Man

One of the goals of ancient Greek education was to “know yourself”. This became central in Europe after the Renaissance. It is known as humanism. In Hebrew thought, the goal of education was to “know your God”. God and His glory were to be the centre.

The key to knowing our self is seeing our self as God sees us. The prodigal son “came to himself”. He saw the truth about himself. The truth about our self is only to be found in God’s word. It is only when the Holy Spirit takes God’s word and shows man who he is that he has any hope of salvation and change.

The key to knowing self is not to be found in anthropology or psychology, but in theology, i.e. through God’s word. When Adam sinned, self became his god. Man today is self-centred. When we preach we should not preach about self-improvement because this panders to man’s sinful nature. Self-centeredness should be confronted.

We preach death and new life through Christ. Jesus did not come to improve our lives but to replace our life with His. He said he who finds his life loses it, but he who loses his life for My sake and the kingdom, shall find it. Paul said, “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives within me.” (Gal 2:20).

Self-improvement will not work. It will not improve our marriage relationship and it will not make us a better person. It will not get us to heaven. It is not what we need. If it was, then Christ died in vain. Self-improvement denies one of the very fundamentals of the Bible and gospel message – total depravity.