Are You A Prince, Or A Pauper? 10-25-09
In Mark Twain’s story, The Prince and the Pauper, two boys who bear identical likenesses exchange identities and live each others’ lives for a time. One, a beggar named Tom Canty, takes the place of Prince Edward and lives in the palace and tries to navigate the treacherous waters of court intrigue and customs. Prince Edward takes Tom’s life with an abusive father, neighborhood bullies, and witnesses for the first time in his life the remarkably unfair judicial system of the day. In the end, Prince Edward is only recognized as the real Prince Edward because he knows what the Great Seal of England is, whereas Tom has been using it as a nutcracker.
The story does an admirable job of demonstrating the three important aspects of image: appearance, accomplishments, and awareness. Each of these three things define for those around us exactly who we are; but they must be taken together, as any single one by itself can be misleading.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27 NIV)
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ “ “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:2-5 NIV)
Here you can see that God created man in his image, yet man’s accomplishments and awareness caused that image to be marred and so man’s appearance became twisted to resemble less the Creator and more the created. For it was the Creator that set man in the Garden, but it was the creation that man chose to follow when he disobeyed God.
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:1-3 NIV)
And so mankind has become spiritually destitute! I heard a caller say on a radio talk show that he believed that a person can be moral and upright without religion (he was speaking specifically about Christianity). This is completely false! In today’s society, people often will point to certain morals and values and claim that they are possible without religion; but what they fail to understand and refuse to accept is that those morals and values that exist within our society are the remnants of our Christian heritage. But just as we have squandered our economic standing with an entitlement mentality, so too have we wasted our spiritual treasure by accepting as equals with Christianity the numerous false religions of the world.
When you dress like a prince, people will assume you are a prince. How many Christians in America today dress like Godly princes? From what I can see, many Christians have exchanged a Godly appearance for worldly acceptance. In the name of tolerance, many have compromised the Word of God and accept the words of man as authoritative. In this way abominable perversions such as homosexuality and abortion are called lifestyle choices and are championed by the “open-minded”.
In the same way, accomplishments help define our image. Many have taken the image of the world by working the way the world works. In the name of feeding the hungry and clothing the needy how many have quit feeding the spiritually hungry from the Word of God and have quit clothing the spiritually naked with Christ’s clothes? I am not against feeding the hungry or clothing the needy, but taking care of physical needs must be secondary to taking care of their spiritual ones! If we sacrifice the spiritual for the physical, our accomplishments show us to be worldly, not Godly.
But much of this comes from our own inadequate awareness. We forsake righteousness when we can no longer recognize it. God’s people have shown a remarkable lack of desire to listen to God as he speaks in his Word, and have instead claimed to hear God in their hearts. But invariably what they hear God saying in their hearts somehow explains away what he said in the Bible that they disagree with. It is impossible to remain aware of God’s will in your life without remaining connected to him through his Word.
So then, as we look at our image, do we look like Jesus? Do we dress like him? Do we act like him? Do we listen to God like him? The answers to those questions will tell you if in the Kingdom of God you are a prince, or a pauper.
-Charles Peterson