Pastor’s Point: In or Out of Hot Water

A familiar metaphor in our culture today is the “frog in the kettle” syndrome. Briefly stated, its premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used to describe the inability or unwillingness of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually.  (According to contemporary biologists the premise of the story is not literally true; a frog submerged and gradually heated will jump out. However, some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true, provided the heating is sufficiently gradual.)

The boiling frog story is often used as a warning that people should make themselves aware of gradual change, however small and incremental, lest they suffer eventual undesirable consequences. This may be in support of a ‘slippery slope’ argument.  The psalmist Asaph described it like this in Psalm 73:

Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.  

But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold,

 for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

They say, “How would God know?  Does the Most High know anything?”

This is what the wicked are like—always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence.

When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God;
    then I understood their final destiny.

Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.
How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!

When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered,

I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.

Whom have I in heaven but you?  And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

The world and all its pleasures were a pretty intoxicating mixture for Asaph to deal with…its value system was in direct contrast to what He believed about God and His values.  Asaph’s reaction was to despair and to question God. “I was a brute beast before You.” Eventually, though, he came to his senses; he changed the way he was thinking.

This week as we look at Romans 12:2, we are faced with two other alternatives from despair or blaming God, when we sense the pull or appeal of the world and its Godless agenda.  We can cave and become like it, (“go along to get along”, so to speak) or we can have a complete change of mind.  Here’s the text for this week:

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—

his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

So what’ll it be?  Become like the world, albeit slowly and often times without even noticing, like the frog in the kettle? OR…get a mind makeover?  Start thinking differently.  If it sounds easier said than done, it is…and it isn’t. First, do what Paul reminds us to do in verse one:

Reflect (on the mercies of God),

Present (yourselves to God as an offering), and

Die (to doing what comes naturally, and open yourself to “Jesus in you.”) 

And then be alert and sober to the ways the world seeks to influence and direct you on a path which is completely counter to the life and revealed will of God.  As good as God is to give us His Holy Spirit to help discern these ways, He has not limited us to the Spirit, but has also given us His precious Word.  

As those who bear the name of Christ, let’s keep offering ourselves to God, recognizing the deceitful ways of this world, and letting the Spirit transform us with a new mind.  And as those who lead others in the offering of song to the Lord as expressions of worship, let us follow Paul’s challenge to the Church at Colossae:

“Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly 

as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom,

and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs 

with gratitude in your hearts to God.”  Colossians 3:16

At the end of the day, whether the frog would be smart enough to jump out of the kettle or not, let’s agree that to be in hot water is never a good thing.

                                                                                           tad