Devotional for Brotherhood Meeting

DEVOTIONAL FOR BROTHERHOOD MEETING

Wed. 3-4-2015

My Bible passage is Psalm 1 verses 1-2.   In the Holman Christian Standard version it is -- How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path of sinners, or join a group of mockers!  2  Instead, his delight is in the Lord's instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.

(The King James Version* refers to "sitting in the seat of the scornful."  That might be a reference to a particular bench in the classroom, or to a particular table in the cafeteria.)

My devotional is on the Christian meaning of the word meditate.  I think here in the Bible to meditate simply means to think about something, in this case to think about the words of the Bible.  Or -- if we read the King James Version "his delight is in the law of the LORD" -- perhaps the psalmist is thinking day and night about the five books of Moses in particular, at the beginning of the Bible.

So I come before you to praise what I call your "thinker" -- that is, your mind, your brain -- which God gave you.

On this subject, I have a parable to share with you that I came up with.  Jesus did not name the characters in his parables, so I didn't name the characters in my parable either.

A man had two sons.  He said to his sons "An idle mind is the devil's playground."  His sons nodded, and they tried to please their father so as to honor him, but here are the thoughts that came to the two of them.  The elder son thought "My father is right.  If I have too much time to think about what my elders have told me, I would just use that time to plan robberies and other crimes.  It is best for me to keep busy."  But the younger son thought, "But I enjoy thinking, and it seems wholesome to me.  I think about how to work the farm more profitably.  I think about what my teachers have taught me."

Was the father's advice right?  Could it be that it was right for one son, but not the other?  Maybe the elder son's thought came to him because he had looked in his own heart, and the discipline of not allowing himself too much time to think was the best thing for him. Maybe the younger son's conviction that his thoughts were wholesome was the truth, and he could safely think because he was guarding his heart.

What about you?  If you are like me, your thoughts might sometimes be unwholesome -- President Carter admitted to having that problem -- but more often wholesome and useful, and if we pray to God and lean on him, he will lead us away from putting any unwhole­some thoughts which squirm into our brains into action.

So, part of my encouragement which I bring to you tonight, is the reminder that God gave you your thinker.  It is like a muscle waiting to be used, and you can use it in your Christian life, to examine how the suggestions and ideas you get from your supervisor, from your friends, from a man on the television, from political leaders, and so on, agree with or disagree with God's words.

(Of course, commands demand much less thought than suggestions, but life does not consist completely of commands.  I receive a lot of suggestions and advice in addition to commands, and I expect you do too.)

While we consider our minds and the possible applications our minds can have in our Christian walk, let's hark back to school for a minute.  I'm the son of a teacher (the son of a professor to be more exact), and when I read about people voting against school bonds and referendums to provide more money for our public schools -- money to reduce the student-teacher ratio, to buy more computers and photocopiers, to provide more help to reluctant readers, or a bigger lunch to the sons and daughters of poor people, and on and on -- I wonder: is that voter opposed to pouring money into public education because of an insulting remark which a teacher made about their brain, when they were younger?  That's not always the explanation, but it is a great sadness, and I suppose nothing can be done about it in some ways, in the sense that it's frightful­ly difficult to change other people's opinions.  Also, I did not come here tonight to urge anybody to forgive a teacher they had years ago.  BUT, I did come here to urge all of you to think kindly of your own thinkers!  Here's an example thought along that line: "My thinker doesn't always come up with a solution to a problem as quickly as my boss's thinker does, but it has stood me in good stead over the years and I'm glad God gave it to me."  The way I see it, we don't always need to forgive some teacher -- at least, we don't need to forgive them RIGHT NOW -- who had a fussy word on the subject of our brain many years ago, but we do need to love up on our own thinkers!  Nobody's thinker is batting 1.000 (a thousand of a thousand), but everybody's thinker has useful and wholesome applications in whatever situations God puts us in.

Let me end with an example of meditating on God's word: the fourth commandment, at Exodus 20 verse 8 (also Deuteronomy 5:12-15).  We are commanded to remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  And the commandment continues "you must not do any work -- you, your son or daughter," -- and there's more after that.  So here's a meditation about this commandment: a scenario.  On a Sunday morning a father goes to church -- but his son, who has passed the age of sixteen, says "I will stay home today, because I am sick."  His father comes home after preaching is over.  His son is up and about, and he says, "I felt better, so I got up. See, I have done this work and that chore and this task while you were out worshiping God."  The fourth commandment has many ingredients -- things that feed into it, corollaries that come out of it, gray areas that arise because of changes in the institutions of the world -- for example, we are blessed that we no longer have the slaves which that commandment refers to, but on the other hand we have many, many stores which stay open on Sunday -- but here is one ingredient of the fourth commandment.  It is disrespect to God if one member of the family says to another "Look at all I have accomplished while you were out worshiping God."  So, that's an example of a thought which can come to you when you meditate on God's word: the reflection that one of the purposes of the fourth commandment is to prevent this scenario from occurring.

Don't say "My thinker can't come up with that kind of stuff."  Just read or listen to the news, and relate it to the Bible.  Many of you are already doing that, and any adult Christian can.

Notes

* Psalm 1 verses 1-2 in the King James Version -- Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.  2  But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

[I have the impression that the Holman Christian Standard version uses the word law and also the word commandment less often than the King James Version, but that doesn't really matter.  Here the Holman Christian Standard puts instruction (which means teaching) in the place where the word law is in the older translation.]