Why Should You Not Boast?

I completely disagree with Paul

Earlier this week, I watched a video where Reverend Kumuyi spoke about a new cadre of preachers who did not regard Paul. He said that these ministers were, in a manner of speaking, clueless. He also said Paul was shown countless mysteries by God, and as such, he isn’t someone whose opinion can be disregarded. He even laughed at these ministers who called Paul “brother Paul,” as he found the term “brother” disrespectful. Hopefully, nobody tells the good man of God how to use Substack, because I have even meaner words for our favorite Roman.

In recent times, I’ve encountered a really interesting malady of thought amongst Christian brethren. For example, I almost got into an argument with someone who seriously believed that she wasn’t morally superior to other people, no matter what they did. That position could have only been dreamed up by someone like Paul. Thinkers like C.S. Lewis have also built on the assumption, with Lewis even proclaiming, in several books, that the biggest sin is pride. Even the Bible does the same. We all know that pride leads to a fall, and Satan’s pride is the reason he fell to earth. I know all of that history, but I fear thinkers like Lewis and Paul are merely falling into the trap of abstracting their ideals to a plane where they stop making sense.

Ephesians 2:8 states, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

A lot of very smart men have gone through a lot of hoops to make this verse make sense, but it just doesn’t. Paul says that salvation isn’t by our own doing and is the gift of God. Therefore, we don’t get salvation because we deserve it, but because God bestows it upon us. But this framing of the nature of salvation leads us into some dark, murky waters.

If we don’t deserve salvation but got it anyway, it follows that the difference between the saved and the damned is nothing but the whims of God. This is obviously unjust.

At this juncture, some clever person might say, "Hold on. That isn’t what Paul means. He means we are all equally damned, but God’s grace is what gives us the salvation we now enjoy." But that argument suffers from the same problem. The conclusion we invariably reach through that logic is that you are just as morally worthless as a mass rapist, a mass serial killer, or a Chelsea fan.

This is an argument that a surprising percentage of Christians are amenable to — but in theory only. First of all, they do not, in their personal lives, behave as if immoral people have the same moral worth. I find it difficult to believe that a reasonable Christian brother would treat a self-admitted armed robber and a self-admitted pagan the same, even when both are equally damned in the eyes of the Most High. Would he, in his internal ruminations, consider them similarly evil? And if he doesn’t think they are equally evil, how can they be equally damned?

Since Christians don’t think this, it follows that something is extremely wrong with their internal moral compass because it is not in tune with God’s perspective on things. Or is there any reasonable Christian brother who would, if faced with the choice, choose to be friends with an unrepentant rapist over an unrepentant Muslim? If such a Christian brother had two sons, and one was hooked on porn and the other on ritual murder, which son would he hand over to the police first? Which son would he send out of the home first? Which one would he hate more?

Paul may dream great dreams about faith making people whole and sin-blind, but it’s hard to reconcile that with the behavior of regular Christians. Ordinary Christians have failed to realize—or have yet to be told—that this is exactly what Paul’s worldview requires. Not only do you have to have humility in the face of the magnitude of your salvation, but you also need to have uniform disgust at every kind of immorality, since people are damned equally either way. You should be no more in awe of the evil of genocide than you should be in awe of the evil of adultery.

But the implications of that argument do not stop there. If we all have been equally damned even before we were born, then it follows that we also didn’t do anything to deserve damnation! The Catholics take this implication very seriously, which is why they baptize newborns. It may sound macabre to you, but they do that because they don’t want the child to go to hell if they, by some accident, die before they mature. The doctrine of original sin guarantees that current immoral behavior isn’t taken into damnation calculations. Therefore, Hitler wasn’t damned because he killed six million Jews, but because he was born. Dahmer isn’t in hell (if he is in hell) because he was a serial killer, but because he was born. No man goes to hell because of what they did or didn't do on earth, but because they were born.

So we are back to where we began. We did nothing to deserve damnation, and now we do nothing to deserve salvation. It’s all willy-nilly and totally random. Nobody knows the inner workings of this strange system, and where you find yourself is purely by chance. If that were true, it would be the most unjust system in the world! Imagine you were arrested by the police, and they inform you that there’s no reason you were arrested. What about your crime? Well, they tell you that you killed people, but that’s not really the reason you were arrested. So why were you arrested? No reason. At least no reason you can consciously change. And, one more thing: You are going to jail. Forever.

Would you call that system just or unjust? It is easy for a Christian to lament that we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. But would they be similarly blasé if someone decided to lock them in jail forever for those sins? No, of course not. In fact, in the words of our favorite Roman, "God forbid!".

Yes, we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, but somehow we do not expect to be condemned for those sins. Would we accept all of this in good faith if Jesus hadn't been born? And we were all, as a matter of fact, just condemned to hell by virtue of being born? How strange!

