Boasting by Gary Rose

Boasting is foolishness; someone out there is always better than you in something. Is Lee better than Norris? Good question; you be the judge. Somehow, "well done is better than well said" comes to mind.

And then there is Paul...

1 Corinthians, Chapter 11 (WEB)

 ¹⁶ I say again, let no one think me foolish. But if so, yet receive me as foolish, that I also may boast a little.  ¹⁷ That which I speak, I don’t speak according to the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.  ¹⁸ Seeing that many boast after the flesh, I will also boast.  ¹⁹ For you bear with the foolish gladly, being wise. ²⁰ For you bear with a man if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, or if he strikes you on the face.  ²¹ I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet in whatever way anyone is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also.  ²² Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the offspring^*n1 of Abraham? So am I.  ²³ Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, and in deaths often.  ²⁴ Five times I received forty stripes minus one from the Jews.  ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep.  ²⁶ I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers;  ²⁷ in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness. 

  ²⁸ Besides those things that are outside, there is that which presses on me daily: anxiety for all the assemblies.  ²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble, and I don’t burn with indignation?  ³⁰ If I must boast, I will boast of the things that concern my weakness. (emp. added GDR) ³¹ The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, he who is blessed forever more, knows that I don’t lie.

And, of course, Jesus

Romans, Chapter 5 (WEB)

 ⁶ For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  ⁷ For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die. ⁸ But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (emp. added, GDR)

  ⁹ Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.  ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life.

Somehow, the competition between Lee and Norris seems trivial, doesn't it?