One of the things I love about the Bible is its honesty. The Bible’s honesty sets it apart from every other piece of ancient literature or religious text. The Bible doesn’t flatter its main characters, or pretend they’re better than they are. In the Bible, Noah, the righteous man, is saved in the ark, but when he’s safely on land, he gets drunk. Abraham is a serial liar. Jacob, the father of the children of Israel, is a crook, who cheats his brother, his dad, and his uncle out of money. Moses was a murderer and lost his temper. David was an adulterer, who arranged the death of the cuckolded husband. Where you’d expect these sins to be swept under the rug, they are presented for the world to see. The Bible is surprisingly and refreshingly honest.
It’s most obvious with the best known of Jesus’ 12 disciples – Peter. The apostle Peter was one of Jesus’ favourites, the first to identify him as the Christ, quick to respond, full of pluck. Yet, all four gospels record Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus Christ, on the night before he was crucified. The event is recorded in horrifying detail; reading it is like watching a slow-motion car crash. This denial wasn’t a momentary slip-up, but something Jesus had warned Peter about only hours before. He’s not in a life-threatening situation, yet bottles it when a lowly servant girl suggests he knows Jesus. Peter doesn’t tell a white-lie, or “fudge” the truth. He plainly denies knowing anything about Jesus in front of a group. He doesn’t do it once, but three separate times, with space in-between, to come to his senses. He uses a religious curse to underscore his denial. It’s a highly embarrassing incident.
This is the Peter who will go on to play a prominent role in the New Testament church. And yet, Peter’s dirty laundry isn’t hidden away, but given a high degree of visibility.
Why?! Why does the portrait of the most famous Christian paint him “warts and all”?
Because the heart of the Bible’s message is that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. The Bible is a book written for sinners, like you and me, not to tell us that we’re actually, underneath, quite good, with the potential to sort ourselves out, but to tell us we’re actually quite bad, and that it’s precisely sinners like us that Jesus Christ has come to save. It is the Bible’s unique message that explains the Bible’s unique honesty. We don’t have to pretend and live in denial of our sin; it is Jesus Christ and his saving grace that allows us to look at ourselves “warts and all”.
