Phil Bishop, Exercise Physiology
University of Alabama

It’s easy to get confused as a Christian professor.

I am often tempted to criticize my colleagues and students for what I feel are lives of hopelessness and frustration. I am tempted to correct their sinful behavior – until I see my own.

I became a Christian 48 years ago. I have been provided some tremendous Christian training. I have been to Christian retreats, conferences, and training programs. How is it that I am still so corrupt after all these years? Why do I lose my temper, cuss, and act like a jerk when I claim to be a follower of Christ?

As a professor, God has given me enormous opportunities, some of which I have blown one way or another. I have had great opportunities to share with colleagues, with students, and with strangers. Sometimes I miss out due to ignorance, sometimes due to fear, sometimes due to laziness.

Just recently a young professor asked me to meet and talk about how to be successful. I was flattered that she would ask me. We had a very nice chat. Later she told me how helpful our chat had been. But had I really been eternally helpful? I had shared all the mundane stuff about focus saying “No,” and about avoiding land mines. I had really endeavored to be of service on how to succeed.

But, what a great opportunity missed! I could have asked, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” I could have offered her a follow-up meeting to discuss what I believe constitutes real success, but I didn’t.

Several years ago we were considering hiring a friend of one of our incumbent faculty members. I ungraciously and insensitively was highly critical of the candidate’s lack of recent productivity. My colleague did not receive it well, and I think I did serious harm to our relationship by my callous critique. More recently I was trying to be funny in a faculty meeting and inadvertently insulted almost the entire group of junior faculty. They haven’t forgotten it, and neither have I.

Yes, most of my adult life I have been involved in some kind of ministry – with my church or on campus. But I can still act like a jerk. And I don’t even want to mention my being overly-competitive, jealous and self-centered.

In the movie Liar, Liar, Jim Carrey plays a corrupt lawyer (Fletcher Reede), who at one point is told by the judge, “I hold you in contempt.” Carrey’s reply to this is, “I hold myself in contempt.” And that’s where I stand. There’s no doubt I’m correct in holding myself in contempt to some degree. After all these years, I sometimes don’t even act remotely Christ-like.

But God doesn’t look on me that way. He sees the blood of Christ. God knows my sin even better than I do, yet He loved me enough to die for me (Rom 5:8). It is amazing to me, that despite my many flaws, God does love me, and does use me in the lives of others. I, who still need grace — lots of grace. Maybe I ought to show my Christian, and certainly my non-Christian friends in the university, a little of this same grace.

© 2009 Phillip A. Bishop Used by permission of Faculty Commons