The Plumbline

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You remove fine layers of film and dust from the outside of a cup or bowl, but you leave the inside full of  greed and  covetousness and self-indulgence.    You blind Pharisee—can’t you see that if you clean the inside of the cup, the outside will be clean too?  (Matthew 23:25-26 VOICE) My BFF and I were walking after lunch the other day, crossing the area on our sprawling property at work in which we may occasionally catch a glimpse or two of some groundhogs poking their heads above ground, scurrying back and forth between dens, and looking for the occasional handout from passers-by.  We had been proceeded by a couple of other work chums who had obviously wanted to ensure the little critters had a good lunch.  Scattered all across the tops of the mounds were those small carrots you can buy these days, all peeled and about two inches in length.  Bright orange was evident on almost ev...

  2  Humans are satisfied with whatever looks good;     God  probes for what is good.  (Proverbs 16:2) As a member of the human race, I speak as one fully aware of what the writer of Proverbs states in this passage.  We are so consumed with what "looks good" - many times judging a book by its cover without inspecting the pages to see what is contained within.  The perception of eyes often becomes the only method we utilize to determine the "goodness" or "evil" of a certain thing.  We set ourselves up for accepting things that are clearly outside of God's best for our lives when we are only "cover readers". Let me give a few examples of how this works: David and Bathsheba - David was King of Israel, his troops are out fighting the battle to take more territory in the name of Israel, and he is at home, enjoying the view from his rooftop.  He gazes upon Bathsheba, a beautiful woman, bathing on her rooftop (a custom of the day). ...