Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Made or Become?

I came across a quote the other day that looked like a misquote. Oswald Chambers quoted 1 Corinthians 9:22 from the King James Version, “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” That did not sound right to me, but it is. It is not stated that way in other translations, not even in the New King James. Other translations say “I have become,” rather than “I was made.”

I looked the verse up in Greek, and read the thoughts of a number of scholars, and did not learn much from the process. Is the verb active (what Paul “became” of his own doing), or is it passive (what he was “made” to be by a power outside himself)?

Grammatically the matter cannot be settled, but I think in practical terms we know the answer.

We become what God wants us to be only by his power, but only as we submit ourselves to him. He does not work with the proud, but only with those who submit to him (James 4:6ff). We become capable of submitting to others and leading them to salvation only as we allow ourselves to be his instruments. We do not have that ability within ourselves, but we do have that ability made available to us by his grace. We “become” what we need to be only as he “makes” us what we need to be.

Until we recognize that we cannot “become all things to all” except by his power remaking us, we will not become capable instruments for saving others. Trying to remake ourselves is a pointless undertaking. Expecting God to remake us without our willing submission and active participation is equally foolish.

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