Boasting

The game of bragging as I remember it being played when I was a boy and sometimes as a man who should have found something better to do is about personal superiority and putting other people down.  Perhaps, the boy's game of bragging about how far a baseball can be thrown is harmless enough, but the adult versions which we play from time to time do nothing but create a world of personal delusion and hurt for others.  The Jews of Paul's today tended to boast about being special because they were Abraham's descendants, a privilege which surely made them exempt from the wrath of God.    

Of course, the Apostle Paul would have none of this kind of thinking.  Those Jewish members of the Roman church were told in his letter that they had no reason to boast.  They were as guilty of sin and disobedience as the most sinful heathen.  It would seem that we would not fall prey to the same temptation, but as most of us realize, it is easy to start thinking that God should do better by us because of all the things we have done and are doing for Him.  And just in case His memory is short, we are often very quick to recite the list we carry with us in our pocket.   

In the 5th chapter of Romans, Paul tells those who trust in Christ that there are three things about which they should boast.  We should "boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God."  (Romans 5:2)  We should "boast in our suffering...."  (Romans 5:3) and we should "boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."  (Romans 5:11)  Here is a different kind of boasting.  It is not one which plays into some game of spiritual one-up-man-ship, but one which declares our dependency of God for anything good to come out of our life.