Q: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one, but the light bulb really has to WANT to change.
Even Satan’s lies are often 80% truth. That’s what makes ’em so hard to spot sometimes.
But — as intended, no doubt — it means that most folks must do so for themselves, since they are even less likely to be accepted when pointed out by someone else. To some extent, that is nothing but human nature. But there are Bigger Issues, either unique to the current culture, or exacerbated by it.
So, to paraphrase Rod Serling – here are two, “submitted for your approval”:
- There is more utter idolatry in post-Constitutional, post-Biblical Amerika than most of its denizens want to admit. Much seems to pass for unquestioned “truth”, even when directly contradicted by Scripture.
- The very act of attempting to point this out almost invariably makes one seem “JUDGMENTAL“. (Which is, of course, a worse Sin than mere idolatry itself, in a nation which has forgotten Him anyway, and likes to teach in its State-licensed Church that the only part of His Word which still applies is the part which says the rest doesn’t.)
Perhaps, therefore, it is easier to speak of such things in a posting than it could ever be “one-on-one”.
Once again, the oft-wrested lesson of Acts 15 is a good place to start. Just before the Apostles point out that those who choose to “follow Him” should begin their study with the Torah, which was read in synagogues “in every city…every Sabbath day,” they outlined the four “minimum necessary conditions” that must be met in order for those formerly pagan ‘gentiles’ to be cleaned up enough to get in the door. (Acts 15:20) Once they got these down, in other words, they could begin to learn the rest:
- Abstain from “idols”
- From sexual sin (“fornication”)
- From “things strangled”
- From “blood”
Note the the first two have to do with idolatry/adultery of both the spiritual and physical variety, and the last two with clean foods in a similar vein. What I find interesting is that those formerly “minimum” standards, while well-worn as an EXCUSE for rebellion by many post-Biblical “churches”, aren’t even accepted as a ‘goal’ any more by the vast majority.
Paul’s metaphor of people being taught about the “milk” of the Word before they are ever going to be ready for “meat” still applies. Sadly, however, in a land where most people have been lied to thoroughly about what “meat” is, they’re not even ready for milk.
