Acts 17:11 “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”
It seems that the Bereans’ reputation of being noble in character was born out as true in their behaviour. Their character was consistent with their reputation. Sadly that is not always the case.
Two sportsmen who dominated their respective fields and were idolised by tens or even hundreds of millions of people worldwide were cyclist Lance Armstrong and golfer Tiger Woods. Lance’s subsequent confessions of cheating after years of denial negated all his pious pronouncements previously made, whilst Tiger’s quote below ran somewhat hollow after the revelations of his serial infidelity. He said in one interview: “Life is never all about golf. Golf is what I do. I don’t want to be defined as a golfer. I want to be defined by my character as a person.”
However, there’s no room for us to judge. As celebrities and icons in the world of sport, entertainment, politics and even the church get caught either metaphorically or literally with their pants down, it simply highlights how critical it is for each one of us to keep our feet on the ground, to be on our guard, to nurture our inner life. Be warned, talent can take you way beyond your character.
Character is so much more important than image or reputation. If we picture character as a tree, then reputation is the tree’s shadow; the shadow is what we think of it but the tree is the real thing. Whilst reputation is what people think of us, character is what God knows we are. As with the Bereans, if we can live where our character and reputation are consistent with one another, then we are people of integrity, which is the ring of authenticity in the life of a child of God.
Lord, I choose to nurture character above image or reputation today. Amen!
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