What’s this all about? So, the things of God (his kingdom) and the things of the world are two mistresses for mankind and to be in a willing relationship with both at the same time is considered by God to be adultery. We all know that adultery is a bad thing so had we better not find out more about each in order to get better at discerning the nature of the beast?
The first trick in discerning the things of God is to study the Bible, not theologically or sociologically but with childlike simplicity, stopping at the point where we suspect that we may be bending what it says to suit where we are. This point of bending in our brains is all too easy to do and requires some self-awareness to discover.
It is, actually, the things of the world that are doing the bending!
The second trick is to look at this from the other side of things — is the way we want to do a particular thing OK on two fronts? These two are the questions, ‘is it legal’ and ‘is it OK because it’s what almost everyone else does and enjoys doing?”
Added together, can I enjoy such activities when everyone else seems to be doing so and, when I read the Bible, can I bend what it says to suit what I want?
If I find myself using the fashionable ways around me to bend the simplest reading of Scripture towards them, does that make me a friend of the world and an enemy of God?
Is the Bible like starting up the Sat Nav in my car when it seems right to do so or is it the steering wheel?
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