The Golden Mean

The Golden Mean

The Temple of Apollo at Delphi contained the inscription: “Nothing In Excess”
This is what Greek philosophers referred to as “The Golden Mean” – the virtuous
middle between two extremes. Aristotle gave as an example, “Courage is the
mean between cowardice and recklessness.”
More importantly to us, this avoidance of extremes is also a biblical principle,
found in both the Old and New Testaments. For example, Prov 30:8-9:
Give me neither poverty nor riches . . . lest I be full and deny Thee
and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be in want and steal.
There are actually many ways that godly thinking and acting requires us to
navigate between two extremes. Consider a few examples:
Scripture clearly and repeatedly tells us that God abhors pride. However we
should never sink to self-contempt and the feeling that we are worthless. It is
possible to remain humble while realizing that we have value because we are
made in God’s image.
It is a dangerous mark of immaturity to be gullible, accepting whatever we hear
without questioning it. The other extreme of this is the person who is stubbornly
closed-minded. Jas 3:17 says that the wisdom from above is easy to be intreated
(open to reason, willing to listen and yield to what is right) The Bereans
demonstrated this balance: “They received the word with great eagerness,
examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so.” (Acts 17:11)
Sin is dreadful. We must have godly sorrow and freely confess that we have
sinned, but if we will allow him, Satan will burden us with crippling guilt. God
has promised that when He forgives our sins He will remember them no more.
Jesus emphasized the cost of discipleship and expects us to count that cost. At
the same time God has not set the standard so high that it is unattainable.
Some people are so lazy and slothful that they fail to even provide for those who
depend on them. However it is also possible to be so driven to “get ahead” that it
becomes covetousness.
Do you find controversy so distasteful that you are tempted to avoid it at all cost,
even to the point of refusing to defend the truth? Of course that is wrong, but
sadly there are people who actually relish conflict, who are always looking for a
fight. James also says that wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable.
One final example. It is critical to recognize scripture alone as our standard in
determining what to believe and practice in religion. However here again there
are two equally invalid extremes. On view says that only what is “specifically”
mentioned in Scripture is authorized. The other insists that whatever is not
“specifically” prohibited is permitted.
- Leonard White

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Romanticized But Inaccurate Visions

“During a 1953 location-scouting trip for the movie Brigadoon, producer Arthur
Freed visited such bucolic Scottish locations as Braemar, The Firth of Forth, and
Loch Fyre, but he ultimately elected to shoot the movie on an MGM soundstage

in metropolitan Los Angeles. Asked why he didn’t film the musical in the country
where it was set, Freed quipped, ‘I went to Scotland, but I could find nothing that
looked like Scotland’. Absurd as this sounds, being disappointed by the reality of
exotic shooting locations is an ongoing Hollywood tradition. In 1961, producers
shipped hundreds of tons of white New Jersey sand to Tahiti to make it seem
more stereotypically Tahiti-like for Marlon Brando’s Mutiny on the Bounty” (The
Vagabond’s Way, Rolf Potts, p. 181).
We all do this from time to time. Having never been to or in a place, many of us
already have an opinion about what that place is supposed to look like. For
example, long before many people go to Yellowstone or see Niagara Falls, they
already have in their minds or imagination what those places are supposed to
look like. The generation of Jesus’ time rejected Him because He did not live up
to their humanly devised expectations of what the Messiah was supposed to be
like and do.
Such stories reminded me that we can do the same thing spiritually. We can get
into our heads the way something should be, or what a church or worship should
look like, without first taking a good look at what God wants the church to be, and
how He desires to be worshipped (1 Samuel 15:22-23).
Most people probably already have a definite idea of what God the Father or
Jesus is like, without ever reading the Scriptures. They already have in their
heads a very firm view of what God would or would not do. Thus, I need to make
sure that my view of God is not simply the product of my imagination and
personal preferences. You might say that people often reject what the Bible
teaches, not so much because of what it teaches, but because such teaching
contradicts the firm opinions they already have. When people say things like,
“Wait a minute, that is not the Jesus I believe in”. They are basically saying,
“Scotland does not look like Scotland”. One reason I need to read the Bible daily
is to learn all the lessons from the Scriptures of where God is telling us about
Himself (Romans 15:4), and what He desires.
- Mark Dunagan

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Worry is an old man with bended head,
carrying a load of feathers which he thinks are lead.

A friend is like a rose - perhaps not perfect, but always beautiful.

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