I’m going to talk about The Dark Knight. If you don’t want spoilers, skip the following paragraph.

In The Dark Knight, the Joker advocates this idea that everybody is born with the same inner insanity. Those who are born into better environments and who live comfortable lives don’t go through much hardships, and they are able to get by without revealing their insanities. But those who live lives in which they are forced to go through desperate situations can only resort to their hidden insanities. “It’s like gravity. All it takes is a little push.” Those who are born into families who don’t have much money have more of a temptation to steal than those who are born into families who have a lot of money. For an insane fellow, the Joker is pretty smart, because I think he has it right.

Person A goes to a Christian school in a clean surburban neighborhood, and his dad is a friendly pastor. Person B is born into a messed-up neighborhood, and every week in his childhood he hears gunshots on the streets. Person B is more likely to grow up to be involved with violence and gangs than Person A is. Person B by default was born at a disadvantage, in a sense. One can say that Person B could’ve pulled himself up with his bootstraps if he wasn’t too apathetic. First of all, that assumes he has bootstraps. Secondly, apathy to some extent is also a mindset that is not exactly controllable, to some degree. Some people are more apathetic in character, and some people are more strong-willed in character. And it’s not necessarily something they did to gain that characteristic.

And it’s not just genetics. Person A and Person B go through different experiences, and they naturally develop different worldviews and attitudes. They didn’t choose to go through most of these experiences, so they didn’t choose to develop most of these different worldviews and attitudes.

So what? That means we are all the same. If I was born with the surroundings and the mind that Adolf Hitler had, I’d probably do what he did.

Let’s throw God into the picture. I Corinthians 15:10 says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

What the heck? Paul worked hard, but it wasn’t him but the grace of God. What a thought. Even the ethic of working hard is there through the grace of God. Doesn’t this imply that every good thing we do is through grace? Yes. We didn’t earn our freedom from our bondage to sin. It was bought through grace. The act of doing good is through grace.

What’s that mean? It means that it is by grace I am not Adolf Hitler. It is by grace that I have a Christian family. It is by grace that I go to church. It is by grace that I have friends. It is by grace that I can play music. It is by grace that I love music. It is by grace that I go to college. It is by grace that I am saved. It is by grace that I can even comprehend what I’m talking about. Strip away everything that comes from grace, and what do I have? Nothing.

I think that’s the key to humility. What right do I have to criticize somebody even in my head for being a party animal? It is by grace that I’m not a party animal. What right do I have to be annoyed at stuck-up people? It is by grace that I’m not a stuck-up person. What right do I have to look down on a person for being a sinner? None at all.

Man. How foolish we become when we try to take the credit for something that’s not ours. Who are we kidding? Check out I Corinthians 4:7. “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” I’m laughing at myself right now. What use is pride now?

Everything. Everything we have is from God. I Corinthians 1:30-31 says, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption are by our side not because of what we did but because of who God is. The only thing worth boasting about is God. Good game Larry.

– Larry

Passage of Inspiration: John 8:2-11