What Time Is It? (January 17, 2016--Bulletin Article)

 

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”    

(2 Timothy 3:16-17)

                 Today, we take our modern uniform system of time-keeping for granted, but not so long ago time-keeping was a significant problem. Before construction of the trans-continental railroad there was no uniform way of measuring time in the United States. Noon in any given city arrived when the sun was directly overhead; time varied one minute for every thirteen miles of travel. Cities only a few hundred miles apart had significantly different times, which may not have mattered to a horse and buggy but created havoc when trying to schedule trains. For example, if it was noon in Little Rock, it would be 11:30 in Oklahoma City. Now that might not seem like a problem, but consider: when talking to someone in OKC about a train leaving there at noon (and, so, 12:30 Little Rock time); this time difference could lead to potentially confusing, even dangerous miscommunication. That’s why the railroads created a uniform way of keeping time, dividing the United States into four  separate time zones—Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific—at the 75th, 90th, 105th and 120th meridians.

                For humanity to work together we must all agree on a uniform authority. If you choose to set your watch to a time that pleases you and I set my watch to a time that pleases me, we may both be pleased—but when one of us shows up forty-five minutes late to an appointment, one of us will no longer be pleased. Consider this: if we all set our watches to a time that pleases us personally and choose to arrive at work on our own time schedule, if our schedule does not correspond to the boss’s, we both know what will happen. If we are smart we will all ask the boss where his watch is set and set our watches to correspond to his...for the boss determines what time it is!

                Is it really difficult to see how we must have a uniform authority when it comes to faith in God and doing his will? If everyone was left to “set his or her own clock,” that is, make up his or her own rules about religion and faith, the same inevitable confusion and disarray will occur as when we were all “running on our own time.” So we must appeal to the boss, the one in charge. We must ask God to tell us what is right and settle our differences of opinion.