Not Characters, But People Like Us

There is a phrase I learned from one of my college professors, “Let’s put flesh and blood on these people.” The “these people” are the people in the Bible. Over the centuries, these people in the Bible have gone from being flesh and blood people to “characters.” Most of the time, when a preacher refers to a person the Bible, they are referred to them as Bible or Biblical characters. We’ve done a disservice to Christianity by doing this because newer Christians view them as being bigger than life like comic book superheroes. The reality is that these people were just people who God used. The awesome part of the Bible is that God has been everything in it; the good, the bad, and ugly about the people He used.

I teach that we have the whole truth about the people in the Bible so we can see how people just like us were used. David is called the man after God’s own heart even thought he was an adulterer and murderer. Gilead was caught hiding in a cave when God wanted to use him in Judges to free Israel. The disciples were nothing more than a motley crew of misfits when Jesus chose them. For the most part, we remember these people at the end of their lives and forget how they were at the beginning of their journey when God/Jesus Christ chose to use them.

Today in the men’s Bible group, this truth was lost to one our men. He’s a newer believer who is having a bad time. I could tell how he was talking that his views of the people in the Bible were as I wrote in the first paragraph. How could he struggle with all he is struggling with if he is a child of God; the falling in sin. I shared with him what Paul wrote in one of his letters; “I do what I shouldn’t do, and don’t do what I should be doing (paraphrasing).” The great St. Paul struggled with his walk just us normal folk do? I shared with this young man that we will never “arrive” (or be perfect) this side of heaven. The Holy Spirit helps us grow stronger in our walk as we feed our spirit but there will be times where we will fail. That’s the awesomeness of God; His grace.

Remember before you beat yourself up over being human and failing, the people in the Bible were human just like us. There not characters; there people just like you and me.