What’s Wrong??
“What in the world is the matter with people?!”
Ever heard that one? How many times have you asked that question as you watched the news? Or scrolled social media? Or walked through Walmart?
It really is a crucial, foundational question for being able to interpret life, whether you’re talking about what’s going on at home, at work, or on the other side of the world. Answer that question wrongly, and you can mess up everything else.
For example, there are some who think people are innately good, and evil is merely a consequence of growing up in a wretched environment. Clean up a person’s environment and you’ll ensure better behavior.
That’s pretty naïve.
In the first place, it doesn’t consider why the environment is corrupt to begin with. It also fails to acknowledge that bad behavior finds expression at all levels of human existence, from the squalor of urban slums to the gated, upscale neighborhoods of suburbia.
Others think man’s problem is ignorance. Educate the beast, so the argument goes, and you’ll tame him. In reality, all you do is help him to be more sophisticated in the expression—and perhaps hiding—of his corruption. He’ll be less savage-like, but no less corrupt.
The only satisfactory answer to the question is found in Genesis 3 in the record of man’s fall.
“The matter” with people is that we have inherited a corrupt, depraved nature from our first parents. The Bible also calls it sin and declares that all men are sinners—we “come short of the glory of God.”
When we come to see this as true, we can then understand what’s wrong with the world and why all our efforts to fix it simply don’t work—our best intentions, labors, and apparent successes are still marred by our depravity!
But once we understand the real problem, we can then look for a solution. And what we’ll discover is that the same Book that reveals the root problem also reveals the solution, which is found in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. Only by Him and through Him can the sin problem be dealt with adequately.
In other words, to change a man, you can’t simply change his environment or educate his mind; he needs radical heart surgery. As Paul puts it, he needs to become a “new creature” in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Ever heard that one? How many times have you asked that question as you watched the news? Or scrolled social media? Or walked through Walmart?
It really is a crucial, foundational question for being able to interpret life, whether you’re talking about what’s going on at home, at work, or on the other side of the world. Answer that question wrongly, and you can mess up everything else.
For example, there are some who think people are innately good, and evil is merely a consequence of growing up in a wretched environment. Clean up a person’s environment and you’ll ensure better behavior.
That’s pretty naïve.
In the first place, it doesn’t consider why the environment is corrupt to begin with. It also fails to acknowledge that bad behavior finds expression at all levels of human existence, from the squalor of urban slums to the gated, upscale neighborhoods of suburbia.
Others think man’s problem is ignorance. Educate the beast, so the argument goes, and you’ll tame him. In reality, all you do is help him to be more sophisticated in the expression—and perhaps hiding—of his corruption. He’ll be less savage-like, but no less corrupt.
The only satisfactory answer to the question is found in Genesis 3 in the record of man’s fall.
“The matter” with people is that we have inherited a corrupt, depraved nature from our first parents. The Bible also calls it sin and declares that all men are sinners—we “come short of the glory of God.”
When we come to see this as true, we can then understand what’s wrong with the world and why all our efforts to fix it simply don’t work—our best intentions, labors, and apparent successes are still marred by our depravity!
But once we understand the real problem, we can then look for a solution. And what we’ll discover is that the same Book that reveals the root problem also reveals the solution, which is found in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. Only by Him and through Him can the sin problem be dealt with adequately.
In other words, to change a man, you can’t simply change his environment or educate his mind; he needs radical heart surgery. As Paul puts it, he needs to become a “new creature” in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17).
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