Galatians 2:15-21
A few years ago I started to experience pain under my ribs. It happened periodically, especially after I ate. It also hurt when I drank my morning glass of orange juice. So I went to see my doctor. He sent me to have an x-ray and ultrasound. It revealed that my gall bladder was full of stones. As far as I understand it, the gall bladder shoots out bile juice to help in the breakdown of food. So when I ate, the digestive system would kick into gear. The gall bladder would contract and press in on all those stones. So that’s why I had pain.
My doctor then got me an appointment with a surgeon. He showed me what was happening and he recommended surgery to remove the gall bladder. So at that moment, I had basically 3 choices. I could refuse the surgery and adjust my diet dramatically in an attempt to manage this. I could go ahead with the surgery and trust the surgeon.
Or maybe I could do the surgery myself. I knew where the pain happened. I could take one of our steak knives out, cut myself open, find the gall bladder, cut it out and use our desk stapler to patch myself together. But that probably wouldn’t work so well. I might make a mistake or pass out in the midst of my surgery and leave a big mess. So I decided to let the expert help me. I depended on the surgeon and his team to remove that gall bladder. And they did.
Now of course, I’m joking about doing my own surgery. But I wanted to point out that there are times when we need to depend on others to get things done that we can’t do ourselves. We may depend on mechanics to do major repairs on our cars. We depend on dentists to deal with our teeth issues. We may turn to hair stylists to get a good haircuts or plumbers to look after plumbing issues.
But who do we depend on when reading the Bible?
