My teen-aged son’s favourite quotation from the Bible verse used to be “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning”.  He chose not to quote the rest of the quote - that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!”   Marvellous the advice you can get when you stop reading half way! 

 

While the Bible may be  considered a source of good advice, to pray for guidance, as was the practice of some, by closing one’s eyes and opening the Bible at random placing a finger on the open page is a childish idea.  It works only when we get the advice we want.  

 

I like the story where a person tried this procedure to gain advice on his current problem, and the verse he pointed to was Matthew 27:5 - “he (Judas) departed; and he went and hanged himself.”  That didn’t seem to meet the person’s requirement so he prayed again and pointed to a second verse.  It was Luke 10: 37.  The verse read: "Go and do likewise."  That was not at all what he was expecting so he tried yet again and on the third attempt, it was quite disconcerting to read in John 13: 27: "Do quickly what you are going to do."

 

I rather doubt that that person will continue to believe that this is the way to get good advice.

 

What constitutes advice we choose to take seriously?  Often we go to people we like; to close friends who we believe will have our interests at heart.  Some go to people they believe to be knowledgeable, but we don’t go to an engineer for authoritative advice on medicine.  The authority has to be relevant to the subject.

 

I believe we are all much more subjective in our judgments that we normally realize.  We agree with opinions that are close to our own.  We tend to seek out people whom we like rather than those most knowledgeable about the subject.   At times we approve the advice that points us in the way we want to go.  So it is good frequently to sit down and think carefully about how we seek advice, whether the advice is unbiased or whether it was from people who were likely to try to give us the advice we want to hear.

 

Quite recently I was reading a book on philosophy and found the author very convincing in his arguments and most effective in demolishing the counter arguments.  I should add it was an author who held pretty much the same views on the subject as I had.  I was so impressed that I quoted some of his arguments to my son who very quickly, to my dismay, demolished the arguments and showed how the assumptions of the author pretty much governed where the argument went.  While I don’t agree with my son, when I went back I found I had very quickly accepted the premises on which the author based his argument.

 

Not everyone seeks advice.  Many try to solve their problems on they own, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but when we do seek advice, let’s seek it from people of experience and not just from someone with whom we happen to be on friendly terms.

 

Rev. Alan Stuart Ex missionary to Korea, Retired Minister, UCA