ONLINE CHURCH BULLETIN

Observation Is the Key

At a prestigious Ivy League medical school the new medical students were starting their first day of classes. They were all a little nervous because the professor also happened to be the dean of the medical department. As he entered the room, everyone became quiet and prepared to write down every word the professor uttered.

"Observation is the key to medicine," he began. Students began writing furiously. From out of his briefcase the professor produced a small test tube of yellow liquid and continued, "This is human urine. Many times, patients' conditions can be determined by observing the contents of their urine. How it smells and tastes can often be enough to let you know what's wrong." At this, the professor dipped a finger into the urine and into his mouth. The students were shocked - and even more so when the professor passed the test tube down the rows of students, instructing them to do just as he had done.

One by one, students placed their fingers into the urine and tasted it. There were many scowls and groans as the test tube made it to the last student and finally back to the professor, who held up the tube and concluded, "You have just had your first lesson in observing. For if you had observed a little closer, you would have seen that I had put my index finger into the urine and my middle finger into my mouth."

OUCH! What a nasty lesson to learn. But, aren't some people learning an even more dangerous lesson in that they just observe what people do in the name of religion and then mock what they have seen. They never go to the Word of God to "observe" what He has told us to do. John writes in I John 4: 1... "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

For His Cause,
Tim Woodward
Smithville church of Christ