2% Pride?

Confession of sin is such a good thing for our pride. Pride also makes confession of sin an argument over percentages.

This exhortation aims to offer some help all around, to those who see and address sin as well as to those who are being addressed.

If your spouse said, “You are being proud,” it’s easy to imagine saying “No I’m not.” You reply this way because you know that you are not as proud as you could be. Of course, if you were being as proud as you could be, you wouldn’t still be married. You wouldn’t even have any friends. Pride in absolute would be pride in absurdity. Teens also use this defensive “trick.” But if you really were MAX-PROUD you’d be in prison. No one talking to you about your sin believes you couldn’t sin worse than you are.

You’re arguing about percentages, but you know better than to say that. You want the person who’s observing your sin, talking to you about your sin, to understand that you’re not sinning at 100% of the sin.

This isn’t a denial that lies have levels. Laziness has layers. Disrespect is on a spectrum of sassiness. Rebellion could walk away, rebellion could hurt back.

But there’s no example in the Bible of confronting a percentage, or instruction to wait until it’s a majority or two-thirds. For that matter, Christ died for 2% as well whole pride.

Stop arguing for points. If the person confronting you is blowing it out of proportion, that might be his/her own sin. Getting a scale out to agree on numbers won’t bring you any closer to agreeing in fellowship.

Get full humility instead of defending degrees of your disobedience.