Today we begin reading Chapter One of Tim Keller’s three chapter book, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy. The Introduction posted last week and the final two chapters will post on subsequent Fridays. In my estimation, this is a monumental little book we’d best understand if we’re serious about enjoying the trip and finishing strong whether we claim to follow Jesus or not. And yes, it does require multiple reads. Why else do you think Tim Keller was able to start from scratch a staunchly Biblical based church of 4000 comprised of predominately professional intellectuals in their thirties in NYC, specifically Manhattan? He presents Truth simply but sometimes our minds have difficulty absorbing the depths, hence the necessity of multiple reads!
In verse 6, Paul urges the Corinthians to have no more pride in one person over another. Nothing new, we may think. Of course, pride is inappropriate. But we need to realize the word Paul uses here for pride is not the hubris word for pride, but physio. It is an unusual word. Paul uses it here and another five times in this particular book and once in Colossians 2. You will not find it anywhere else in the Bible as it is used only by Paul. Many commentators now realize it is a special theme of Paul.
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 over inflated, swollen, distended beyond its proper size. It is related to to the word for ‘bellows’. It is very evocative. It brings to mind a rather painful image of an organ in the human body, an organ that is distended because so much air has been pumped into it. So much air, that it is over inflated and ready to burst. It is swollen, inflamed and extended past it proper size. And that, says Paul, is the condition of the natural human ego.
Because it is such an evocative and interesting metaphor, I think we are supposed to reflect on the image and 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: that it is empty, painful, busy, and fragile.
First, empty. The image points to the fact that there is emptiness at the centre of the human ego. The ego that is puffed up and over-inflated has nothing at its centre. It is empty.
In his book Sickness Unto Death, Soren Kierkegaard says, it is the normal state of the human heart to build its identity around something else 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 without God. Soren Kierkegaard says the normal 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 is empty.
And secondly, it is also painful. A distended and over-inflated ego is painful.
Have you ever thought about the fact that you do not notice your body until there is something wrong with it? When we are walking around, we are not usually thinking how fantastic our toes are feeling. Or how brilliantly our elbows are working today. We would only think about that if there had been previously something wrong with them. That is because the parts of our body only draw attention to themselves if there is something wrong with them.
The ego often hurts. That is because it has something incredibly wrong with it. It is always drawing attention to itself – it does so every single day. It is always making us think about how we look and how we are treated. People sometimes say their feelings are hurt. It is the ego that hurts – my sense of self, my identity. Our feelings are fine. It is my ego that hurts.
Walking around does not hurt my toes unless there is something wrong with them. My ego would not hurt unless there was something terribly wrong with it. Think about it. It is very hard to get through a whole day without feeling snubbed or ignored or feeling stupid or getting down on ourselves. That is because there is something wrong with my identity. There is something wrong with my sense of self. It is never happy. It is always drawing attention to itself.
So, first of all, it is empty. Secondly, because it is like a bloated stomach that is distended, it is also painful. And, thirdly, the ego is incredibly busy – in other words, it is always drawing attention to itself. It is incredibly busy trying to fill the emptiness. And it is incredibly busy doing two things in particular – comparing and boasting. You can see them both in the passage. First of all, notice in verse 6 there is no full stop after the word pride. Paul does not say ‘Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.’ That is the very essence of what it means to have normal human ego. The way the normal human ego tries to fill its emptiness and deal with its discomfort is by comparing itself to other people. All the time.
In his famous chapter on pride in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis points out that pride is by nature competitive. It is competitiveness that is at the very heart of pride.
‘Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only having more of it than the next person. We say people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better- looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good – looking there would be nothing to be proud about.’
In other words, we are only proud of being more successful, more intelligent or more good – looking than the next person, and when we are in the presence of someone who is more successful, intelligent and good-looking than we are, we lose all pleasure in what we had. That is because we really had no pleasure in it. We were proud of it. As Lewis says, pride is the pleasure of having more than the next person. Pride is the pleasure of being more than the next person. Lust may drive a man to sleep with a beautiful woman – but at least lust makes him want her. Pride drives a man to sleep with a beautiful woman just to prove he can do it and to prove he can do it above the others. Pride destroys the ability to have any real pleasure from her.
