Careful, or You’ll Get a Callus
“So that you may not claim to be wiser than you are, brothers and sisters, I want you to understand this mystery: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.” (Romans 11:25)
As a boy, I was constantly skinning up my knees and elbows. My mother used to say, “Scott, you are one big callus.” After a knee would get all skinned up, a couple of days later, I would get a nasty callus. According to Wikipedia, “A callus is a toughened area of the skin which has become relatively thick and hard in response to repeated friction, pressure, or other irritation.” “The cells of the calluses are dead.”
The Greek word in Romans 11:25 for “hardening” is “porosis,” which means “callousness.” Originally, the word meant “petrification or numbness.” Why am I spending so much time picking apart the word “callus?” (Pun intended) I find the Apostle Paul is using a clever play on words to make his point. The people of Israel have become like a callus, toughened and perhaps even dead. They got that way through repeated friction, pressure, and irritation, struggling with their exclusion from the Gentile communities.
I am deeply concerned that the Christian Church is getting a callus on its heart. Not unlike the people of Israel, we are feeling the friction, pressure, and irritation that comes with excluding an ethnic group. Instead of Gentiles, we are excluding immigrants and refugees. I worry that this form of exclusion will make us feel tough, which sadly will give us the impression of impenetrability when, in actuality, it will make us dead.
I do not want us to end up like a dead old callus. We worship a living God. We read from the living Word. We commune with a living Spirit. We cannot let an exclusive attitude bring death to our ministry. Struggle does not produce spiritual calluses. A spirit of exclusion skins up our hearts and leaves a callus on our souls. It is essential to our souls to find a way to embrace the immigrants and refugees. Their well-being is vital to our spiritual health and well-being. We are bound together in the faith.