‘OTHER PEOPLE’ ARE NOT THE STANDARD

Luke 18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.

We read a popular and interesting discourse today: the parable discussing the visit of the Pharisee and Tax collector  to the temple to pray. Our focus today is on the first part of the Pharisee’s supposed prayer of thanksgiving: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men”. He then goes on to list a number of vices he was not involved with – murder, extortion, injustice etc.

In the Pharisee’s eyes, his standard of measure was other people. Put it this way, ‘he pitched his standard of measure against another man’, and that was his first error. We are told that it is ‘the standard of the Lord that stands sure'(2 Tim 2:9) – men have never been the standard. They may serve as a point of reference, but never as the yardstick.

We are all measuring up to the God’s standard so other men just don’t cut it. So just as you can confidently compare your way of life to another person in your own generation, you ought to be able to place it alongside the fathers and even the saints of old – Abraham, Noah, Paul, David, etc. These men were all held not to the standards of men, but to God’s standard, the same which is used for us. 

#sly