The “twists and turns” of the human condition, and the contradictions of history, become more understandable when we realize that human beings do not enter into this world inherently and entirely good (as the Pelagians taught), nor so corrupt that their natures can never be rectified (as some ancient gnostics taught), but as creatures originally made good and holy by God, who have fallen into sin, but who can be rescued from sin by divine grace. Since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, a Pelagian mindset has led many secular thinkers and politicians to endorse a mistaken idea of ultimate human perfectibility. 

As a boy, I once encountered a book that had hidden messages on its pages. Using ordinary eyesight, the printed words remained invisible. But once I looked through the “decoder” spectacles, suddenly I could read the printed letters that were otherwise invisible. The Christian doctrine of original sin is like that. This teaching allows one to see aspects of human nature that might otherwise remain invisible. The doctrine itself stretches in two different directions—toward the distant realm of human origins, and toward the everyday world that we all presently inhabit. Reinhold Niebuhr once called the doctrine of original sin the “most empirical” of Christian beliefs, noting that the front page of every major newspaper in the world, daily confirms this doctrine. The notion of an inborn or innate inclination toward evil fits with general experience. Where, indeed, can one find a human community that does not exhibit the downward gravitational pull of selfishness, promise-breaking, deception, pride, greed, violence, and the whole sorry catalogue of human wrongdoing?  
In the early fifth century A.D., a theological debate pitted the North African theologian, Augustine, against the British monk, Pelagius—the first significant British author in world literature—and in so doing brought to light opposing perspectives that have, in one form or another, continued with us down to the present time. The “Augustinian” view of original sin holds that human beings, though created good by God, have nonetheless fallen into sin, have been enslaved by sin (Jn 8:34), and so manifest an inclination toward evildoing that remains deeply rooted in corrupted human nature (Mk 7:21-23). This view implies that a very young child does not have to be taught to be selfish, or to screech out “Mine!” when another child picks up a toy that he or she has been ignoring up to that moment. Instead, the child’s parents have to curb an inherent self-centeredness that begins to manifest itself as soon as the child begins to make moral decisions. In Augustine’s view, therefore, human effort alone is insufficient to overcome our innate inclination toward evil. God’s inwardly transforming grace is thus necessary for our salvation.  
In contrast to this, the “Pelagian” view of original sin—in effect a denial of the doctrine—is that each human being comes into the world without any wrongful inclination. Each child begins life in a state that is just as innocent as that of Adam and Eve before they ate from the forbidden tree. To the obvious question, as to why evildoing is so pervasive, the Pelagian answer is that people are influenced by bad examples all around them. Every infant starts out with an uncorrupted nature, argues the Pelagian, but then, on seeing evil behavior, begins to copy what they see others doing. This Pelagian view has commended itself to many modern thinkers, since it seems eminently fair and just to them that each person begins his or her life—like Adam—in a condition of total purity and innocence. If one accepts the Pelagian perspective, then one is not faced with the pesky question so often posed to those who hold the other view: Why would God allow those born into the world to begin their lives already inclined toward evil?The problem though is that Pelagianism does not tally with what we observe. If Pelagianism were true, then in principle—if one were to surround babies at birth by an ideal environment—one might raise morally perfect children, who would become morally perfect adults, constituting themselves as a morally perfect society. This has been attempted many times and yet has never succeeded.
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The author of Hebrews realized that Christians in his day (as in ours) are capable of giving detailed attention to almost everything (a football game, new clothes, our appearance, school studies)—often, sadly, with one exception: the Lord Jesus. Hebrews teaches that we must reverse that trend. More than that, it engages in reversing the trend by showing us how captivating our Lord really is. Let’s be captivated by Him—for He lasts forever as Savior (Heb. 7:3; 8:16, 23, 25)!

