I The Jury

This is the title of a Mickey Spillane, Mike Hammer, story. I read it as a youth because its name intrigued me. Imagine a man so sure of himself that he would decide who was guilty and who was to die. Mike Hammer was tough. He was, dare I say it, "autonomous". But that was the 50's.

Now almost everyone is a Mike Hammer, even high school girls. Only today, the subject is not domination over a criminal, but whether or not the Bible is really true. I speak of believer's now. Believers should know better. I should have sympathy. I was once one of their crowd.

The script goes like this. "I don't think election is true. I just don't understand it." We notice that most do not say,"It's not in the Bible," but "I don't understand it." As if that were the criterion for truth.

My mother was a good, safe driver, but she had no idea what made a car run. She had trouble with manual transmissions though, until someone told her to visualize an "H" pattern for shifting. She got it right away. Like many of us she did not know about planetary gears or differentials, but that did not keep her from driving.

There is a big monster walking in the land, far bigger than Godzilla. It is the human intellect. Or should we say, the ego? It roars, "Until I understand something, it is not true." Simple as that.

I heard a minister--a man who I knew and admired in many ways--say words to this effect. He told our Bible class that though he was a Presbyterian, he just could not reconcile the doctrine of Predestination with man's free will.

Oh me, oh my, another guy caught in the Devil's leg trap! After all, never believe anything merely because it is in the Bible! Rather submit it to your understanding. If, perchance, you like it, you may want to believe it. It helps if it makes you better than other people. Like you used your free will in the right way. Too bad others have not.

Oh, foolish man, if it is plainly in the word of God, you better believe it. Some day we must appear before the judgement seat of Christ and have our works evaluated. Then your jury will go before the Judge.