April 13, 2015
Sainthood
I visited a church where an
older woman had the honor of reading Scripture. Her version differed from my
NIV so in casual conversation after the service I complimented on her reading
of the Word and then asked which version she used. “Oh, it’s the New St. James
Version. I read the NIV at home, but when I read at church I come early to
practice because it’s a different version.” I really didn’t think her denomination
had their own Bible, so I asked again about the version and sure enough she said
it was the, “New St. James.” When I got home an online search revealed no such Bible
version and I finally deduced that my new friend had inadvertently elevated
King James to sainthood.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----What is knowledge? How do we come to know alike, and how really alike do we know things? Something as simple as this lady’s little mental slip is an interesting insight into how far knowledge can skew, how some skewing is prevented, and the damage a group of gremlin hearted people can wreak upon an unwary people. If the place concepts are dealt with by the mind were the same place speech was generated and words applied to those concepts, terms wouldn’t get mixed up for thoughts. But you knew the concept of “King James” well enough to know what she was referring to after you did a bit of research to determine if reality offered any term such as she used. So you moved on with a corrected concept of what she said.
-----Your Beroean kind of mentality is really important to a society. The mayhem in Ferguson was a good example of a society in need of more Beroean mentality surfacing into public sentiment. And I don’t doubt there was a lot of that mentality in Ferguson. For every kid kicking his way into looting a store and every dancing fool chanting “hands up don’t shoot” imperviously to the fact of that lie, there were probably twenty well balanced folks at home, out of the limelight, carefully pondering the facts of the situation and noticing that the rowdies’ excuse for raising Cain was simply not a real deal. Other information was available besides the misinformed storyline.
-----So, why didn’t the knowledge correct as it spread across the country? Most likely, the lady at the church was alone in mislabeling the Bible from which she had read. More information would be needed to know that for sure, but it’s a pretty good bet, because “New King James Version” is generally well known, a mutual knowledge into which “New St. James Version” would encounter a strong headwind. So also, knowledge of the real facts was available, but the public source of that knowledge was just too disrespected.
-----Public knowledge across the country has been that FOX News and talk radio are fringe-right wing, an idea purveyed successfully by the sheer number of left-wing information outlets. This mental flavor for FOX News and talk radio is noted and spread quite easily in a nation of intellectual sloths who would not even know how to be Beroean if they deeply desired to be it. The situation, then, is that even though the truth is propagating within everyone‘s hearing, the minds of the simple have been hardened against it by misinformation from “friendlies“ about its source. This same process works inside an individual between ideas more liked and new ideas less liked.
-----This is why it is so important to not like information because of liking its source or liking its meaning, but to like information because of its correlation with other information already tested true against a core of truth accumulating into one’s own learning and discovery. It is why it is so important to learn. It is part of what Paul means when he says to be aware and alert. It is to take precaution against believing misinformation and errors; it is to know your sources, most importantly, to know your Source and desire what He says. Then it is to measure all else against that knowledge of truth shaping into your core, but never against public feelings or ideas alone. By carefully guarding the treasure of your individual heart, you carefully guard a tiny portion of society’s treasure. It may seem minuscule to you, but God sees your small bit of truth and the small effect it has on public perception as being very relevant to His coming Kingdom.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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