It was a good day for some outside labor, Father. Thank you for the strength and ability to do so. Bless our time together. Fill my heart and mind with Your word. Amen.
Luke 11:42-44 (<<click to read the passage)
Ethylene sounds like someone that I would have known growing up in West Virginia but…have you ever heard the proverb “one bad apple spoils the barrel”? Ethylene is the culprit. I learned this from mentalfloss.com.
As they ripen, some fruits…produce a gaseous hormone called ethylene, which is, among other things, a ripening agent. When you store fruits together, the ethylene each piece emits prods the others around it to ripen further…
The riper a piece of fruit is, the more ethylene it produces, and overripe fruit gives off even more ethylene, eventually leading to a concentration of the gas that’s enough to overripen all the fruit. Given the right conditions and enough time, one apple can push all the fruit around it to ripen—and eventually rot. (emphasis mine)
In other words, if you see a bad apple in your fruit bin, get rid of it ASAP.
In verse 44 of today’s text, Jesus continues to “light into” the Pharisees by saying, “For you are like hidden graves in a field. People walk over them without knowing the corruption they are stepping on.”
My study Bible* tells me that the Law stated in Numbers 19:16 that just touching a grave made a person “unclean”. It goes on to say,
Jesus accused the Pharisees of making others unclean by their spiritual rottenness. Like unmarked graves hidden in a field, the Pharisees corrupted everyone who came in contact with them.
The Pharisees were known for their “bad apples”.
We don’t like to admit it but often in our relationships with friends or even work associates, this can be a problem. And like a good part of humanity, “bad apples” tend to impact the whole “bunch” more quickly than “good apples”.
How many times have you been perfectly content with a set of circumstances, maybe where you work or under a certain teacher’s teaching style or maybe even a pastor’s mode of leadership? You’re doing just fine, then someone new joins the group and begins to undermine your contentment.
“Well, that’s a dumb way to do that…”
“They’re just asking us to do too much…”
“We didn’t have to do it that way where I came from…”
“Well, they sure aren’t doing what they should be doing…”
And before you know it their “ethylene” starts to permeate our minds and we start thinking along the same lines becoming more and more disgruntled as time goes on.
Working conditions, for example, and the way associates are treated can become very difficult. I struggled with that while working in retail – corporate policy changed, new leadership would step in, and to make the impact higher-ups wanted to see, would shake things up…quite a bit sometimes. It was easy to join in with the grumble bunch. But honestly, it made going to work almost unbearable.
I was ready to leave when I did but if you read back in my journaling through that time you will see, that with the Lord’s help, I purposefully made myself change my mindset.
Before I left, supervisors were doing all kinds of things that we have never done before. I could have complained. I could have grumbled…and I won’t say I never did, but I developed the mentality that “I get paid the same no matter what they tell me to do.” I pray that my “good apple” attitude had a greater impact on others than the “bad apple” ones.
In the end, it is our choice whether we impact as a “good apple” for the Kingdom…or not.
*Life Application Study Bible New Living Translation
July 1st, 2020, Wed, 6:49 pm
