Musings From A Rolling Eyed Turtle

“Are you for us or against us?” “Neither!” We seem to have this predisposition to want to know whether people are for us or against us.  If they are for us, meaning they are in agreement with what’s important to us, then we can associate with them.  If they are against us, then we can’t associate with them. In this day and age of polarization, the “for or against us” predisposition seems to be even more prevalent.  Compounding it all, we seem to focus our “for or against us” on single issue items.  Perhaps it’s being for or against abortion or where we fall on gender and sexuality issues or our level of commitment to the environmental or our position on immigration.  But polarization really understates things as positions have become even more extreme and entrenched.  There doesn’t seem to be any room for common courtesy or looking for common ground or trying to understand the positions that we disagree with. So if I am asked if I’m for something or against it and I answer ”n

In many ways, it’s true that there’s nothing new under the sun! Take the Athenians, for example, and their goings on about two thousand years ago. The Bible says this about them:  “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” (Acts 17:21) Sounds a bit like today, doesn’t it.  But, just in case you aren’t convinced, see how other translations describe what they were engaged in and see if it compares to today:   spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new;   spent their spare time talking or hearing about the latest intellectual fads;   looked for opportunities to tell or hear something new and unusual;   always used their time talking about all the newest ideas;   spent their time simply and solely in telling and hearing the latest novelty.   Is it okay to gather with others and spend time talking?   Of

A recent news story caught my eye.  It was a story about some auditors who were caught cheating on an ethics exam. The more I thought about it, the more absurd the whole situation seemed to be.  Just think about it, cheating is normally a violation of ethical standards and here the auditors were cheating on the exam that is supposed to measure their knowledge and understanding of ethics!  On top of all that, when auditors do an audit, they are supposed to look for irregularities (cheating) in business and accounting practices.  Since they cheated on the exam, how in the world would they even know what to look for?  Maybe the old expression, “it takes one to know one” applies here! But it also reminded me of how the Word of God describes some absurdities in regard to how some shepherds (leaders of people) were “shepherding” God’s people.  The descriptions reveal negligence at best and absurdities at worse.  Take a look at what these shepherds were actually doing: Therefore thus