“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
— 1 Corinthians 10:13
One of the passages taken most out of context is the one set out above.
How can it be that this is misconstrued to say, “God won’t give you more than you can handle”? But this is what comes out of the mouths of certain believers, believing it’s biblical. Well, it isn’t!
What the verse is saying is true: God doesn’t TEMPT any of us beyond our capacity to endure, and yet we all fall into temptation from time to time, but no temptation is beyond us. We have a way out. There is a way to endure temptation and respond in the right way so to not become ensnared by sin.
It’s about not confusing temptation with testing.
God won’t allow us to be TEMPTED beyond our ability to endure. We all know the nature of temptation—we usually have many warnings to back out and go another way. The way we know this is through living a life of giving into temptation for an extended time. We enter the temptation as a risk-versus-return transaction. It’s a calculated risk where we wager morality against the opportunity of getting away with it.
We slide further into freedom and further away from responsibility never quite understanding that freedom wanes as responsibility does. Freedom without responsibility is bondage, so the irony is it’s no freedom at all.
No human being is beyond temptation—and blessed are those who humbly accept this fact.
The one who says “I’m beyond falling into temptation” hasn’t understood the biblical truth that pride precedes a fall.
But the one who is tested by loss, who is thwarted for a time in paralysing grief, is so far from pride, temptation is the farthest thing from their mind and barely a distant risk; simply surviving is their magnum opus.
The majestic irony is the one who is broken by their circumstances probably wouldn’t fall into a temptation unless to do so would meet a basic need of human connection. Such a temptation wouldn’t arise through greed or lust or sloth, but through the void of loss, which is due to the need of love.
To say God won’t allow us to be TESTED beyond our ability to endure is to put the suffering of broken, fallen world and a frail humankind into God’s own hand.
This is because, quite frankly, people are tested beyond their ability to endure every single day, in every street, town, city, state, nation, and continent of the world, throughout history. There is just so much suffering in this world. God understands.
Jesus himself was tested beyond his human ability to endure. Jesus broke down, and he shows us via his compassion that this humanity is beautiful, and never disdainful.
To be broken through what should break anyone is not a pretty thing, but it’s a human being folding under the stress and hardship that would make any reasonable person fold.
Temptation is a real thing and it’s one test that we can endure if we’re wise and humble and honour the truth. But loss and grief and mental illness WILL test us beyond our ability to endure.
The truth of 1 Corinthians 10:13 is it was never written about those situations that happen to us. It was written about those situations we make or allow to happen.
Having just seen a video where a father must say goodbye to his 7 or 8 year old daughter in Ukraine, them both sobbing inconsolably, with the mother there too, reminds us that the unfathomable is real. It’s never too far from any of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment