“For do I now persuade men or God? or do I
seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of
Christ.” Gal
1:10
Which
is more desiring: The desire for pleasure or the desire for praise and
avoidance of ridicule? This can be challenging because one deals with
the physical while the other involves the soul.
Consider, “MIT” (University) created software called “SCIgen” which
strings together words to create fake computer-science papers for the purpose
of proving conferences and lecturers will accept meaningless papers to, quote: “maximize
amusement.” They were able to get “30” papers published in conference
proceedings and more than “100” were published by the Institute of Electrical
and Electronic Engineers of N.Y. What generates such actions of people to
accept what is called “gibberish” in the study?
One strong motive is the love and stimulation of praise verses the fear and
ridicule or failure. Within the academic
system people feed on the notoriety of publication in hopes of creating a name;
pride surfaces in all individuals to a degree, longing for acknowledgment and
avoiding failure. Jesus’ indictments
against human praise are unrelenting.
Mt. 6:1 “Take heed that ye do not
your alms before men, to be seen of them…” (vs 5) “And
when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites…that they may be seen of
men.” Pride is more powerful than pleasure; pleasure is not subtle or
tricky and seldom is novel or complex. Pride, however, derives from within cleverly
and systematically stimulating our soul and creating a hunger for worth and
purpose. Being honest writing such a
blog creates wonder if it will be liked. Pride is within, never relenting or just a
passer-by always rearing its ugly head to change your focus from and diminishing
your worth in Christ Jesus. Don’t be
chastened, subdued by the world’s folly of self-worth, it’s only the world
inside; of which we are crucified to as Christ who holds our greatest worth and
treasure.
HSAY…Todd
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