Boasting & Bragging

To boast is to brag; speak proudly of; to possess with pride. Have you ever bragged on something just to see it go sour right before your eyes? I think we’ve all had that happen once or twice in our lifetime. We’ll go to braggin’ on our children or grand-children just to have them disappoint us by getting into some sort of unexpected trouble. We brag about our job and how long we’ve been employed at a certain company only the get laid off the next week. We tend to boast about our fine homes, just to open the door one day to find the hot water heater had bust, flooding the whole house. I guess the classic subject is how we boast about our automobiles. Just about the time we tell someone, “It’s been a good one. I’ve maintained it well and it’s never let me down. I tell ya, if dies tomorrow, it doesn’t owe me a thing.” And then it dies! Sometimes I think we jinx the things we brag on. I was braggin’ on my van the other day, how it turned over two hundred thousand miles and I wasn’t afraid to take it anywhere with confidence. In fact I drove it to Houston for Thanksgiving dinner without a thought of it breaking down. Ya, well, two days later the transmission, without warning, exploded. Having been rebuilt only less than three years ago, a part inside simply decided to give up, rendering itself useless. Of course the vehicle we love when functional, is the same one we want to fire a bazooka at when it’s broke down. Mother said there’d be days like this.
At a banquet a man complained his false teeth were hurting him. The diner to his left looked intently at his face, then reached for his briefcase on the floor beside him, opened it and produced a denture plate, “Here”, he said to his fellow diner, “try these.” “No , they’re too tight”, replied the other, whereupon the kind gentleman exchanged that denture for another. “Well then, try these”, he insisted. The second denture fit perfectly. After the meal, while returning the teeth, the man said to his benefactor, “Those teeth fit beautifully. You a dentist?” “Nope!” was his answer, “Undertaker.”
The minister had been invited back to dinner after coming two months prior. Immediately after giving thanks for the food one of the children at the table said, “Ya know what? That’s the first time we’ve said grace since you ate with us before.”
Sanitary hot-air driers were installed in the church building restrooms, but were removed two weeks later. When asked why, the preacher confessed they worked great but he found a sign hanging on the one in the men’s room that read, “For a sample of next weeks sermon, push the button.”
[2 Corinthians 10 & 11] (NIV) Paul has a lot to say about boasting. Paul says he himself must be careful not to boast about himself, and his work, that people might think he’s somebody. And in the same way, not to boast about someone else and their work, too much, that his boasting might destroy them and their work. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he instructs that we are saved by grace through faith “...it is a gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph. 2: 8-9) James says that when we boast and brag on ourselves, such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16) Paul says, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.” (2 Cor. 10: 17-18) The broken transmission belongs to God, not me. If it be God’s will, it’ll soon be back on the road, doing His good work.