Reflections on The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Near the end of Part I of the Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the female protagonist, Nastasya Filippovna, rejects Prince Myshkin's (the Christlike character) offer of marriage. He has said to her, "You are guiltless and I adore you," knowing apparently everything about her. She rejects him and runs away with Rogozhin, who is a drunk and a ne'er do-well. This struck me today as a perfect picture of people rejecting Christ's offer of love and forgiveness, preferring to consort with whatever the world has to offer, oblivious to the consequences...
I love the book on many different levels. It also portrays a completely beautiful human being filled with compassion, perceptiveness, spiritual depth and who is also childlike, winsome, and guileless.
This morning the thought occurred to me that as Christians we say on the one hand, to communicate with our teenage children, for example, we should learn to listen to them, try to get on their level, understand them and love them unconditionally. On the other hand, when it comes to relating to people who are not interested in the gospel, we seem to treat them as somehow beneath us, and therefore this warrants shaking our fists, trying to win arguments and being generally quite the opposite of winsome and guileless. This is inconsistent, I think.
I get the feeling generally that my perspective is not very popular but I'm still going to express it.
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. I Corinthians 9:20
I love the book on many different levels. It also portrays a completely beautiful human being filled with compassion, perceptiveness, spiritual depth and who is also childlike, winsome, and guileless.
This morning the thought occurred to me that as Christians we say on the one hand, to communicate with our teenage children, for example, we should learn to listen to them, try to get on their level, understand them and love them unconditionally. On the other hand, when it comes to relating to people who are not interested in the gospel, we seem to treat them as somehow beneath us, and therefore this warrants shaking our fists, trying to win arguments and being generally quite the opposite of winsome and guileless. This is inconsistent, I think.
I get the feeling generally that my perspective is not very popular but I'm still going to express it.
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. I Corinthians 9:20
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