Remember back when you were a child and it seemed like forever for it to be Christmas again? Lived experience has changed all that, even though there are still 365 days between Christmases, whether you are a child or an adult. What’s changed? Perceptions, experiences, and knowledge have changed. Neither perception is by itself “wrong”, but comprehension alters our viewpoint, i.e. our peep-hole. One of the things bringing about this alteration is the accumulation of facts and scope of vision. In First Corinthians 13:11, we read: “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things” (New Living Translation). When I was a child, Christmas had focused on Me, Myself, and I—the gifts I would be given, the decorations that were put up for me to see, the meals and parties that I got to enjoy. As an adult I came to find that Christmas wasn’t all about me, nor was it just about all sorts of goodies. As an adult I learned that I had to buy the gifts, put up the decorations, cook the food, and plan the party—then pay for everything at the end. My perception of Christmas had changed.
When I was in college, my absolute least favorite course was History of Western Civilization. How I hated that course, and how I dreaded the exams. (Taken on lapboards in the auditorium. Does anybody else remember these?) Although I passed the course, I’m not at all sure what I learned from those two semesters of obligatory terror. Ironically, I was going through one of the most history-forming periods in this country’s life. And I didn’t see it at all. Looking at that time period now, I can see more of what the significance was. Then, I was looking at what was happening through a little peep-hole of my personal experience. And there is the distinct possibility that I really didn’t want to see some of the events going on around me and wanted to look at things from my comfortable, disengaged view. So I squinched up my eyes and saw things that way.
In the past there was this idea that if you read it in a newspaper, it was thereby true. Now it’s that you saw it on the internet, so it must be real. Your peep-hole becomes the computer screen. This forces you to look at world happenings from a very narrow perspective. And primarily these news blips are carefully constructed to present the biased opinions of the writer. Out of context quotes are much like the serpent’s tempting of Eve: lies, half-truths, and inuendo. Many a Christian leader has been the victim of this treatment by the media.
There’s the story of the man who was searching the Bible to find out what God wanted him to do with his life, so he used the “flip it open at random” technique. First, he read that Judas went out and hung himself. Not satisfied with that, he opened to another verse, and it said to go and do likewise. He decided that was probably not the best idea either or the best method of information gathering. But how often do we look at the internet and are convinced it’s the truth?
Remember the story of the blind men and the elephant? A group of blind men were to examine an elephant and report what they each thought an elephant was like. Some described the elephant as being a hard, snake-like animal. Others described it as something like a flexible hose. Others said the animal had large odd shaped floppy wings. Were these a true description of an elephant? Each evaluation had an element of truth, but each determined what an elephant was like by their individual peep-hole examination. Today’s news has become notorious for telling the flashy news once, but then when the next big thing comes along there is no further mention and so we don’t obtain all the information. (However, it goes on and on and on ad nauseum about the latest pop singer. Yet, that same pop singer, who may have no further education than high school, makes a statement about international finance and people believe them just because they’re famous.) That certainly qualifies as squinchy eye vision.
How things fit in with our traditional viewpoint greatly affects how wide our peep-hole is. It’s a bit like saying the Wise Men visited the baby Jesus at birth in the cattle stall. It had to have been that way because all the creches have the three Wise Men bringing their gifts and setting them down by the manger, even though the Bible clearly shows that it was up to two years later that they—however many they were—arrived.
One of the effective methods of brainwashing is saying something repeatedly until the person finally believes what others are saying. If a child is told repeatedly that they are stupid, that child begins to believe in the fallacy and act as if they were stupid. What’s also bad about this is that the child will always carry this thought for the rest of their life. This was one of the techniques utilized to keep black people slaves—they were told that they were not really human, that they were no more than livestock. This might be termed internalized oppression or learned helplessness. Today the so-called Christian religious right is being touted as harsh, backward thinking, prejudicial, while the opposite side is considered loving and kind and forward thinking. We’re told that we need to look at things through their peep-hole. As Christians we need to be aware of this mental manipulation and guard ourselves from it.
Joseph Conrad in his book Lord Jim wrote: “It’s extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it’s just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.” This was written over a century ago, but how true it is of today’s events. Currently there’s a commercial for an eye medication that tells you to “open up your world with _______”. The question then becomes how does a Christian find a way to open their eyes to the world to obtain a better understand of what is going on. The corollary of this is why does it matter. We also wonder how much of what is going on can we tolerate. Maybe it would be more comfortable to look at world events through squinchy eyes and a peep-hole, as Conrad pointed out.
So, how do we go about enlarging our peep-hole? Jesus admonishes us in Matthew 10:16 that we need to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (King James Version). This calls us to balance how we react to misinformation especially when that “information” is hostile to us. In Acts 17:11, the Bereans were held up as examples of how to gain wisdom—by searching the Scriptures daily. We can stand firm in knowing that we have the source, that is the Scriptures, for the basis of our viewpoint. Second Timothy 3:16 and 17 assures us that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work”.
Much of Proverbs is about wisdom. But in light of Proverbs 3: 5, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us so that we “lean not on our own understanding”. Again, in Proverbs 4:7 we are taught: “Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” But how do we go about getting wisdom? We are told in Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
The late Bible expositor, R. C. Sproul noted that there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom, but the Scriptures admonish us, to yes, get knowledge but most of all obtain wisdom. Serving Christ is a call to excellence. This includes working to find the truth, not by just listening to the mixed scramble we hear in today’s news. Sproul also wrote that the purpose, the reason we need to seek knowledge and wisdom is so that we can “live in a way that is pleasing to God”. Colossians 3: 17 admonishes us: “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Ultimately, our goal as Christians is to bring glory to God, not to ourselves, nor to others. Hopefully we will take the initiative to ferret out information—which can admittedly be difficult. But we can seek out some background history. We also can trust God to help direct us to truth. Not that long ago there was much media hype that Putin was dead. However, he wasn’t dead. Also, a short time ago, there was on the news that Pope Leo XIV was resigning with a complete resignation address. Was that true? Apparently not.
One of the things that we need not to do is allow the biases swirling around us to become overwhelming. We need to hold fast to what we know to be true as given in the Scriptures, especially that Jesus is the “way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). We need to fight against media and culture that tries to dissuade us from what we know to be true. Diligence and truth-seeking need to be in a Christian’s repertoire. I confess that I know even less (if I really did know it then) about the history of Western Civilization than I did when I was using the infamous lapboard. But along the way, I’ve learned to look at things through a much-widened peep-hole. So, maybe the answer is to “open your eyes with wisdom”.
Lamp for my feet 