Devotional: Mind your opinions
Young woman in therapy
DAILY MANNA
SATURDAY 14TH NOVEMBER, 2020
MIND YOUR OPINIONS
📜📜TEXT:JOB 32:1-10📜📜
🔑📖KEY VERSE:”Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment. Therefore I said, Hearken to me; I also will shew mine opinion” (JOB 32:9, 10).
A king determined to set a prisoner free, having found he was innocent of the charges pressed against him. Being on a journey, he decided to use his cart driver as his de jure secretary to dictate what to write for the executioner.
The king said, “Tell the executioner that the prisoner is acquitted, not to be killed”. But in his opinion of where the punctuation should be in the king’s speech, the cart driver wrote “acquitted not, to be killed”. Then the prisoner was executed. Upon inquiry, the cart driver said he had actually given his own opinion that the prisoner was to be killed.
The account in today’s reading is an individual opinion given by Elihu, the son of Barachel. His opinion was clearly motivated by wrath against Job and his three friends because Job justified himself rather than God, and Job’s friends condemned him. He had regarded the age of Job’s friends and had kept quiet until he could no longer take their wrong accusations. The young man obviously lost his patience!
We are at a time in history, where information has increased and the personal opinion given about any issue or anyone in the comfort of our bedroom can be seen on the front page of a high traffic news blog or website, all through the help of social media. While technology is commendable, what unguarded personal opinions may do is highly alarming!
We are enjoined by the Scriptures to be wary about our personal opinions of anyone especially those God has placed over us as authority figures. We must avoid giving fake news or helping to spread it. We must also avoid the temptation to speak evil of dignitaries.
If we must give our opinion, it must not be motivated by anger or hate. An opinion motivated by hate, ignorance and prejudice, could lead to social chaos and even deaths.
✍THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:Personal opinion is like a matchstick; it could cause a fire when used wrongly!
📜📜THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:EZEKIEL 9-13📜📜
