An insult is usually construed as such because it is believed to be based on what we consider an untruth about ourselves. Thus, in order to experience the accusation that we are selfish as an insult, we need to believe that we are actually generous. Being accused of selfishness and knowing it to be the truth may still be unpleasant, but it is not perceived as a personal insult. The scholar of the law in today’s gospel is one whose lack of self-knowledge results in his being insulted by Jesus’ frank and unsparing condemnation of his and the Pharisees’ hypocrisy. The example of this scholar of the law suggests that we would do well to pay special attention to those occasions when we feel we have been insulted or slighted and to examine whether our reaction is really a defense against acknowledging an unwelcome truth about ourselves—one which we are dismissing simply as an insult. In this way we can grow in self-knowledge and minimize the occasions of self-delusion and reinforcing what Saint Paul
terms a stubborn and impenitent heart.