“He’s going through a religious phase.” How often did you overhear that being said about you in your early days as an openly professing follower of Jesus Christ? Admittedly the sheer force of conversion on an untaught mind can lead to us drawing confused notions of exactly what has happened to us. Looking back on my own conversion I feel sure my parents must have thought I was going through a decidedly unbalanced “religious phase” as the golf clubs to which I had long been devoted (even at the tender age of fourteen!) were relegated to the cupboard for months on end. An unenthusiastically completed entry form and an ignominious second-round defeat in the national junior golf championships followed. What had happened to their relatively normal golf-adoring son? I am thankful for their love and patience with a young teenager who took a little time to realize that conversion called him to an ongoing life in and engagement with this world—not to monasticism!
Yet, when you are only three weeks old as a baby Christian, finding your feet in an intoxicatingly new world, whispers such as, “It won’t last!” can really hurt, and they can readily sow seeds of doubt that grow into the trees of mistrust and the forests of confusion.
Yet, whatever pressures we feel as contemporary Christians in the West, they pale by comparison with the obstacles that confronted the new converts to whom Hebrews was written. If indeed they were Jewish converts, each one became persona non grata in both family and community—big-time non grata—disinherited, ostracized, and alienated from the tight network that provided personal, educational, emotional, and financial support. They had joined the notorious “third race of men” that followed a claimant Messiah who had been roundly rejected, humiliated, crucified, and accursed. Now they too experienced reproach and the loss of family, property, and security (Heb. 10:32-4; 13:13). From now on they had to camp outside.
Would they last? Will I last? Where should I look (or point others to look)?
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Self-care, self-talk, self-esteem, and the like can only take us as far as the self will go, and they will only be as dependable as the self can be—which is to say, not very dependable at all. But when we find our value, our confidence, our joy by turning our gaze to the Savior who died for us and welcomed us into His family, then we will have hope “as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Heb. 6:19). 

In the psychological realm, the word of our age is self. From self-care to self-talk to self-esteem, hardly a day passes when broadcasts, podcasts, podiums, and even pulpits fail to remind us that our fundamental problem is a dearth of self-regard. And the answer, we are told, lies in telling ourselves that we are lovable: “It doesn’t matter what I do. It doesn’t matter who I am. I am a lovable person.”
Despite this emphasis within our culture, it is a startling fact that the Bible contains no positive, explicit teaching about self-regard as it is propounded by our contemporaries. It is totally absent! And if we believe that the Scriptures contain “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3), then we need to be prepared to see how God’s Word adjudicates the emphases of our culture rather than passively allowing those emphases to govern our understanding of the Scriptures.
The fact is that we are living in a culture which prescribes as a cure what the Bible describes as a sickness: “In the last days there will be times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self” (2 Tim. 3:1–2). In an age of anxiety and despair, the self-regard the world promises will help us ultimately only adds to the difficulty. Christ, too, promises us confidence, assurance, contentment, and, yes, love—but none of these is a gift that we can grant ourselves from the well of our own resources. Instead, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4:5, “each one will receive his commendation from God.”
In what follows in 1 Corinthians 4:6–7, Paul addresses the dangers of self-regard and, through a series of questions, seeks to reframe the Corinthians’ thinking accordingly. Whereas self-love endangers Christian communion by causing people to put themselves before others, Christian love engenders a spirit of humility before God, who is the source of our being, our value, and our joy.
The Problem: Pride
“I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.” (1 Cor. 4:6)
The first-century Corinthian believers to whom Paul wrote had a problem with pride. They were proud of everything. They were proud of their intellects, and they were proud of their teachers. Even those spiritual gifts that God had given became an opportunity to puff their chests up as they walked about. It was a dreadful problem within the church—and where that kind of wrong perspective persists, disunity establishes a stronghold among God’s people.
To this point in the letter, Paul has been addressing the problem of factions and favoritism in Corinth, where some said, “I follow Paul,” and others, “I follow Apollos” (1 Cor. 1:12). He and Apollos were not agitators of disunity. Both preached the same Gospel! But in a trumped-up opposition between the two preachers, many of the Corinthians found an opportunity to express their own “jealousy and strife” (1 Cor. 3:3), which came from a sense that they were wise in themselves (1 Cor. 3:18).
Thus Paul set out to correct the Corinthians by teaching them that “the word of the cross is … the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). The wisdom of the world says that we ought to lift ourselves up—that we ought to look within ourselves for encouragement and strength. But the wisdom of God is to glory in the cross—to marvel at the humiliation and death of Christ.
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