April 18, 2013

Puke

For the last few days I’ve been a care-giver for a sick dog with digestive problems. Charlie is now on medication, but the vet restricted him from eating grass because it causes him to vomit. I’m getting an up close and personal look at the proverb, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” (Proverbs 26:11 NIV) Interestingly there doesn’t seem to be a definitive reason from either veterinary science or Biblical commentary which tells me why a dog would eat his vomit. Peter referenced this proverb applying it to false teachers and their destruction. Left to come to my own conclusions I’m thinking that false teachers either like the taste of their own deceptions, or they think that reiterating heresies will make it easier for others to swallow. (2 Peter 2)

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----I think you were left to come to the most valuable conclusions of them all. Those would be your own. Certainly not that your own are any better than anyone else’s simply because they are your own, but because your own conclusions are constructed partly of what you have tested and now know to be accurate knowledge and partly of what you have newly experienced. Your conclusions are tailored to your thinking.
-----Then being honest with your God first and all else, too, a conclusion will not be good enough for you until it is also tested and found true. So, you won’t stop at concluding. You will begin testing what you’ve concluded. You’ll knock it against what you certainly know is true and discard any pieces broken loose. Then you’ll grind it against what you surely know is true and brush away the filings. Finally, you’ll buff it against what you figure is true, putting a sheen to it worthy of the generalizations required for public presentation. And through the whole process you have not fretted discarding what failed the tests. You know the hard work invested in the pieces broken and ground off is merely the price paid for closer proximity to being right before the Lord in the truth of what was kept.
-----This is why you have difficulty understanding the dog and the fool. Neither are operating in search of truth with regard to God. Both operate for what fills the belly at the lowest price. Therefore, when the belly has emptied the vomit costing much effort to hunt when it was previously food, there is no favor for what builds truth upon truth, there is no honor for tested principles. There is only lust for gain at the least cost. The belly will fill up very cheaply upon what has just been deposited into the grass.
-----For the dog, its just a belly and the sensation of being filled. For the fool, it is just a mind being filled at no cost of growth. Although, as a wise child, your conclusions are tailored to your thinking, but your thinking is being tailored to the actual truth by your continually striking and grinding it there. Besides the cheap price of a foolish mind, when the truth is ignored the conclusions tailor to the self. That seems like gravy to the fool, double bonus! Cheap thought about me! “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” (Prov 18:2) And if I am the object of my thinking, then for me, all my cheaply gained conclusions become priceless. They can’t be left in the grass! They are me! They taste like me! And loving me, I must feed upon them! No truth having been applied to the process leaves the fool completely devoid of the obvious. He is becoming vomit.

Love you all,
Steve Corey