Walking Along a Road
I was walking along a road one day and I came across three blacksmith shops lined up next to one another at the edge of a town. The first shop had large, ornate signs and banners and it was larger than the other two shops. There were several customers filing in and out of the shop and each one appeared to be quite wealthy. As I passed I noticed that the two people entering the shop each had broken swords.
I looked at the second shop as I continued down the road. It had a few simple wooden signs indicating a cheap cost for all of its items. There was also a pile of rusted armour out front, which I thought was odd. I saw two children playing up ahead and I noticed that they were both using armour that appeared to have come from that pile.
As I walked past the last shop I noticed only one small sign near the door with the word "Closed." I walked up to one of the children that I had seen playing and, while I dodged his swinging sword, I asked why that shop was closed during the middle of the day. The young lad responded in gasps while he continued fighting with his friend. "That shop is never open. The smithee only makes armour for his friends. Some people say that he makes the best armour, though."
And with that, the child continued to play fight and I continued down the road.
Related Stories: Part I
3 comments:
I get it, but I'll let others take a stab at this one.
Cheers,
I couldn't resist...
The shops are like Churches, or Christians for that matter who aim to provide a service for others.
Some are average, helping others, but mostly those that have already been helped and don't need much, a new sword now and then.
Some don't care about vanity & just want to serve as many as possible and therefore are cheep. Perhaps too cheep as the armour they provide may not last long, but at least a great number of people can have some armour of some sort.
And lastly, there are those that only wish to help a certain group of people that already belong as friends. Only those people are deemed worthy of receiving more armour.
The children show us that they are already learning how to fight & will need good examples to look up to when they grow up.
Make any sense?
Cheers,
George Barna has a statistic that shows that most people have defined their worldview by the age of 13.
The armour represents our worldview, our philosophy, our weapons - the things with which we face life. The three shops represent three different sources for these things.
The first shop is expensive and hard to get into. High standards, a focus on success, high esteem of our ourselves and our armour. The problem is that this armour still breaks fairly often and it's more expensive to maintain afterwards.
The second shop is accessible to most anyone and the cost is cheap. Live and let live attitude, take some of this and some of that, do what I feel is right, no judgement. The problem here is that the armour is quite weak, not even withstanding too much rain. The armour is so light that children can use it, yet adults think it's all right.
The third shop is God's shop and Jesus is the blacksmith. It has the best armour of all but it's only available to anyone that becomes Jesus' friend. See Ephesians 6:10.
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