I woke up this morning to a confusing jumble of thoughts bouncing around inside my head. I thought about the many people I encountered yesterday, person to person, by telephone or in my correspondence. They live in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona, Texas and Michigan. Some grew up in Germany, Great Britain or Australia or here in the States. They're men, women, young and old, a rather mixed bunch, with a wide variety of experiences and problems in their personal and family lives.
As I thought about—and prayed about—them, I started to think again about the sermon I'm preparing for the small congregation I began to serve last Sunday. My sermon will be based upon the report in Luke's Gospel about Jesus's early ministry. Right off the bat he encountered a man who had an evil spirit and then Simon Peter's mother-in-law with a high fever (Luke 4:31-44). Jesus commanded the demon to come out of the poor man and healed Mrs. Simon's Momma. The people, Luke writes, didn't know what to say, they were all so amazed.
Then I started to think about the way Luke and the New Testament writers thought about the world and how different it is today. It seems that most people believed in demons and that these spirits could get inside you. That explained the crazy talk and actions of some.
Today we're inclined to say those folks lived in what we so pompously call a pre-scientific era. In other words, they just didn't know better.
Of course, we do. We aren't so primitive. We do know better. All the crazy talk, the horrible things people do to one another, the murders, rapes, cheating, lying, irrational beatings, drunkenness and a thousand other things can be explained scientifically. We would never resort to such talk as Dr. Luke, about people having demons inside them—even though that might sound like the best explanation at times.
Maybe you think this way. Maybe you don't. Maybe you are mixed up inside, with a worldview that includes demons and some so-called unscientific thinking. Whatever. What I do know is that the world we live in and the millions of us who occupy it run into some crazy stuff and some very troubled folks every day. And if you're like me at the beginning of yet another, you'd really like to get rid of the confusion, the pain and suffering, war, killing, disasters, hunger, sickness and all that other rubble that keeps piling up. Please Lord, give me one quiet, peaceful, happy day without all this mess.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could take some kind of bull dozer and push it all into a huge hole some place, cover it up, smooth it out and start the world all over again, like the wretched folks down in Haiti are trying to do? Is that possible? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could finally get a life and keep it that way forever?
The Apostle Paul says the reconstruction process has already started, at least in a few people's lives. He claims to be a master builder, helping people to rebuild their lives on a foundation already laid. What he says is worth thinking about.
"By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light" (read the rest of what he says in 1 Corinthians 3:10-23).
And do have a great day!
There's no admission about SIN today. It's called something else. The last president who used the word,"sin" was Eisenhower. (I may be wrong, but I think George Bush may have used it, but it was never reported). Today, it's 'indiscretion", "inappropriate action". And of course the word "devil" is used only in phrases and questions to make an exclamation, just as the word "hell", and "God" and "Christ's sake" are used. Our now 'scientific era" has no answer for the basic problem. And when somebody like Tim Tebow and his family want to put a truth message on T.V. you have the 'scientific' N.O.W. group up in arms as though doing this on T.V. would be committing a sin against political correctness. Give me a break!
ReplyDeleteH.Hein
I hope we aren't just talking to ourselves, Harold. Science has its place, but some of those occupying it get to thinking that gives them the right to own every other one. . . I'm sure glad I'm not the Judge of such hubris and I certainly don't want to be in their place when judgment is passed. We all need to listen very carefully to what the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 3.
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