Our Corner of The Kingdom
Most readers of this column are aware I love music and particularly guitars. Lately my collection has undergone major revamping; the search for new guitars reminded me of a fundamental truth found in both the OT and NT.
The first things I notice in evaluating a guitar are the components. The type of wood used in the top, sides, back, and neck determines the volume, tone, and to a degree the style of music the guitar will best handle. I quickly found out a trick of sellers. The top is usually made of spruce and the most common woods for the rest of the body are mahogany, rosewood, sapele, or maple. A rosewood body will usually command $100-200 more than a mahogany. BUT if the word solid wasn’t placed before the name of the wood, it meant it was a laminate, made of layers of leftover pieces and seconds. To be fair, many laminates sound great; but solid rosewood has a richness a laminate can’t reach. Solid woods command higher prices. You get what you pay for, IF you know what words to look for.
Skimming the Craigslist and FB Marketplace websites yields some humorous results. Some people spin outlandish descriptions of a guitar thinking their bombast and overstatement will convince a buyer. A true guitar player is not swayed by exaggeration but instead inspects the guitar itself. I have a good reputation and good reviews on websites as a seller because I’m accurate in portraying the true condition and worth of the guitar I’m selling.
Isaiah 5.20-- “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (NASB) CGI has blown away the boundaries of imagination in cinema and blurred the division between virtual and ‘real’ reality. Fake news, fake stories, social media entries, hyperbole of our 24/7 news cycles have blurred the distinctions of definitions for words. Nightly we hear about this or that ‘crisis,’ ‘catastrophe,’ or ‘crossroads.’ This verbal inflation of words’ meanings also erases a hierarchy of comparison: remember declarative, comparative, superlative? Nowadays it is nigh impossible to accurately evaluate excellence or mismanaged actions. We find euphemistic variations for everything that allow us to describe just about any action or accomplishment as wretched or spectacular.
We live in a society bent on immediate cultural relevance as a supreme value instead of conforming our lives to some timeless truth. Sins once considered shameful are now celebrated. Standards of conduct are ignored unless they are transgressed by those who profess them openly (i.e., our last decade’s endless parade of priests and ministers who have preached against sexual abuse yet participated in it).
We need ministers, SS teachers, AWANA leaders who will share the Word of God not through political or cultural lens that are here today and discarded tomorrow, but the reverse: that we see politics, community values, and cultural norms through the lens of the Word of God.
Mt. 6.22-23 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (NASB)