We all fall down and (hopefully) stand up again
To make my point at the beginning: in his letters the Apostle Paul calls people who believe in Jesus Christ “saints”. In this sense all Christians who live out their faith earnestly belong to this category. But that is also all that is said. The term “saints” needs a detailed definition.
Recently I read a book about Georg Müller. He is one of the examples for most faith missions. During his life he cared for more than 10,000 orphans in Bristol. When I reached the end of the text it became clear to me that the description of his personality was one-sided. Thus there is a kind of adoration of saints in the Protestant Church that we all know from the Catholic Church. St. Martin who shared his cloak with a beggar and countless other personalities from the church’s history. Men and women are hyped up to being super-humans. It seems that these people have neither character flaws nor personal weaknesses. We see here a religious black-and-white-thinking. And it does not really help anyone.
Interestingly enough we do not find one-sided personality descriptions in the Bible. David, a man after God’s heart, commits adultery and craftily gets rid of a loyal soldier. In a huge crisis Gideon saves God’s people, but towards the end of his life he turns into a seducer. Impulsive Peter strikes off the right ear of the high priest’s servant. Paul and Barnabas have such a hefty argument that they prefer to go separate ways than work together.
God writes his fantastic stories with people who are in no way perfect. They are people who are not as they wish to be. People who fall down and get up again. Chronic failures. Or put a different way, Followers of Christ know that they are in desperate need of forgiveness. /KDJ
