"HALF & HALF"

A sailor named Henry had worked on the same ship for three years. One night after a cellphone argument with his wife, Henry got drunk. This was the first time it ever happened.

The ship’s captain recorded it in the log, "The sailor was drunk tonight." Henry read it, and he knew the captain’s comment would affect his career, so he went to the captain, apologized and asked the captain to add that it only happened once in three years which was the complete truth.

The captain refused and said, "What I have written in the log is the truth."

The next week it was the sailor's turn to fill in the log. He wrote, "The captain was sober tonight." The captain read the comment and asked the sailor to change or add to it explaining the complete truth because this implied that the captain was drunk every other night. The sailor told the captain that what he had written in the log was the truth.

Both statements were true but they conveyed misleading messages. The accurate description for true statements meant to mislead is “subterfuge” which means to use a strategy to conceal, escape, evade or mislead. "Half and Half" is an old Native American proverb of telling something to be half true and half false.

Subterfuge is immensely different from making a honest mistake or committing an error. Take the “Wicked Bible” for instance. In 1631, two printers made the mistake of omitting the word “not’ from the Seventh Commandment causing it to read; “Thou shalt commit adultery”. When the error was discovered, King Charles ordered all to be returned and burned. Only 11 of the several thousand prints remain.

God teaches us to test what we hear (1 Thessalonians 5:21). In fact, God uses more than thirty-five (35) scriptures in the Holy Bible drilling in our human brains to put everything to the test. The exact words used as “tests” in both the Old and New Testaments means to “prove by trial." In today’s vernacular it is called “meeting the burden of proof."

 Face it folks in this day of information overload, it is immensely difficult to test everything we hear as God instructs. We receive information from millions of sources in this day of hyper and vivified technology but we are clueless as to its veracity.

Take for instance Oxford Analytica; a group most of us never heard of but one that has enormous influence in the world. Every day at 6 a.m. the leading scholars of Oxford gather in a room to get reports from all around the world about what’s happened in the previous 24 hours, from crop prices rising in China to the latest unrest in the Middle East. Then they make the decision about what needs to be said about it. By 11 a.m. a report has been given to groups that pay big bucks for this information, such as the CIA and major corporations all over the world. Scary, huh?

While we are helpless to test the voluminous information we are flooded with daily, we can test the validity of anything we hear about God’s Word or God’s teachings.

The vast majority of us have doubts about God in some form or another. Whether it be the existence of God or an event told in the Bible, our human nature tosses doubts at us to make us wonder. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t doubt and wonder. 

However, God knew before He ever created Adam and Eve we would have wondering doubts which is why He left us numerous teachings about testing what we hear.

God wants us to get off our rear ends and research Him, His creation, His miracles, His Son, His love, His forgiveness and His guarantee of eternal life. (Proverbs 15:14 and Proverbs 18:15). Simply put, God wants us to make a case for our faith. He wants us to meet the burden of proof for our belief and trust in Him.

Merciful and Forgiving God, thank You for understanding we would encounter doubts in our search to know You and Your truth. Thank You for knowing we inherited Adam and Eve's DNA where the mind longs to know and the heart longs to be known among our other carnal quirks and shortcomings. Grant us the discernment and wisdom to actively find the answers when our doubts come. Help us to avoid the foe’s trap of letting these doubts consume us, scare us or interfere with the joy You offer. Lord, You know we all wrestle daily with being saints and sinners, good and bad, spiritual and human but we are so blessed that You know our hearts and understand “Who I Am”.