Imperfect Heroes

The Bible is full of good stories that serve to teach us important lessons about God and what is necessary to serve and follow him. Many of the stories revolve around characters, that, in many ways, seem larger than life. Almost everyone knows the story of Moses boldly standing against the Pharaoh of Egypt and leading the Israelites out of captivity. He performed magical feats like turning his staff into a snake and splitting the Red Sea (all done via God’s intervention of course). You also have the story of Samson who was blessed with superhuman strength and could take on armies of men by himself. When reading these stories, one might be reminded of fictional stories such as those found in comic books and other media, where heroes blessed with incredible abilities go up against the forces of evil and somehow always manage to save the day in the name of good. The characters in those stories, especially early in their histories, are often painted as paragons of good. If you read some of those classic Superman or Captain America stories, you’ll have little doubt which side those characters are on. In many stories, they were unerring symbols of all that is good.

Surely the same would be the case for the characters in the Bible. After all, the Bible is a religious and moral text, so the heroes in its stories have to be virtuous without fail, right? Not at all. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Almost all the protagonists in the Bible are full of flaws, and the Bible is clear to point out when those protagonists were in the wrong. Sometimes, the missteps of those heroes were as simple as disobeying orders from God. Such is the case for Moses and Samson. In Numbers 20:6-11, God gave Moses instructions on how to deal with a crisis facing the people. Moses acted on God’s behalf, but he did not follow God’s instructions. God took Moses’ actions as a lack of trust and honor. As a result, Moses was denied entry into the Promised Land. In Judges 16:1-22, we read about how Samson, against God’s expressed instructions, told Delilah the secret to his strength. Because of that disobedience, he wound up losing that strength and eventually his life.

Some sins from the Biblical heroes were far worse. David is perhaps one of the most important figures in the Bible, and he also committed one of the most egregious acts of sin against God. He took another man’s wife for his own and tried to cover up his sin, leading to the death of one of his best men (2 Samuel 11:1-27). That David was the same David who wrote so many great psalms dedicated to God. The same David that took down the giant, Goliath, with God’s help. The same David who became a great king for God’s people. If anyone should have been a faultless servant of God, it should have been David. He had basically spent his whole life up to that point doing God’s work, and because of his sinful actions, he spent most of the rest of his life experiencing the consequences for his sins.

Even when you get to the New Testament, we see that those used by God are clearly flawed. Peter, as Jesus called him in Matthew 16:18, was the rock upon which the Church was built. Yet, while Jesus was on the path of suffering for our sins, Peter was denying he knew Jesus. Paul was, without a doubt, the key figure in the Bible associated with the spreading of the Faith from the Jews to all other people. However, before that, he was an avid persecutor of those who held the Faith.

Why is the Bible so filled with these flawed symbols? Why does it make it so clear that these people were flawed? It’s simple. It’s all for our benefit.

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. - Romans 3:23

We Christians are painfully aware that we are sinners. We have to be aware. After all, repenting is one of the first steps of coming to the Faith. The Bible could have glossed over the flaws of the great figures in its stories, but would we have been able to relate to them the same if it had? We are capable of doing great things in the name of the Lord, and many of us do, but even in the midst of that greatness, the fact is, we still sin. It is more encouraging to read the unfiltered stories of God’s heroes and know that even though they did great works for God, they fell short too. If that can happen to the figures that God chose to have included in the Bible, then of course it can happen to us.

We also have to remember that when we fall short, all we need to do is repent and move forward with a resolution to do better. After all, those stories didn’t end with the heroes’ sins. Moses didn’t join his people in the Promised Land, but because of him, they still made it there. Through his faith and contrition, Samson was able to perform one last act of heroism in the name of God. David paid a heavy price for his sins, but in the end God still favored him enough to bring Jesus into the world through David’s lineage.

Only one person in the Bible was perfect, and that was Jesus. Our lives should be focused on being more like him, but in reality more often than not we’ll be more like Moses, Samson, and David. That is ok. In the end, all three were committed to God, and he was able to use them for his purpose, flaws and all. He certainly can and will do the same with us.

Chris Lawyer

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