quiz. Did you notice that I didn't provide a final score that lets you rate yourself on a Pharisee scale? This was no accident. I'm uninterested in how someone scores on the quiz and hope no one really uses it to score themselves (you did note that this is a satirical column, right?). Instead it is intended as a thought-provoking post and it appears to have worked - at least on you. You've given thought to the issue and taken the time to respond. Thank you. Now if we can just get the people who need this the most to give it as much thought as it warrants.
And who might those people be?
The ones in the mirror, of course.
