Intimations Of Immorality: Lice

Walking round the reservoir last week, I was glad that there were not many other people about. I was listening to a recording of Proverbs 11-20, and finding it both challenging and thought-provoking. One minute I was nodding in agreement, the next I was laughing out loud, and the next I was wincing visibly as some of the harder sayings hit home.

The recording ended before my walk did. In the silence that followed, I began to recall occasions when folk had seen fit to share their wisdom with me, offering me unsolicited advice, often accompanied by intimations of immorality on my part.

The wisdom and warnings of Solomon et al. I can readily take to heart, since I’m confident that what Paul says in 2 Timothy 3.16 is entirely reliable. But, with some of these other folk - well, I had my doubts.

That’s not to say that I have never sought advice. As a young man, I was forever bothering older believers with questions I could easily have had answered by looking into my bible. Some were helpful, but a few others were unforthcoming about the issues that I raised. That surprised me, since they were men who were much admired, which was why I was talking to them. Years later, I found out why they were so reticent… But you’re ahead of me, aren’t you? Let’s leave it at that.

The unsolicited offerings? Allow me to give you a few examples.

At college, as a very, very, young Christian, I sought out the Christian Union - as I had been advised to do. One day, a member of that C.U. encountered me in conversation with my Buddhist friend, Hugh. We said hello. He looked from Hugh to me, and back to Hugh again. He seemed displeased. “You’ve both got long hair.” “Well, yes,” I said. I could hardly deny it; and certainly, it was fashionable at the time. “It’s not healthy, is it?” We were puzzled. “Isn’t it? Why so?” “It’s unmanly and unhygienic! Doesn’t it attract lice?”

It took a moment for that to sink in. I looked at Hugh, his hair shining in the morning sunshine, framing his fine-drawn features, and then considered my own freshly-scrubbed, fragrant self… and then we both burst out laughing. And our crop-haired, rugby-loving critic, the product of a minor public school, took himself off in a temper, decrying our lack of godliness, cleanliness, and manliness.

It amused me at the time, but afterwards I was sad. In C.U. meetings, the importance of witnessing to other students was brought up again and again. Hugh was highly intelligent, a talented mathematician, and he had a considerable interest in spiritual matters. But, although we got on well because of a mutual interest in music and what was then termed “the counterculture”, he was not impressed by most of the Christians that he met. And who could blame him?

Making a stand on an important point of scripture is one thing. Putting unnecessary obstacles in the way of unbelievers is quite another. Commenting on 1 Corinthians 9. 15-23, where Paul speaks of his evangelistic endeavours, Matthew Henry writes as follows.

By preaching the gospel, freely, the apostle showed that he acted from principles of zeal and love, and thus enjoyed much comfort and hope in his soul. And though he looked on the ceremonial law as a yoke taken off by Christ, yet he submitted to it, that he might work upon the Jews, do away their prejudices, prevail with them to hear the gospel, and win them over to Christ. Though he would transgress no laws of Christ, to please any man, yet he would accommodate himself to all men, where he might do it lawfully, to gain some. Doing good was the study and business of his life; and, that he might reach this end, he did not stand on privileges. We must carefully watch against extremes, and against relying on any thing but trust in Christ alone.

“Oh well, your critic was a young man,” you might say, “and young men are prone to rush to judgement. Not so when believers are older and wiser. Are they not entitled to rebuke us when they see us slipping into sin? Does not Proverbs warn us time and again that ‘The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice’ - Proverbs 12.15?”

Quite so. But a lot depends on who is doing the rebuking, and why they have taken it upon themselves to do so…

[To be continued.]