Whenever I get a little lax in writing and our traffic starts going down here at Borrowed

 

She had just committed an unpardonable sin in my home of origin.  She…are you ready for my unveiling of her dastardly crime…she…left a…spoon…in our leftovers…and…oh the humanity!…put said bowl and spoon…in the refrigerator!!!

 

Apparently, she is hell bent on killing our entire family.  At least that is the way that I was raised to think.  Nikki in tears of laughter—or maybe pain, I never can tell—informed me that this little spoon rule was nothing more than an old wives tale.  I think she also began taunting me by sticking the spoon in the fridge and then her mouth. 

 

As I began thinking about this I realized that it is a little ludicrous.  But, after some research, I discovered that my mother is not totally insane.  At least not on this point.  Or at least she wouldn’t have been insane about 50 years ago.  It is maybe possible somewhat likely that a copper or aluminum spoon could actually cause some problems with your food if left in leftovers in your fridge and consumed later.  Problem is we no longer use aluminum spoons and the ones that we have in our home could be left in the fridge for weeks and never do any damage. 

 

So, I lived for a good 25 years of my life with a death fear of spoons placed in a refrigerator.

I thought about this funny exchange the other day when I read a snippet from Calvin’s Institutes. Back in the day idols and images where rampant in the churches. Calvin felt that this was against Scripture. He wasn’t against good art he was just against idolatry and superstitiously worshipping God. When folks would argue against Calvin they would use the excuse that images are used to teach the uneducated. People can’t read and so they need these types of images to move them along to faith.

Calvin’s response, though, was terrific. He asked where such ignorance came from:

But whence, I pray you, this stupidity if not because they are defrauded of that doctrine which alone was fit to instruct them? Indeed, those in authority in the church turned over to idols the office of teaching for not other reason than that they themselves were mute.

In other words, you are just perpetuating ignorance if you cater to the ignorance that we have created.

I’m convinced we need to learn this lesson again in our age of biblical illiteracy. If our people are biblically ignorant we bear much of that responsibility. If they have poor attention spans and don’t have a stomach for the Scriptures, can this not be laid at our feet? Let us not perpetuate biblical illiteracy by being satisfied with giving our people a constant diet of milk. Let us do the slow and laborious work of teaching and disciple-making.

I would have still been deathly afraid of a spoon in the fridge if my wife hadn’t informed me of my ignorance. In the same way if we keep excusing biblical ignorance as a sign of the times and don’t do anything about it, our people will continue in darkness. Preach the Word. Teach the Word. Live the Word.

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