LAST WEEK WE ENDED ON THE QUESTION of whether most of the ills of fallen humanity center around too high self-esteem or too low? The psychologically correct, in fashion post-modern theory today is that low self-esteem causes most of society's problems and we should give others what they lack to help raise them out of their personal deficits....To do this requires no moral value judgments and fewer consequences. Just raise someone up by telling them how great they are. No individual hard work necessary.
So now let's go back to Keller's little book:
In verse 6, Paul urges the Corinthians to have no more pride in one person over another....By using this particular word, Paul is trying to teach these Corinthians something about the human ego. This word used here for pride literally means to be overinflated, swollen distended beyond its proper size....like an organ in the human body that is distended because so much air has been pumped into it....So much air, that it is over-inflated and ready to burst.
Because it is such an evocative and interesting metaphor, I think we are supposed to reflect on the image and on what Paul is trying to say.
Perhaps I can put it this way: I think the image suggests four things about the natural condition of the human ego: it is empty, painful, busy and fragile.
Again, all our egos are empty, painful, busy and fragile.
HUMAN EGOS EMPTINESS EXPLAINED:
The image points to the fact that there is emptiness at the center of the human ego. The ego that is puffed up and over-inflated has nothing at its center. It is empty.
In his book Sickness Unto Death, Soren Kierkegaard says, it is the normal state of the human heart to try to build its identity around something besides God. Spiritual pride is the illusion that we are competent to run our own lives, achieve our own sense of self-worth and find a purpose big enough to give us meaning in life without God. Kiekergaard says that the normal human ego is built on something besides God. It searches for something that will give it a sense of worth, a sense of specialness and a sense of purpose and builds itself on that. And of course, as we are often reminded, if you try to put anything in the middle of the place that was originally made for God, it is going to be too small. It is going to rattle around in there. So, the first thing about the human ego is that it is empty.
2 comments:
How can the ego be empty and busy at the same time? I think the word that is needed here is balance. Balance between the left brain ego and the right brain here and now peacefulness. As you probably remember, I wholeheartedly recommend Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's book My Stroke of Insight, in which she shares how she learned to achieve that balance.
I think the point Keller makes is that we have a hole in the center of our souls which only God can fill....and without God, we're busy, busy, busy trying to fill that empty place with every conceivable thing we can imagine.
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