Poet Thomas
Gray stated, “Where Ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.” This notion may have outlasted its usefulness
for a once big world has become small. The
vastness of distance has all but disappeared.
No longer does one send a handwritten pen-pal letter. Distant lands no longer hold the mystery they
once did. In our technology savvy world,
the distance between people is ever shrinking.
Between the informational overload of the internet and the 24/7 media
blitz, how each person experiences the world has been greatly altered in the few
decades. Because of this change, one can
longer honestly deny the epidemic nature of the wickedness of man. With all the death and mayhem which can be
seen on a daily basis, the question arises, how is one to counter the plague of
sin. How are Christians to battle the infectious
behaviors of falleness which is ever present and in the foreground of so many
of our lives? How is the modern church again to have an influential
voice?
Well, with
all this change one thing remains the same, the answer is found simple in where
we choose to find wisdom. Early in the
Old Testament, one encounters Joshua, God’s chosen man to lead Israel after the
death of Moses. As the nation of Israel inhabits the land
promised them, Joshua has to remind the people to follow God. He again and again warned them of the folly
of following after other things. In the
twenty-third chapter of the book of Joshua, a charge is given to the nation of
Israel. Joshua, knowing his time on
earth was short called for the people to, “… be very strong to keep and to do
all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it
neither to the right hand nor to the left. (v.6)” He continued by cautioning
the nation to be, “… very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God. For if you turn back and cling to the remnant
of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you
associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the Lord your God
will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare
and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you
perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.” The cautionary words were clear, yet early in
the book of Judges, it states, “And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the
Lord, died… And there arose another generation after them who did not know the
Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. (2:8, 10)”
Like the
nation of Israel, the modern church is guilty of allowing the world to
overwhelm it. In a metaphorical way, it
has intermarried with the modern, fast-paced, interconnected world. The Christian of today is so inundated with information
that he or she has lost sight. Yet, the solution
reminds they same as it has always been… a renew relationship with God. Joshua laid out the choice to the Israelite,
to serve the one true God and in doing so reject all others or worship the
pagan Gods and idols of the culture that surrounds them. The call to each Christian today is the same,
if we are to combat the falleness we must chose whom will serve!