Today’s
Scripture Reading (January 21, 2019): Judges 17
Mark Shuster loves it when people at dinner parties
start to throw around statistics. He says it gives him a chance to throw out
his favorite statistic – that 73.6% of all statistics are made up. He offers
the stat in a deadpan, and very serious, manner. The conversation stops. Often
someone will interject with a questioning “really?”
Mark continues the conversation with a straight face saying something like
“Nielsen just released the number last month.”
And the conversation pauses. No one recognizes the
irony. There is no doubt that a good portion of our statistics are fictitious, although how much is probably
up for debate. But Mark Shuster’s 73.6% is definitely
part of the fake side of the statistics nightmare.
During my college days,
I was forced to read a book called “How to Lie with Statistics.” I still have
the book somewhere in my library. It is not a very big book, but it tells the
story of how to take even statistics that are true and use them to give a false
message. We all do it. Whether we make up the statistics
or use numbers that someone else has made up, or simply mislead by the way that
we use our true statistics, we all use statistics to get our point across. And
usually to legitimize our position on some subject.
A couple of week’s ago a friend of mine sat down in
my office with the important news that President Trump’s approval rating had
hit 50%. He was a Trump supporter and was trying to legitimize his belief in
the American President. I am not a Trump supporter, but my disdain for the
President has nothing to do with statistics. I believe that our political
leaders should be the best of who we are. I may not agree with their policies,
but I want, at least, to consider them to
be honorable people, upstanding and worthy of my support. I hate the phrase
that I hear too often. “We didn’t elect Donald Trump to be our pastor, but our
President.” The statement makes no sense to me. We pray that our leaders will
be people with a good and strong character, whether they are President’s or
pastors, or leaders of the local sports league. These are the best that our
race has to offer, ones that are willing to speak the truth even if the truth does not advance their personal aspirations. This pursuit of the best is
probably why Jimmy Carter is one of my favorite President’s; he has always
seemed to be a person who wanted to do what was right no matter the
consequences. For my friend, the 50% approval rating meant that he was no
longer in the minority when it came to Donald Trump. If he had told me the
approval rating was 90%, it would not have changed my mind about the American
President. Character, for me, is more important than policy. I want a person of
great character to be in a position of great leadership.
Micah hires a Levite to be his personal priest. Much is wrong with the hiring, but from Micah’s point of view, he
was trying to legitimize his personal
shrine. He knows that the shrine is wrong, and he
hopes that the priest will make it right. But just like the statistics
that we use to legitimize our believes and positions, the presence of the
priest does nothing to legitimize Micah’s shrine. The shrine is wrong because
God had declared that anything was wrong that stole worship away from him - God.
His instructions were clear, you shall not worship idols, and the presence of a
priest was not going to change that one fact. What the presence of the priest
in Micah’s home does tell us is that the priest was not a person of a good and
strong character. Instead, he was someone who was willing to sell out what was
right for what would make him money, or his life easier. He would not speak
truth to Micah as long as Micah was willing to pay for his presence. As the
troubled period of Judges begins, the priest fits right in. “In
those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 17:6).
Tomorrow’s
Scripture Reading: Judges 18
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