Non-Political Lessons from “Original Sin”

 By Tim Challies - Posted at @CHALLIES:

Like so many other people, I came to understand that I was witnessing something deeply significant on the evening of June 27, 2024, as Donald Trump and Joseph Biden met for their fateful debate. Like so many other people, I was aghast at the ways Biden publicly shattered his hopes of becoming a two-term president. I was interested, then, to read Original Sin, the recent book that tells how he came to be on that stage and prove to the world that the rumors were true: He was unfit to run for a second term.

I do not intend to say anything about the authors’ findings as they pertain to American politics, for that is hardly my area of expertise or my forte as a writer. The United States isn’t even my country! However, as I read the book, I found myself pondering a few lessons that go beyond politics and apply to individual Christians and churches. And isn’t this part of the benefit of reading? There is always something we can learn as we read. Let me list a few of my takeaways.

Though there is something tragic about aging, there is nothing shameful about it. On this side of mankind’s fall into sin, aging is a natural and unavoidable process. Yet as prideful and rebellious creatures, we tend to fight its reality and deny its evidences.

In his kindness, God gave us Ecclesiastes 12 to powerfully capture the truth and pathos of aging. He does this through the sorrowful metaphor of a broken-down house. Crucially, this passage is meant to be read, pondered, and internalized by the young so that as they approach old age they will not be surprised by it and, even better, prepare themselves to face it.

The harsh reality is that any of us who live past our thirties will begin to decline physically and most of us will later begin to decline cognitively. Each of us needs to admit to ourselves that a time will come when our capabilities begin to diminish and when we are no longer who or what we used to be. Each of us needs to prepare ourselves to face this realistically. None of us will escape unscathed from the ravages of aging.

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