But the word of God continued to increase and spread. (Acts 12:24, NIV)
In the wake of last week’s announcement from the USGA and R&A that anchored putting is likely on the way out, the conversation surrounding the change has been lively. One question commonly heard is, “Why are the governing bodies going after this particular ‘advantage’ while at the same time they have allowed equipment—golf balls and golf clubs both—to make courses ‘obsolete?’”
The question is in many ways born of nostalgia: “These tour pros are making a mockery of the vaunted courses of the past.” Perhaps they are, and if you’re a lover of tradition this would certainly ruffle the peacock feather in the band on your hat.
Tradition will always be a battleground for those who have grown up with it or adopted it as their own. Just ask anyone who has ever served on a local church board!
What we make of tradition, however, had better come from God’s Word. That’s because some people are hanging on to traditions that have much to do with preferences and little to do with truth. And others are ready to get rid of any and all things “old” just because they are so.
Frankly, either side is trifling with God.
You know what trifling is: making nothing out of something. Steve Camp once lamented in song that many so-called Christians are “playing marbles with diamonds.” Both traditionalists and progressives can be guilty of such games if they are not careful.
In the book of Acts, we read a daunting account of the end of King Herod, who placated both the Romans and the Jews to add to his own luxuries—whatever it took to stroke his ego today. In Acts 12, some of his least cared-for subjects came to him to plead their case. As flattery would have it, they offered all sorts of over-the-top oblations, going so far as to say that Herod spoke with “the voice of a god, not of a man.” Herod drank in their praise—and then collapsed in death, worms seizing upon his body in moments. It was a gruesome end for one who would not give the credit to God, for one who trifled with the Lord.
Now here’s the problem for you and me. Many of us would just as soon not share this “God-moment” with our friends. It’s—well, it’s so Old Testament. But when we make ourselves arbiters of the God we will present, we trifle with God and his Word.
In the Scriptures, God has given us a clear picture of all aspects of himself. To us some seem more “wild,” others more “tame.” What we must dare to ask ourselves is this: do all these pictures show him as loving? And if we are not to trifle with God, then we must say Yes, for we must let God be who he is, always a God whose love goes out.
Amazingly, the line we encounter immediately after the ugly death of Herod is today’s verse: “The word of God increased and spread.” How I might think that such a thing can occur only after a “caring, kind” act of God! You see how I might be wrong.
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Jeff Hopper
December 3, 2012
Copyright 2012 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.