Grace in the Company of the Fallen-When Holy Places Reveal Human Hearts

Grace in the Company of the Fallen-When Holy Places Reveal Human Hearts

There is a mistake in assuming that to be at a church or Bible college is to be among angels rather than among people. Such an assumption quietly confuses proximity to holy things with participation in holiness itself. Yet the New Testament never encourages this confusion. Scripture consistently reminds us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and that grace, not environment, is what forms the people of God.

I recall entering Bible school with precisely that mistaken hope. I believed that by going there I would dwell closer to heaven, among those especially called by God, among people whose lives bore little stain or contradiction. I imagined a community where wrong would be rare, virtue common, and faith uncomplicated. But even Paul warned Timothy that those who desire to serve God must first be honest about the human condition, for “the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15).

By the time we were ready to graduate three years later, that illusion had been gently but firmly dismantled. We had come to another understanding—one learned not merely through instruction, but through life together. That understanding was best captured by one of our colleagues. She was about eighteen years old when we entered the West Indies School of Theology (WIST). Early on she said, “If angels ever did walk the ground, WIST is surely the place where they’d be found.”

But after our sojourn there, she wrote words shaped by experience:
“I know now what I knew not then—that to be at WIST was to be with men.”

This realization echoes the testimony of Scripture itself. Jesus did not build His church with angels, but with men who misunderstood Him, argued among themselves, fled in fear, and even betrayed Him. And yet He entrusted them with His gospel. As Paul later wrote, “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Thus, we learned that life on earth, even in its most tender and sacred spaces, can hold some of its most damning and disheartening moments. The pastoral epistles do not hide this reality. Paul warns that even among leaders there will be failures of character and abuses of power (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1). Children and the vulnerable are sometimes harmed by those meant to protect them—a truth that grieves the heart of God, who declares that it would be better for one to have a millstone tied around his neck than to cause “one of these little ones” to stumble (Matthew 18:6).

As the saying goes, the sheep fears the wolf, yet more often than not it is the shepherd who wounds or abandons the flock. Scripture itself acknowledges this tragedy, for not all who lead do so faithfully. Yet Paul cautions against despair, reminding the church that “the Lord knows those who are his” (2 Timothy 2:19), even when human systems fail.

This is not to claim that all shepherds are corrupt, nor to deny the genuine good that exists within the church. Rather, it is to confess a sober theological truth: calling does not erase fallenness, and office does not sanctify the heart. This is why pastors themselves are urged to watch both their life and doctrine closely (1 Timothy 4:16), and why the church is repeatedly called to patience, correction, and grace.

And here the gospel speaks pastorally. Our hope was never meant to rest in institutions, nor in the moral consistency of leaders, but in Christ alone—the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep (John 10:11). In recognizing that we are among people and not angels, we are not driven to cynicism, but invited to humility, discernment, forgiveness, and deeper dependence on God.

For it is precisely among sinners being redeemed—men and women still in need of grace—that God has chosen to make His dwelling place (Ephesians 2:22).