When I was at school, my mother kept saying things like, ‘You know, honey, you ought to join the chess club.’ I would say, ‘Mum, I hate chess.’ ‘Yes, I know,’ she would say, ‘but it would look so good on your college application.’ She would try again. ‘Don’t they feed the homeless and hungry downtown, every Saturday morning? Why don’t you volunteer for that?’ ‘Mum,’ I’d say, ‘I hate that kind of thing.’ I would get the same response, ‘I know, honey, but it would look so good on your college application.’ So, at school, I did all kinds of things that I had absolutely no interest in doing for themselves. I was simply putting together a resume. That is what our egos are doing all the time. Doing jobs we have no pleasure in, doing diets we take no pleasure in. Doing all kinds of things, not for the pleasure of doing them, but because we are trying to put together an impressive curriculum vitae. By comparing ourselves to other people and trying to make ourselves look better than others, we are boasting. Trying to recommend ourselves, trying to create a self-esteem resume because we are desperate to fill our sense of inadequacy and emptiness. The ego is so busy. So busy all the time.
And lastly, as well as empty and painful and busy, the ego is fragile. That is because anything that is over-inflated is in imminent danger of being deflated – like an over-inflated balloon.
If we are puffed up by air and not filled up with something solid, then to be over-inflated or deflated comes down to the same thing. A superiority complex and an inferiority complex are basically the same. They are both results of being over-inflated. The person with the superiority complex is over inflated and in danger of being deflated; the person with an inferiority complex is deflated already. Someone with an inferiority complex will tell you they hate themselves and they will tell themselves they hate themselves.. They are deflated. To be deflated means you were previously inflated. Deflated, or in imminent danger of being deflated – it is all the same thing. And it makes the ego fragile.
Empty, painful, busy and, therefore fragile. Let me give you a perfect example of this. I am not trying to lift her up as being worse than other people at all. She actually shows a tremendous of self-awareness and I have a lot of admiration for her. But, if you want a perfect example of what I am talking about, here is an excerpt from an interview with Madonna in Vogue Magazine some time ago where she is talking about her career.
This is what she says:
‘My drive in life comes from a fear of being mediocre. That is always pushing me. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being but then I feel I am still mediocre and uninteresting unless I do something else. Because even though I have become somebody, I still have to prove that I am somebody. My struggle has never ended and I guess it never will.’
I will tell you one thing: Madonna knows herself better than most of us know ourselves.Every time she accomplishes something, these are the kind of thoughts she has: ‘Now I have got the verdict that I am somebody. But the next day, I realize that unless I keep going, I am not. My ego cannot be satisfied. My sense of self, my desire for self-worth, my need to be sure I am somebody – it is not fulfilled. I keep thinking I have won it from what people have said about me and what the magazines and newspapers have written. But the next day, I have to go and look somewhere else. Why? Because my ego is insatiable. It’s a black hole. It doesn’t matter how much I throw into it, the cupboard is bare. I keep putting all sorts of things into it every morning, feeding it, and the next night it is bare. I have become somebody – but I still need to become ‘somebody.’ We might be tempted to think she is neurotic. No, she knows herself. She is ahead of most of us.
That is the normal state of the human self. It is what Paul is talking about to the Corinthians. All these people who are fighting over him and claiming a special relationship with him are showing tremendous amounts of pride. They are unable to enjoy the fact they know Paul. They have to use their relationship with him for one-upmanship over each other in the church.
Paul wants them to know the difference the gospel makes and how the gospel has transformed things for him. Look at verse 3 and 4. He shows them how the gospel has transformed his sense of self-worth, his sense of self -regard and his identity. His ego operates in a completely different way now.
I anticipate Chapter Two “The Transformed View of Self” will post Friday the 22nd. Blessings as YOU GO FORTH>>>> Merlin