The approved workman

 

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (I Corinthians 13:11, KJV)

Chapter 13 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church has two themes: the nature of true charity (love) and the limits of knowledge. The first theme sets an unbelievably high bar for the exercise of self-denying love, as in “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” The later theme is typified in “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

               It’s in this latter section of the chapter that verse 13 appears, almost an aside and only tangentially supportive of what comes before and after.

               I guess we can easily agree with Paul that the charitable act in pursuit of credit, praise or reward (or a tax deduction?) doesn’t contribute anything of great benefit to the giver, whereas the silent act of charity given out of empathy and for no selfish reason benefits both giver and recipient. At the same time, he says, we lack full knowledge of the meaning of our lives and hope for a revelation at some future time when all will be made clear.

               And then there’s “… but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” I guess any number of commentaries would tell me why this verse is in this chapter and what it really means. It’s probably one of those verses that by its nature lends itself as proof text for all kinds of quibbles from challenging the maturity of anyone who disagrees with me to a plea for better continuing education. (Ignoring the implication for the moment that when we think of the properly-matured persons, we’re thinking of men.) I sometimes think the verse is best directed at our tendency to latch onto simple answers we acquired when our thinking is young and simple, and then neglecting the opportunities to learn the complexities of a matter that our immature minds were unable to grasp.

               A case in point: The Santa Clause/reindeer/chimney story often seems plausible enough to children to keep them awake imagining hooves on the roof. But a parent would begin to worry if the complexities of that story hadn’t occurred to her child by the time she was eight or nine. A four-year-old “spake as a child,” and that was just fine. By the time a child is a man, the story should not only have been determined to be non-literal and—if the man had continued to explore the origins and practices of Christmas around the world—would have transposed into an appreciation of the symbolism of the Santa, the gifts and the rest of it. Most of us, I believe are well past the four-year-old concept, but I sense that many are arrested at the eight-year-old stage all their lives. “It’s all a fairy tale and nothing more.” A failure to put away childish things, to “spake as a man.”

               Continuing with this example, isn’t it true that to be consistent with the Christian ideal that giving is better than receiving, children should surely be given the opportunity to experience this through the celebration of God’s gift in Christ? Should the first question Santa asks a child really be, “So, what do you want for Christmas?” Are we content to model the department-store, consumption Christmas to children in the process of “putting away childish things?”

               Not long ago, I posted this line: The sea of my ignorance dwarfs the puddle of my knowledge.  More and more, I’ve come to realize that “I’ve been seeing the world as in a mirror, darkly,” far short of the knowledge Paul expects will be imparted to us (in his view) when we meet Christ face to face. If the social media platforms tell us anything, it is that many people are stuck at that eight-year-old level of understanding and are eager to splash their simple answers for the world to see, as if they’d never been exposed to any of the complex details of the universe, of their own bodies, of social sciences, of political geography, of government, of the origins of the Bible they read, of great literature … the list goes on.

               To be knowledgeable on every subject, of course, isn’t possible. Mirrors have gotten a lot better since Paul, but if we don’t see the world darkly now, dimly might still apply. I think it would be beneficial for Christians if Paul had placed I Corinthians 13:11 into II Timothy 2, where he writes to his student, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” I don’t think this was an admonition to stick to simple answers!

               In my church, our pastor does a great deal of preparing in order to “correctly handle the word of truth.”  She also participates in in-service classes and seminars and recommends learning opportunities, books and movies to the congregation. If we’re treating the sermons and continued learning suggestions lightly, we each need to ask ourselves whether it’s because we’d rather be thinking about and doing something else, and so “don’t have the time,” or is our luke-warmness a product of wishing to keep our answers simple?

               In my memory, the KJV version of II Timothy 2:15 is the version that sticks. “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 

                Toward this we joyfully strive, eh?