When a person gets a cold they have symptoms. Usually they have a fever, runny nose, congestion, fatigue, chills, and sleepiness. The common folk diagnosis is that they have a cold, and the symptoms point to it. One of the difficulties many people are noticing in today’s world would include more lawlessness, fewer people attending church services, more sexual confusion, more non-traditional homes, greater racism, political extremes, more homelessness, greater selfishness, and the list goes on. Could these things be nothing more than symptoms of something else?
There is a false logic that says that if two things happen, one after the other, that the first happening caused the second. For example, when we see dark clouds and it rains it is easy to conclude that the rain was caused by the dark clouds. Is it not possible that the rain and the dark clouds are caused by a third factor, a low-pressure system? In society, we see many single parent families, we also notice that fewer people attend church. Again, it is easy to associate the two by concluding either that more single families results in less church service attendance or just the opposite. Less church service attendance results in more single parent families. Could there not be a third factor that result in both?
Another event that seems to be happening in our world today is the lack of knowledge about the Bible and its contents. While most of us have some basic knowledge of the story of Jesus and his teachings, recently I was talking to two men with bachelor’s degrees who had not heard of the parable of The Prodigals Son. On another occasion I related the story of the Birth of Jesus and its characters, because the young man had never heard of the true reason for Christmas. How sad!
Has the lack of knowledge of the Bible left a vacuum in many people’s lives that leave them stranded with a lack of knowledge of God and a lack of understanding of moral ways of living? Could this be a cause-and-effect relationship? I wonder. At one time not long ago, everyone was taught morality with the Bible and Church teaching as major resources. Almost everyone attended church services and religious schools where they were immersed in good moral and social teaching. Do we even stop to consider how today’s culture is void of spiritual and moral guidance?
One recent book that I just finished made the comment that until we as a culture repent and turn back to Jesus and his teaching, that we will continue to witness the erosion of moral living and even of civilization as we know it. What do you think?
“May the Lord bless and keep you. May he let his face shine upon you, be gracious to you and give you his peace.”
