10/29/76

DOCTRINE OF INORDINATE COMPETITION

A. There is legitimate and inordinate competition in life. The Bible condemns inordinate (unrestrained, unregulated, undisciplined) competition.

B. Competition in the business world or in the athletic realm is legitimate, excellent, and advisable, but in the social, sexual or spiritual realm is a source of sin, evil and controversy.

C. Inordinate competition is found in social, sexual, and spiritual spheres of life. It is a sign of arrogance and pride or jealousy, insecurity. The inordinate competitor is insecure socially, sexually and spiritually.

D. The person who doesn’t compete behind your back is a relaxed person; he is reliable with capacity for great friendship. But getting into social, sexual, spiritual competition destroys capacity for love in all categories.

E. One of the pastor’s problems is sneaky, insecure, jealous people who compete against him and form conspiracies.

F. An inordinate competitor always tries to put you down, and always finds a place to brag about taking advantage of you to others.

G. A competitor always tries to impress you with the wrong things. A competitor is never relaxed around others. He is always trying to prove something, always trying to impress someone, always trying to put someone down.

H. Inordinate competition comes in many forms and performs many adverse functions in life. It has a facade of sweetness, flattery, pseudo spirituality, but behind it is an arrogant, jealous, insecure hypocritical person, waiting to strike like a viper. Beware of the person who always talks about doctrine.

I. The inordinate competitive person likes to play games like spiritual king of the mountain, asking questions and telling you the answers, using violence to impress you, a muscle flexor, a man who brags about his sexual conquests, a person who boasts about how he outwits other males, or a person who uses sarcasm to put people down.

J. He is motivated by pride or jealousy. He is emotional, therefore, often a tongues person, self-righteous, legalistic, anti-authority, and sometimes conspiratorial. He always seeks to put down some authority in his vicinity.

K. The believer must learn to spot him, his games, and separate from him. Only in isolation does the competitor wake up to his need of doctrine.

L. The reversionistic competitor does not adjust to the justice of God. He never functions on the grace principle that justice demands justice.

M. The inordinate competitor becomes a distraction to doctrinal perception both in himself and others, because he concentrates more on being superior to his contemporaries than he does on humbling himself under the mighty hand of God.

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R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740

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