My parents both teach. And over the years, they have seen that young children have been trained to lack shame. to see all their work as creative, and themselves as perfect, not needing correction. Which they do, and when they do.

I have had the privilege of their visit over the last few days. The sadness of seeing them frailer than they were — my father is in his eighties and Mum is not too far behind — is tempered by the joy that they are still in this world.

Now, this relates in part to a post at TC, in which a fully ghettoed up American man acts aggressively in a train in Japan, terrifying everyone. And Vanessa, who posted it, says she will no longer use public transport because this behaviour is now common.

Now to the text…

Romans 12:1-21
¹I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.

³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

⁹Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; ¹⁰love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹²Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. ¹³Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. ¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. ¹⁸If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” ²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

With Paul, theology leads to application. So if we are to present ourselves to Christ for service, we need to stop thinking that we are wise, we need to stop thinking we are good, and we need to get rid of pride.

Self esteem is merely psychological jargon for Pride. And Pride was correctly named a deadly sin by the old theologians. Pride means that we will not see correction. Consider this comment from JB, whose daughter (Pinky) was threatened with violence and violation by a couple of classmates in middle school.

I don’t actually think it would hurt those boys to see a little righteous wrath from Pinky’s father.

You can be strong. You can be powerful. You can be angry. You can even be violent. But only when you are doing those things to protect the people you love. You can be all those things in service to others.

Those boys couldn’t find a better man to emulate than Mr. JB. At the moment, they will have to observe him from the distance. Up close, they might find that threatening to hurt a man’s daughter can have some painful consequences.

Yeah. You intimidate the vulnerable, you consider yourself cool, you boast of your exploitation… well, young man, be warned. For those boring men who you despise, who work long hours to provide, who love their wifes and their children, get angry slowly. But male violence is in the human psyche for a reason. If you threaten, if you push… too hard, then there will a re-balancing.

And we will not care about your self esteem. Nor who your father is, nor what your race is. If the threat is against our children we will try to resolve in peacefully, but push too hard, and there will be righteous anger. Pray that the anger resolves before those who are oppressing become accounted as targets, not humans.