Sin, Deception, Chastisement and Shame

Much of Scripture is about the corruption of God's people. 1 Corinthians 15:33 reflects the sentiments of the 14th-century Latin proverb "a rotten apple spoils the barrel." Why does a rotten apple spoil the barrel? Because of the spread of mold or other diseases from the bad apple to the others. Mold and other forms of rot spread by proximity and contact. What can the good apples do to counteract the spread of mold and rot? Nothing. Their only recourse is to avoid proximity. Paul's argument here is that sin and the manifestations of sin are contagious and Christians need to avoid sin.

But more than that, he argued that they had been deceived, that they were in the midst of being deceived, and that deception was at the heart of worldly wisdom. Paul has been arguing for fifteen chapters that the chief enemy of the gospel is worldly wisdom and its many deceits. Here Paul said that spending time with people who have been deceived by worldly wisdom works to corrode the gospel, particularly among new and/or immature Christians. At the very least, traffic with those who have been deceived by worldly wisdom should be kept to a minimum among the saints. That, of course, is not what happens in most contemporary churches.

Christians need to be in the world but not of it. Christians are not to abandon the world. Rather, we are to serve as God's leaven in the world. We are to shape the world and its culture, we are not to be shaped by it. That is a high calling and a difficult row to hoe.

In 1 Corinthians 15:34 Paul turned to chastisement as a method of teaching: Wake up from your drunken stupor, stop sinning and realize that some of your cherished leaders of the church do not know God! That is, they are not regenerate. That's the issue. That's always the issue. In exasperation Paul concluded, "I say this to your shame."

Paul also used shame as a tool in the service of edification. The fact that Paul used shame as a pedagogical tool speaks volumes about the contemporary churches and their impotent understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel that Paul taught employs shame as a method of edification not always, but sometimes. Shame is an unavoidable concept because it is unique to humanity. Even the heathen know this.

It was Mark Twain who said, "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to." Jeremiah noted that lost people have lost the ability to feel shame. "'Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,' says the Lord" (Jeremiah 6:15). A healthy sense of shame is essential to faithful gospel living.

A practicing psychotherapist in Berkeley, California, understands the value of shame. I'm not suggesting that psychotherapy is a way to deal with shame. Psychotherapy is inadequate for the task. I mention it only because it notes some true things about shame from a person who does not appear to be a Christian.

This psychotherapist said that one of the most striking contradictions that he had come across as a therapist is the discrepancy between the centrality of the affect of shame in humans, and the lack of attention that shame has received in the study and practice of psychology. In his own training, he was taught to attend to a wide range of feelings: anger, fear, sexuality, excitement, sadness, but rarely, if ever, the feeling of shame. He acknowledges that shame is also avoided in the "real" world as well. In fact, most people feel shame about feeling shame. As a result shame is rarely acknowledged to others, or even to oneself. He has been paying much more attention to shame in working with his clients, and has been amazed at how crucial attending to this feeling is to the practice of psychotherapy. As with any feeling, when shame is denied it will only resurface to create even more pain and havoc.

Shame is usually unbearable. For example humiliation and mortification, which are part of the "shame family of feelings" may be so painful that they may lead to violence or suicide. We may equate shame with being worthless, unlovable, unredeemable, or cut-off from humanity. It may evoke other painful feelings, rage at the one we feel shamed by, or terror that we will be abandoned, fragmented and/or overwhelmed with despair.

Silvan Tomkins (in Nathanson, 1992) said, "If distress is the affect of suffering, shame is the affect of indignity, transgression and of alienation."

Indeed, shame is at the heart of sin and salvation, of forgiveness and redemption. It is unavoidable. Paul thought that it was downright shameful that some of the Corinthians did not know God, that they could not blush in the face of their own sin.

Paul argues that people who do not believe in resurrection do not believe it because they have not experienced regeneration. And apart from regeneration knowledge of God is merely abstract gum flapping. It is not personal, not real. So he said that they had "no knowledge of God" (1 Corinthians 15:34). Interestingly, there is no negative in the Greek. The Greek is literally translated "have ignorance of God" (Young's Literal Translation). It is not that they are missing knowledge, but that they are holding onto ignorance. This is an important distinction in the light of Romans One.

Paul was not ashamed. The gospel had dealt with his shame. Paul explained how this works in Romans 1:16-22. Find a Bible and read it. Was Paul talking about you?