Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

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17 February 2010
Passage: Acts 3
Focus: “You disowned the Holy and Righteous One…”  Acts 3:14.

            I don’t wish to be too hard on Peter, but as he is preaching here to the crowd that has gathered surrounding the sensational healing of the crippled beggar, he forcefully says, “You disowned the Holy and Righteous One.”  I think it would have been quite appropriate for someone to tap Peter on the shoulder at that point and say, “Hey, Peter, so did you!  Three times.  Remember?”
            Do I have some kind of twisted delight in rubbing people’s noses in their failures?  No…I don’t think so.  But I’m certainly aware that we all have a dirty little tendency in our human nature to be more preoccupied with the failures of others than with our own.  That’s what Jesus warned about in Matthew 7:3-5: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ’Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
            I believe that one of the best and most effective strategies of effective testimony is to admit failure.  It helps to present one as real, as human, fallible, and credible.  I’ve wondered on occasion if it isn’t one of the most neglected forms of ministry in the church.  Who can argue against an honest 3-point testimony that says,

1. This is what I did…what I used to be.
2. This is what God did for me…how He intervened and helped me to be delivered and restored.
   and...
3. This is what I’m doing now…what He has helped me become. 

           It’s all part of “declaring the wonders of God” (Acts 2:11).  Instead, far too many expend huge amounts of effort to hide their failures and cover up their past…and wonder why their witness is so ineffective.            We never hear Peter make specific reference to his failures.  Nevertheless, we can be sure that they taught him a thing or two.  It was Peter who later went on to say, “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’  Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (1 Pet. 5:5-6).  I judge that this sound advice is largely the product of Peter’s own experience of learning about God’s grace and power through the medium of failure.