Anthony Pritchard
Active Member
What Only God Can Redeem
Letters From The Edge ©A.K. Pritchard
To Benjamin, Son of My Right HandLetters From The Edge ©A.K. Pritchard
Son,
1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.” We often read this as comfort. We quote it to ourselves in moments of weakness as if to say that our sin is not unique. But Paul was not writing to soothe the conscience of the mildly tempted. He was writing to warn the church of idolatry, fornication, murmuring, and provocation, the very sins that brought down Israel in the wilderness. This verse is not a balm. It is a mirror. And the reflection is terrifying.
What is common to man. Scripture does not hide it. The history of the world does not hide it. The things we call unthinkable are the things man has done in every age. Rape is common. Murder is common. Betrayal is common. The desecration of innocence is common. The slaughter of children is common. The use of women as weapons of war is common. These are not anomalies. They are symptoms. They erupt wherever God is rejected. They are not the acts of monsters. They are the acts of men. Without God we are not merely vulnerable. We are capable.
This is the horror contained in Paul’s words. The worst of mankind is not alien. It is native. The rapist, the murderer, the child abuser, the torturer, the destroyer of innocence, these are not exceptions. They are what man becomes when left to himself. The temptation that is common to man is not the small inward struggle of a respectable sinner. It is the capacity for the very things that have stained the earth since Cain rose up against Abel. The verse does not flatter us. It exposes us.
Yet Paul does not leave us there. He continues, “But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able.” This is not a promise of inner strength. It is a promise of divine restraint. God holds back the flood. He limits the reach of evil. He provides a way of escape, not from the presence of temptation but from its dominion. Paul adds, “But will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” To bear it. Not to erase it. Not to deny it. But to endure it without becoming its vessel. That is the miracle. The escape is mercy, not innocence.
This verse is written to the murderer, to the rapist, to the child abuser, to the worst of mankind, and it says that the temptation that seizes you is not unique to you. It is common to man. But God is faithful. It is not an excuse. It is a summons. A summons to repentance, to restraint, to the mercy that alone can transform a man.
The gospel is not for the innocent. Christ did not die for the misunderstood. He died for the guilty. He died for the common man. He died for the one who, left to himself, would become the worst of us all. Romans 5:8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
1 Corinthians 10:13 is written to reveal the horror, expose the truth, and offer the only escape. The escape is Christ.
All my love,
Dad
Colophon:
Written for Benjamin, Son of My Right Hand, as part of Letters From The Edge. This entry bears witness to the truth that the temptations common to man are not signs of hopelessness but reminders of our need for the faithfulness of God. May every reader understand that the escape God provides is not found in human strength but in divine mercy, and that Christ alone transforms what fallen nature cannot.
Communis Hominis Coram Deo - The common man before God.
~Tony
© A.K. Pritchard 2020 -