New medicine bottles seem easier to open.  Used to be that I’d have to take a screwdriver and hammer to them.  We know why they were invented, but why such heavy sledding?  Someone hears our hue and cry as some newer ones are a smidgeon better.  Tamper-proof caps reduce a toxic outcome for unwelcome hands.

Take a gander at 2 Corinthians chapter 4.  St. Paul affirms that there’s nothing deceptive or deceitful in what he does– ‘…having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.  But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.  We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word…’ (2 Cor. 4: 2).

Notice that last phrase.  It’s a warning–don’t monkey around with God’s Word.  Stop watering it down, finagling with, or cooking His book.  ‘We refuse to…tamper with God’s Word’ (2 Cor. 4: 2).

So, what does Paul mean?  Does this apply to today?  Does it ever.  Big time.  Here’s where the rubber meets the road in today’s churches.  As in treating God’s Word with reverent respect, diving in with both feet, culling all we can from His revealed and inspired wisdom, adjusting our thoughts and lives to His standards.  As opposed to the other way around.

You can see when churches begin to fail.  They play footloose and fancy-free with the Bible.  Questioning whether God really means what He says.  Condoning what God forbids.  Editing and deleting what they don’t agree with or happen to like.  Only focusing on what they want to hear.  Like that dialogue between the serpent and Eve in the Garden of Eden–“…’Did God actually say…?'” (Gen. 3:1).

So many churches and denominations nosedive into this same dry well while falling down like dominoes, all in a row.   Every new societal trend eventually gets its green light.  Sin loses its edge.  No big deal.  Live and let live.  ‘…Did God actually say…’?  Seemingly without a clue, they lose members every year, eventually blown away, weightless as chaff and dust in a storm of their own making.

Don’t tamper with God’s Word.

Wake up.  Let the Bible get your attention.  Give it a fair hearing.  Then do something about it.  Put it into practice.  That’s good medicine.  Its container is not hard to open.  Not at all.  Try.  Crack open its pages.  It might become your daily bread.

And remember–don’t tamper with God’s Word.

Thank you, Lord, for your trustworthy Word.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.