Is God interested in good housekeeping? Does He have an opinion about how persons drive their cars? Has he anything to say about garbage? Does he care about hair combing or shaving? The answer is that he is interested in details or trivia matters in our lives as they impinge on human model and health. Moses included matters of diet and the disposal of refuse as part of the law of God. That does not mean that persons are rejected because they are slobs, but that there is a preferred order for life for both quality and length of years. Order points to higher things and progress in knowledge and service. Long lived persons often refer to life order as a gift to them.
Order includes insignificant matters. Why should they not be regarded, the small matters in our lives? Time is God’s creation for nature’s order. Even though he is not limited to time, God keeps time schedules relating to nature. It was in the fullness of time that Jesus came to earth, and he will be on time in returning. The trailing logic is, as Solomon understood it, that whatever is orderly suggests the presence of a rational mind managing some matters. Nearly everything about us suggests order. We know that a thoughtful and designing person has been in a room when everything is in order in the room. If the room is usually disordered we know that likely there has not been a perception of an order of things by persons responsible for that room. Something indicative of those persons, and negative in evaluation, prevails in memory – perhaps laziness, ignorance or incapacity. Disorder in life may be temporary to occasions/transitions.
Theological arguments for God include a perception of order. The universe is ordered. Things are in place, and the whole of it works to the amazement of the observer studying created systems, and the laws of nature. It is interesting that the least ordered societies on earth are the poorest in health, in the hygiene they follow, in the uses of time, in the cultivation of their minds and cultures. Appropriate human dignity may be reduced. Strong argument from order supports opposition to murder, thievery, infidelity, drunkenness, untruths, and other sins – because they introduce disorder to the lives of persons and societies. A strong argument against warfare is that it violates order in society. It is interesting that the Apostle, in our text above, related order to peace. The question about order in creation is a major discussion among analysts of the world. Lack of order in small matters of life may cause more distemper in families than just about anything else. The debate is hindered, in part, because human concepts of order are sometimes disorderly.
Even the Apostle Paul dealt with small matters, small that can become large. He was interested in avoiding confusion. He even noted that one person should not interrupt another. One should take into consideration how lack of order will tend to thwart God’s purpose. Persons attach virtue to the way they do things, and diminish ways of others. What way is the most orderly? The Apostle was concerned that even the gifts of God may be invoked in sloppy manner. We also ought to be concerned. The best way to advance our purposes and God’s is in the refinement of life’s order. Order is not a task master for us, but liberating to more effective lives. Order affords time for family, devotional experience, work, adaptation so weakening threats to order, making sense of meaning for life and the future. Order is not restraint, but pressure for direction and achievement. A concept of order that does not have some evidence of disorder in it would not be fitting to human understanding. Oddly order includes some disorder. God provides order pointing man in the right direction. Order is a servant not a taskmaster. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020