Iron Sharpens iron, So also, one man sharpens another.  Proverbs 27.17

Our Summer Series is underway. The theme this year is Wonders of Old: Some Miracles of the Old Testament, and last night David Foy, one of our elders, delivered a message concerning Gideon’s fleece.  He was describing the depths to which Israel had sunk in Judges 6.  The Midianites would descend upon the Israelites every year and steal their harvest like the bandits from The Seven Samurai (or The Magnificent Seven, or A Bug’s Life), and so the Jews were living in caves, and threshing their grain in caves.  David asked what limitations this would present.  It struck me that the one thing essential to threshing grain, as it was done in the ancient world, would be absent in a cave – wind.  When the grain had been beaten to separate the chaff from the kernel, the whole lot would be scooped up, shovel-full by shovel-full, and cast into the air. The heavy grain would fall to the ground, and the chaff would blow away.  Even if you had a cave with more than one point of access from outside, so that there was a flow of air, where would the chaff go?  Threshing grain in a cave would be about as successful an endeavor as pushing Sisyphus’ stone, or harvesting Tantalus’ grapes.

            Israel was in this predicament because of their faithlessness and their idolatry.  Look at the utter ridiculousness, the pathetic state our sin reduces us to, I thought, and yet we go on beating grain in a cave, choking on the chaff, hoping things will somehow turn around without having to truly repent.

            I also noticed while we were studying Judges, chapter 6, that Gideon’s feelings about God are not characterized by unbelief, but resentment and anger. “Where are all the miracles our father’s spoke about?” He demands of the Angel in verse 13.  This is the way it is.  99 out of 100 atheists (I believe the actual figure is 100 out of 100) are not truly convinced that there is no God, but are angry or resentful about the evil and suffering in the world, or are unsatisfied with the explanation they have received about the way things are. Just like Gideon, they have completely ignored that things are the way they are because we have made them thus. God didn’t mess things up – we did, and we continue to do so, and even so – the sun rises, the rain falls, the earth cradles life, and love persists. God is, and God is good.

            It occurred to me as I was taking notes last Wednesday night that these lessons from the story of Gideon had not occurred to me before.  Why is that?  I just taught the book of Judges last quarter.  I have taught it a score of times in the last 26 years of ministry. Why hadn’t I seen these things before?

            I think there are two reasons.  The first is that no matter how familiar we make a passage, we never completely master it, never fully mine it.  There are still gems to be found in each verse.  The second reason is that there is a kind of learning that can take place only when minds connect – when ideas are bounced back and forth like that little dot in a game of pong. As Solomon points out above, human minds are whetstones sharpening each other. We focus each other, open doors for each other.  When prayerful, thoughtful minds network the result is greater than the sum of the mental resources brought to the table.

            And so Bible class is very important.  There are things we will only discover together. In I Timothy 4.13, Paul instructs his young protégé:

            Until I come again, focus on public reading of scripture, encouragement, and teaching.

            The word I translated as “focus” above means to “give attention to” and can describe preparedness, as well as priority. He is describing an exercise recognizable to any synagogue go-er in the 1st Century, and any church go-er in the 21st Century.  That moment when the teacher opens the text before the gathered, reads it, and begins to discuss. That moment makes possible insights we will not have alone. And so let none of us neglect it.

            Come to Bible class.

           I have always been fascinated by the ancient cave paintings of south-western Europe – Lascaux, Chauvet, Altamira – and the varied, sophisticated artistic skill sets they brought into the caves of France and Spain.  The charcoal and ochre panoramas of  horses, aurochs, rhinos, bison, and stags that they drew, painted, carved, and airbrushed onto the walls used perspective, impressionism,  pointillism, and a dynamic realism that would not begin to be equaled again until the renaissance. Picasso once said of the paintings “They invented everything.”  These paintings, which span several thousand years, were painted by men, women, and children without benefit of written language, and with only the most rudimentary tools.