God's Cure for Porcupine Churches (7 of 10)
Series: Summer In the Psalms
Bob Ingle
Psalm 133
Open your Bibles please to Psalm 133. Did you know that a full-grown porcupine has about 30,000 quills attached to its body? When a porcupine drives one of those quills into an enemy, the body heat of the victim causes the quill to expand and become more firmly embedded in the wound. The wound festers and get infected and can even be fatal if it affects any vital organs.
It probably goes without saying, but porcupines are not regarded as lovable, huggable animals.
The scientific word for 'porcupine' literally means is ''the irritable back.'' Very accurate!
With their 'irritable back syndrome', porcupines usually handle relationships in one of two ways: Withdraw or attack. When they encounter people or other animals, they either head up a tree or they smack you with their quills. That makes relationship building pretty difficult for porcupines. Did you know that we don't have a word to describe a group of porcupines? We've got a pack of wolves, a school of fish, a flock of sheep, a gaggle of geese, a herd of cows, a colony of ants, but as far as I know, we don't ever refer to a group of porcupines, because porcupines are solitary animals. Their two rules for relationships, withdraw or attack, make strong relationships nearly impossible for them.
Maybe you're sitting there saying, ''Bob, what's with the animal channel lesson on porcupines?'' Well, I'm thinking that many people in the church must have been raised by porcupines. After 25 years of pastoral ministry, I have found that 9 out of every 10 problems I deal with in the church are not primarily theological or doctrinal, but relational. When it comes to dealing with other people in the body of Christ, many folks tend to either withdraw or attack. Something happens they don't like or don't understand? Poof, some people just disappear and you never see them again. Others create such drama, difficulty, ...
Series: Summer In the Psalms
Bob Ingle
Psalm 133
Open your Bibles please to Psalm 133. Did you know that a full-grown porcupine has about 30,000 quills attached to its body? When a porcupine drives one of those quills into an enemy, the body heat of the victim causes the quill to expand and become more firmly embedded in the wound. The wound festers and get infected and can even be fatal if it affects any vital organs.
It probably goes without saying, but porcupines are not regarded as lovable, huggable animals.
The scientific word for 'porcupine' literally means is ''the irritable back.'' Very accurate!
With their 'irritable back syndrome', porcupines usually handle relationships in one of two ways: Withdraw or attack. When they encounter people or other animals, they either head up a tree or they smack you with their quills. That makes relationship building pretty difficult for porcupines. Did you know that we don't have a word to describe a group of porcupines? We've got a pack of wolves, a school of fish, a flock of sheep, a gaggle of geese, a herd of cows, a colony of ants, but as far as I know, we don't ever refer to a group of porcupines, because porcupines are solitary animals. Their two rules for relationships, withdraw or attack, make strong relationships nearly impossible for them.
Maybe you're sitting there saying, ''Bob, what's with the animal channel lesson on porcupines?'' Well, I'm thinking that many people in the church must have been raised by porcupines. After 25 years of pastoral ministry, I have found that 9 out of every 10 problems I deal with in the church are not primarily theological or doctrinal, but relational. When it comes to dealing with other people in the body of Christ, many folks tend to either withdraw or attack. Something happens they don't like or don't understand? Poof, some people just disappear and you never see them again. Others create such drama, difficulty, ...
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