Douglas Young

Jesus was accused of casting out demons by Beelzebub the “prince of demons” (Mark 3:22), a sign of the great lengths to which his adversaries would go to discredit him. It was an absurd notion void of all common sense. Jesus, though, seized it and illustrated its foolishness with:

How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.  And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first bind the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. Mark 3:23-27.

You’d think the scribes would’ve liked to have taken that accusation back, given how irrational it was, but rationality in their treatment of Jesus seemed hardly their concern. I envision them walking away pouting, eyes fixed on the ground under which they walked and minds already redirected on how they could entrap the Messiah without looking so foolish in the process.

We all have those “open mouth, insert foot” moments that we’d love to have back but can’t. The comment was uttered. “Send” was already clicked. The enveloped was already dropped in the blue mailbox at the post office. In those situations, hindsight really stinks!

I suppose this is why God would encourage us to think before we act (Proverbs 4:23-27). It’s altogether too easy to be thoughtless given how we live our lives. Thinking takes time, and time is a precious commodity lost in the commotion of everything that bides for it. But we are doing ourselves any favors by not taking the time to think through things before we act. We are setting ourselves up for embarrassment and regret. Maybe through contemplative forethought, we won’t have to live with the grief that shadows thoughtless actions!