Jump Start # 3584

Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.”

NOTE: Monday is a holiday. There will be no Jump Starts that day. You can access previous writings at the website (Jumpstartsdaily.com).

Here is something that one of my sons shared with me recently.

“The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Well, because that’s the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that’s the gauge they used. So, why did ‘they’ use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England . You see, that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Now, the twist to the story: When you saw a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there were two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses pulling a chariot. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a chariot.”

Now, some thoughts:

First, life is filled with interesting and trivial facts that we don’t think about. I’ve been on trains before. I have never given any thought to the width of the rails nor that there is a universal standard used. Likewise, there are a lot of interesting and trivial facts from our Bibles. For instance, did you know that all the books in the N.T. that begin with the letter “T” are together (Thessalonians, Timothy and Titus). Do I need to know that to get to Heaven? No.

These interesting items can pull some thoughts together and help us see threads running through the Bible, but they can also lead us on rabbit chases that at the end of the day haven’t accomplished much. The message of the Bible isn’t about odd facts that no one knows, but salvation in Jesus Christ. That’s the focus of our teaching and preaching.

Second, there are things we use daily that we often take for granted. One of the main roads I drive on every day was once part of an Indian trail, which before that was a buffalo trail (more accurately a bison trail). Does that change my commute? Does that come into mind as I fight traffic in the morning? Every morning, I use a laptop keyboard to write Jump Starts. Do I know the origin of the typewriter? I don’t. Do I understand how a laptop functions? Not really. Do I get how the internet and email works? Nope. I have people around me that I bug all the time because something isn’t working right and I don’t have a clue what to do. They do. They try to explain it to me and it gives me a headache.

Now, the same is true spiritually. Unless you are a real history nerd like I am, most do not have the foggiest idea about the background of the congregation where they worship. We assemble on Sunday, not understanding how our English Bibles came to be, how hymnals and specific songs were written, the sacrifices that were made to start the congregation we are a part of. Is it necessary to know those things? No. But it reminds us that we stand upon the sacrifices and shoulders of many men and women whose work makes our worship possible. And, in time, if we are busy in the kingdom, someone down the road will stand upon the work that we have accomplished and it will make their lives much easier in the kingdom.

Third, the Pharisees, as our verse today illustrates, majored in the minors. The smallest of seeds were counted and a tenth was given to the Lord. That’s nice. The Lord did not say that they should not have been doing such things. But, while doing that, they failed to do the obvious, the big things. Mercy, justice and faithfulness to God was left out. It’s not one or the other, but both. And, we can follow in the same steps of these Pharisees by complaining about how late someone is, where someone is sitting in worship, how many times someone goes out to the bathroom and fail to worship the God who loves us and has cared so much for us. The details matter. Sweating the small stuff is good. But in so doing, don’t over look the big things. Your character, your heart, your attitude, your obedience to God—those things matter.

I drove over some railroad tracks yesterday. As I did, I took a look at the width of the rails  and thought about Roman chariots.

Interesting…

Roger