Of course, this system doesn’t really work this way. It can't. If it did, there wouldn't be any point to being a Christian. Preachers are quick to say salvation is free, but it’s not. Something free is something you can take, put in your pocket, and forget about forever. That isn’t salvation. You have to take the pledge, live according to specific laid-down rules, perform prayer, perform speaking in tongues, and even go outside to beg others to take this free thing off your hands.

Salvation is free—it only requires your entire life. Performing the peculiarities of Christian faith appropriately requires your own vigor, your own strength, your own aptitude, and your own determination. And if you can do all that, why shouldn’t you boast? Yes, your salvation is free. But receiving it as well as you have, taking it to heart as well as you have, and offering it to others as well as you have definitely isn’t free! It came from your energy, your own dedication, and your own life force.

While salvation is freely given, it is not freely held. Some held it and dropped it, and others didn’t. The difference wasn’t in the grace of God, but in individual ability and strength of character. A liar and an honest person aren’t morally equal, and they certainly wouldn't perform Christian faith to the same extent. It would be absurd to claim they are!

But stupid Elewa, one sister may cry; that individual ability and strength of character was provided by God! Perhaps. Let's see what Paul thinks of this. In the beginning of 2 Corinthians, he chronicles a spat with some “super apostles” who are leading the church astray. The chapter is a way for Paul to set forward his reasons why his teaching should be followed instead of those of the super apostles. Now, friends, we need to put ourselves in the shoes of these early Christians. There is no such thing as a Bible or a canon, so they are really just making it up as they go. They imagine Christianity to be just another pagan religion, this time with a living God. Traveling preachers claiming to be followers of Christ all come and go, and sometimes they preach conflicting things. These Christians really have no great reason to pay special attention to Paul. He didn’t even meet Jesus and wasn’t one of the original apostles. He was a complete newcomer to the faith. As far as they can tell, he is just one of the other preachers who have come and gone bearing the good news.

So, to make his case for his preeminence, Paul boasts. I know he does it in an ironic manner, but the nucleus of the boast, even if only of his own suffering, carries a stench of ego. You see, Paul believes it would be distasteful to boast of the great things he has done for Christ, so he instead boasts of his suffering, among which are being shipwrecked, being beaten, being hunted, being naked and cold, and all of that. He ends by saying he doesn’t want to boast, but if he must, he would boast of things that show his weakness. But this is really just a funny Jewish word game.

Paul may be boasting about his suffering, but it’s really a boast about his endurance and longsuffering, which are points of virtue for him. His suffering for Christ, chronicled like that, is possibly even a more effective boast than an exposition of all the wonderful miracles God had worked through him.

In any case, the boast proves that even Paul believes that some of your actions should be validly attributed to you, and not the spirit of God that moves in you. You are not God. Everything you do cannot, by definition, be by the grace of God. A Christian murderer doesn’t kill by the grace of God, so why do we assume that the good things he does must be by the grace of God? Is a Christian not capable of good, in and of himself, without the spirit of God? That would be an extraordinary conclusion.

Even faith isn’t naturally occurring. In church recently, I learned that a good Christian declares and decrees by faith. And that the difference between a healthy and prosperous Christian and one who isn't is their intensity in their level of faith. Whatever grouse you may have with that particular sermon (I have a much more comprehensive newsletter on my thoughts on it coming out in a month or two), you have to agree that the idea is somewhat right. Faith—exercising and declaring it—is a matter of personal decision, vigor, and effort. Not everyone has the same level of faith, and the difference between different levels is a matter of personal effort and ability. If that is so, why shouldn’t you boast about it?

Now, I am not a complete idiot. I know that the obvious answer is because pride is a great evil, but even that answer has some philosophical chinks in its armor. The argument here is that no matter one’s achievements, one should be modest. It’s good advice that works not only in religious matters but in other parts of life as well. No one likes a proud person. But the problem with that argument is that modesty is also a form of pride, as C.S. Lewis explained in The Screwtape Letters:

"Catch him at the moment he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By Jove! I’m being humble,’ and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear."

As I see it, there are only two ways to avoid boasting. The first is to truthfully realize that the achievements you seek to boast about aren’t yours to boast about, which is the argument Paul makes.

However, as I have shown, Paul is obviously wrong (sorry, Pastor Kumuyi!), as some of the good things you do obviously require your own human effort. And yes, this means you can boast about them.

The second way is to admit the greatness of your achievements and your contributions to them but intentionally downplay them, which merely serves to mislead others. This may not be boasting, but it’s a much worse vice: lying. You may consider it a white lie, but it only serves to mislead others and also stroke your own ego.

Serious Christians may cry at this letter and call it complete blasphemy, and that may be true. But it’s also true that current-day Protestant tradition completely ignores Paul on several other extraordinarily straightforward matters. I believe my critique of Paul, whom we already safely ignore on matters he repeated twice, is merely in line with that tradition and is nothing to lose one’s marbles about.