Surprise, no opening scripture. While searching I did not find a supporting scripture that accurately described my thoughts. That is surprising since there always seems to be a scripture to support my thoughts. Not this time. The two words I want to share have multiple meanings. You could say I am picking and choosing definitions to support my observations. You would be right and I wouldn’t be the first to do that.

Often the only way to come to an understanding of words is to quote them in context. Not just within their sentence but with verses that precede and follow. Writers are often limited with a number of options to try and paint a picture or relate an emotion. But what happens when you cannot find words in scripture which pulls those thoughts together into evidence that it came from God and not our vain imagination? Such is my dilemma today.

The two words I spoke of earlier are dwell and abide. You will see that these two words are so close in meaning that they are often interchangeable. One of the definitions of dwell is abide. So why did these two words haunt me day and night for days? There is literally no difference between the two. If I were to select passages to make this point I would fail. These are definitions I did find.

Dwell, to sit, sit down.

Abide, to pass the night.

Dwell tells me I am set in place, where I am, in the circumstances which do not change until I move on. You can dwell in new places with new circumstances, but you are still subject to geography, history and society.

Abide tells me that the darkness is passing over me. While life goes on outside, I am in a place of security, knowing that I am not subject to all that is going on outside. Perhaps the only difference between dwell and abide is my perception, my attitude, and a hope that is not drawn from self.

John 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Acts 7:58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.

We spoke yesterday about the cloaks representing the appearance of righteousness. I see irony in this verse because laying their cloaks at Saul’s feet looks like them laying their trust in the way Saul walked. Saul became Paul and became the leading voice of following Christ. Paul wrote the bulk of the epistles in the New Testament.

I can think of no one who has made more drastic change in beliefs than Saul of Tarsus. He persecuted the early church and was on the road to Damascus to put more Christians to death when he met Jesus. He ended up dying himself for the faith he preached.

My dad was a heavy smoker for decades. When he quit he became the loudest advocate for quitting. He didn’t want smokers in the house because their cloaks stunk of smoke. You couldn’t see it, but the stink was obvious to him. Irony? Not really, his attitude did not lead anyone that I knew to quit smoking.

Zealots preach to people who already agree with them. They change no ones minds. Saul was a zealot, Paul was an apostle. Zealots follow their own passions, apostles proclaim the passions of the One who sent them. Our conversion will not move people if we approach them with the same zeal we had as sinners. Their response will be justified; “You’re the same old guy with a new passion.”

The new creation reflects the creator not the corpse.

Matthew 9:16 No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.