To find balance in life we need to differentiate between the ideal set of circumstances, and what it is that we have to work with. To do so we need good information (education), perceive well what we have received (understanding), and act well on what we find (wisdom). This is the biblical pattern accented in Solomon’s major interest in his writings. The data even from Solomon must be analyzed for application. What may have been true in Solomon’s era may not be true in ours. This understanding does not carry any threat to the doctrine of biblical inspiration. That doctrine holds, offering God’s message to mankind related to his revelation to the status of the divine situation for mankind in both the individual and social context. What needs to be done in life for effective purpose both in the natural environment and the spiritual? For Solomon the weapon was a bow and arrow, or sword – for us it is a gun and bullet. For him the reference is to a horse, for us it is to a vehicle with an internal combustion engine. The lesson is the same when understood from the facts that become analogies to the truths that God reveals or acknowledges to us. It is in this understanding that Christ makes clear that he is making an offering that replaces the offering of the blood of bulls and other animals in the Old Testament experience. He not only replaces that practice, but gives it authority it claimed at the time. It is a common principle used in an organized society. For example, my use of a ten dollar bill as currency is presumed to be backed by collateral in the government that issues the currency. The currency, for Israel, was the animal offering. It was given collateral in the offering of Christ. In the Christian perception the offering of Christ became retroactive to those who kept the plan of God given to Moses, and those before that in maintaining a moral relationship with God, as did the patriarchs and others. The others are seen in such persons as Melchizedek to whom even Abraham paid tithes. There is a connecting blood-line that extends from the beginning, and will continue as long as the race continues. Both Scripture and secular analysts say that there is an ending.
Scripture offers our set thermostat, our life performances become the current temperature to be analyzed in the light of the thermostat. We may use a continuum putting evil at one end of the line and good at the other end and find where we may be at a particular time, or era in relation to the ideal and the least acceptable. There is, for example, a standard of good health. My actual health becomes the thermometer to be compared to the thermostat of good health. In knowing and practicing the conduct that offers good health, I may expect to move toward the thermostat (ideal). As the nutritionist develops books of values that lead to proper diet for healthy life, God has provided a spiritual physician’s book for the life that will be acceptable to his kingdom. (Note especially: The New English Bible translation of Romans 16:19)
My accent for this Page is that we are not as well served on much of the fact-gathering enterprise, or the communications of the evidence unearthed along the way, or the application of what we know from what we experience. The public knows the costly ends, in substance and life, in the uses of alcohol and other illicit drugs, of gambling and unnecessary other waste, of excessive speed and other dangerous conduct, and the story lengthens. But, the society presses on with varying temperatures created in the society, in a kind of rebellion against the thermostat of God. The rebellion may not be conscious, except the facts reveal that the individual and social performance is competitive to not only Scripture, but to our own knowledge of what our performance ought to be. The rebellion seems often to be intensified when the church is most energetic in communicating the expectations of God for righteousness (right). We can be sure of an unchanging God. (Who would change perfection?) He will not change the meaning of his communication with mankind. Who is left to do the changing? Persons may turn away, not approving the terms. Who is then loser in the turn? The winner in this competition is the one who chooses to follow God who offers love, peace, immortality, and scores of other positive benefits including escape from fear, condemnation, and the negatives of loss. If the above represents the truth of the issues, the church must maintain an evangelism that offers to all the gospel of Jesus Christ. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020