A Trivial Pursuit
Raise your hand if you love taking online quizzes and showing off your knowledge and superiority over the 75% that are unable to ace the quiz you just took. Okay, now, raise two hands if you absolutely cannot stand and abhor the thought of scrolling through your newsfeed only to see that people have spent the majority of their days wasting time by taking online quizzes and posting their results.
I’m usually one of those that would be raising two hands. It seems as if my Facebook feed lately is just a large string of quizzes, cooking videos, and kids pictures. Not that there is anything wrong with any of that, it is your profile, and you should do what you want with it.
This morning, however, I found myself giving in and taking a quiz that my aunt, Barbara Schirmer, posted titled “96% OF CHRISTIANS CAN’T ACE THIS NEW TESTAMENT CHALLENGE. CAN YOU?” I thought it would be interesting to test my knowledge of The New Testament and see if it matches up with the rest of the world. If you’re able to see the featured image above, then you would know that I aced the quiz, but I cannot make myself feel good about this. I cannot accept the fact that a 15 question quiz is the final determining factor on whether or not I possess expert knowledge of The Word of God.
The questions in this quiz were trivial. Questions such as: How many gospels are in The New Testament? Who baptized Jesus? Who, besides Jesus, walked on water? To me, thanks to my studies, attending church, Sunday school, and Bible study, these were easy answers. In fact, they were trivial.
Trivial Pursuit is a popular board game, and many educated folks like to pull it out on occasion to see if they can conquer their friends in a battle of wits. Many believe that to win this game, you must either be the smartest person in the room or lucky enough to draw cards that you already know the answers to. However, throughout all of this, those that play Trivial Pursuit rarely realize that this quest to acclaim the title of the smartest person in the room is pointless. In fact, the title of the game tells you that all of this is useless and is for naught.
Let’s take a moment and look at the definition of the word trivial.
a : of little worth or importance a trivial objection trivial problems
b : relating to or being the mathematically simplest case; specifically : characterized by having all variables equal to zero a trivial solution to a linear equation
Now, let’s connect this definition to the quiz that I took this morning. I was given 15 questions that would determine my level of knowledge of The New Testament. I quickly answered all 15 questions correctly and was given the result of New Testament Expert. That’s great. That’s wonderful. I can answer trivia questions based on the Bible. All in all, however, it is pointless. It is of little worth or importance. It is trivial.
My knowledge of the Bible is trivial unless I use it. There are plenty of people in this world that know the Bible better than I do. Some of them use it and apply it to their lives. Others, however, do absolutely nothing with it. Several years ago I worked for a building supply company in Winchester and Versailles and would occasionally meet people like this. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t cuss, drink, and cut up like they did. Some of these people even referred to themselves as Christians, not seeing the folly of their actions. They knew what was written in the Bible, but they didn’t live it. They chose to live their lives the way they saw fit.
After receiving a promotion within the company and moving to Versailles, I met a man that would always give me a hard time about this. Once, he even accused my parents of brainwashing me into believing that all of this stuff in the Bible is true. Here’s the kicker. That very day that he made this accusation he told me that he had read the entire Bible four time. Four times! Why do that if you’re not going to apply it? Why waste your time? This man had great knowledge of the Bible, but this knowledge was trivial because he wasn’t using it in the manner in which God had prescribed for it to be used.
I hope that in the years since I left that organization that the man in which I am speaking of found God and started applying those words that he has reread over and over to every aspect of his life.
Folks, if we want to call ourselves Christians, we have to actually live it. We have to actually take what has been written down, the holy scriptures inspired by God, and apply it to our lives. Yes, we have to know it. We must have the knowledge that comes from reading and studying the Bible, but we have to use it, too. All of it.
Learning from Pepper
I acknowledge that the title of this post is a bit strange. How does one learn from pepper? More often than not, as a young child, we are taught not to sniff pepper, or it could make you sneeze. Don’t put too much pepper sauce on your food or it could become too hot to eat (I know some people that can’t get enough hot sauce.) That is, however, not the pepper I am referring to in this instance.
Instead, I speak of my little one-eyed cat, named Pepper. Since I’ve owned Pepper, he’s been a house cat that I let outside on occasion. He’s afraid of his own shadow, so I don’t have to worry too much about him running off. Most of the time, he goes out, sniffs around until a car drives down the road or the neighbors start talking, and then he darts back into the house. This morning was different; he didn’t want to come back in. I was working on assembling some shelves so I couldn’t stay outside and monitor him, so I ushered him back into the house with him hissing at me the whole way. He was very unappreciative of the guidance I was trying to give him. That’s a cat, though. They have a stigma of being very unappreciative and unsatisfied of what the have.
I made the joke that when God made the cat, he created the most unappreciative creature on the planet. As I thought about that statement, I realized that I was dead wrong. The cat is not the most unappreciative of all of God’s creation. Man is. If you want to be politically correct, I suppose that I should say that the human being is God’s most unappreciative, unthankful creation.
God has given us everything we need to survive. A breathable atmosphere. Food. Water. Nutrients and vitamins that will help our bodies grow strong and healthy. Minds to learn and talents to create. Yet in all of this, so many human beings believe that they can survive without God.
It reminds me of a joke I read several years ago:
One day, three scientists got together and decided that they no longer needed God to survive. Mankind had advanced enough and learned enough and God’s help was no longer necessary, so they asked God if we, as a people, could separate ourselves from him. God agreed that he would grant the request of the three scientists if they could pass a simple test. The scientists grew excited, knowing they held all of the knowledge the world could provide in their three brains, and quickly accepted the challenge without even hearing God out. When God finally got the chance to speak again, he asked the scientists if they wanted to know what the challenge was. Eager to prove to God that they were able and willing to accept, they boasted that they could conquer any challenge that he could think of. God smiled and said, “If you want to be truly separate from me, a people of your own, all you have to do is create a living, breathing man out of dirt. The scientists, taken aback by the challenge, gathered together for a moment to discuss the grandios task. A few minutes later, they approached God and told him that they accept his challenge. However, before God would send them off to their task, he told them one more thing, “In order to win this challenge, you must use your own dirt.”
Can man, who claims that the mysteries of the cosmos are still unfathomable, honestly live without God?
A friend of mine returned from a missionary trip to Haiti about three years ago. When he returned, he posed a question to our church: What if God made us live tomorrow with what we thanked him for today?
Saying thank you is easy. We say it numerous times every day to all sorts of people, but do we actually mean it? When we say thank you to God, do we actually mean it? Two simple words, but just like the word “love” it seems to have lost its meaning in our American society. “I love cotton candy!” Really. Do you really love cotton candy, or do you just enjoy eating it?
God has provided everything for us, so I don’t think that just saying thank you is enough. We have to show our appreciation, but how do we do that? It’s simple really? The answer can be found in scripture.
Matthew 22:37-40
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Love. Love is how we show appreciation, gratitude, and thanks to God. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love one another. True love. Godly love. Not lust. Our society has a tendency to misconstrue love for lust. It is unfortunate, but it is something that needs to be addressed by the Christian population.
So, how do you do that? How do you love God and love your neighbor? It’s simple; Keep His Commandments.
Amazing, don’t you think? I bet you never expected that a post about my unappreciative cat would turn into a life lesson. I didn’t either, but that is how God sometimes works in our lives.
As I end this post, I would like to ask that you keep my grandfather, Homer Mullins, in your prayers, as well as my aunt, Shirley Terry.
God Bless