God is in the Details.

Posted bySteven WalesPosted inGod LEADS His children, LAW, Read the Bible, The Bible is PracticalTags:, , ,

In the late 1960s, 14,000 workers were dying on the job each year. Combined with disabling injuries and work-related diseases, going to work had become increasingly dangerous.  Thus, US politicians drafted the Occupational Safety and Health Act.  President Nixon signed the bill into law in 1970 and here’s where it gets interesting … the details. Do we require ironworkers to wear a harness and rope at thirty stories high? What if they are only three stories high? What about residential roofers?  Who must wear ear protection, steel-toed boots, and dust masks?  It is an incredible undertaking, reshaping the landscape of US industry.  And politicians, mostly lawyers and economists, can’t help. What do they know about welding safety?

But the Occupational Safety and Health Act created the Occupational Safety and Health ADMINISTRATION.  Imagine a new office building in Washington, with branches across the nation.  These offices filled with people—the Administration—will address the details.  Thousands of people will sit at desks drafting rules to greatly reduce every conceivable workplace injury.  This is how modern nations address complex problems: pass a law containing general principles, then create an agency of thousands to figure out the details: Who must wear a hard hat and how strong must it be?

God did not run Israel that way. God Himself DICTATED the most down-to-earth details.  Where US politicians draft general laws, leaving the specifics to others, the GOD OF ISRAEL took on the specifics.  God DICTATED food rules. God DICTATED rules for washing dishes, pots, ovens. God DICTATED rules for cleansing after childbirth. God DICTATED rules for swellings, burns, boils, and skin diseases. God DICTATED rules for mildew in fabrics, walls, and the stones of houses. See Leviticus 11-14.  

These four chapters—a small portion of the practical laws God dictated—are lengthy discussions, dull reading for most.  But it is amazing to consider that the God who created the universe is interested in the details of our lives.  God does not simply give His people general principles like “love everybody” and then leave it up to us to figure out the specifics.  The Bible is INCREDIBLY SPECIFIC. 

We simply need to read it.

ΑΩ

Published by Steven Wales

Dad's Daily Devotional began as text messages to my family. I wanted my teenagers to know their father was reading the Bible. But they were at school by then. Initially, I sent them a favorite verse or an insight based on what I read each day. That grew into drafting a devotional readng which I would send them via text. I work as an attorney and an adjunct professor, and recently wrote a book called HOW TO MAKE A'S.

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