In somewhat of a response to my question, “what is it that you most want out of this life?” someone came forward with the word, authenticity. In yesterday’s podcast I gave 5 hurdles that I think a good answer must clear, and being authentic seems to clear them all.
The definition of authentic that stood out to me in Webster’s dictionary was, “true to one's own personality, spirit, or character.” And perhaps, next to Jesus himself, the best biblical example of this quality comes from someone whom we know next to nothing about other than what Jesus said of him:
“When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” (John 1:47)
Just think about that! What a compliment. Especially since it came from the lips of Jesus and so, by definition, was the truth. Nathanael was what a true Israelite was supposed to be — someone dominated by a single motive to think, speak, and act, in any way that mirror’s who he is and where he’s at.
It is interesting to note, however, that within that very same context we are alerted to a weakness in Nathanael’s character.
Jesus was calling his disciples, and leading up to his remark about Nathanael, we read that,
“Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote — Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.
Do you hear what he did? He took an undesirable trait from something he’d heard or from some experience he’d had in Nazareth and applied it to all Nazarenes. The word for that is stereotyping, and it is a serious moral error because it takes a problem someone in a particular group of people may have and indiscriminately projects it upon the whole group. It is patently unfair.
But even at that point, Nathaniel was being honest about what was going on inside of him. And perhaps just as importantly he was willing set aside his stereotypical assessment of Nazareth and proceeded to check the Nazarene out.
So regardless of where we are at along the path of outgrowing our weaknesses, we can at least be authentic — true Israelites in whom there is no deceit. Very little about us is what it needs to be, but let’s at least stay clear of trying to fool ourselves or anyone else regarding who we are or where we’re at.
