The Sheepish Scribe

At a recent wedding ceremony, the bride’s aunt read from a portion of scripture. In front of family and friends gathered behind the young couple, she stated, “God is not for immortality.” Oops. I had to elbow my chuckling husband, who swallowed a laugh that resulted in a rather loud snort. The type that echoes in a chapel filled with wooden pews. I can’t take that man anywhere.

                

The difference on paper between immortality and immorality may be one single letter, but the difference in meaning is enormous.

                 

I almost fell off my chair one Sunday when the pastor starting talking about David’s continence.  The first time he said it, it was shocking. People in the congregation looked at each other, half grinned and shrugged. The second time it was funny and people smothered their grins behind hastily clasped tissues. The third time I had to elbow my college age son who was noisily holding back laughter to the point of needing oxygen. He gets that from his father. The fourth time the pastor said continence I almost needed resuscitating myself.

                 

Continence and countenance may look a lot alike, but you just don’t talk about the former from the pulpit on a Sunday morning. Not unless you want to hear to your congregation strangling on suppressed laughter. 

                

 God tells the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4:2, “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” He’s not talking about the linguistic gymnastics of the English language, but rather the purposeful twisting of the scriptures. God’s commands are crystal clear. After all. . .what part of “thou shalt not” is open to interpretation?