All this news of the Gaza Strip has got me thinking about the Bible and manners. I think a great idea for a book would be drawing parallels from the Bible to real life modern day etiquette. For example, when the Three Wise Men bought incense and stuff to that barn where Jesus was born . . . it was nothing more than a hostess gift for Mary!
Being a savage heathen (i.e., Democrat), I really don’t know a lot about the Bible. But I do know that those chicks back then loved to wash guys’ feet. You know what I think that was all about? It’s today’s equivalent of polite flirting. Instead of whipping out the suds and towels, we wink, we twirl our hair, we even give them our phone number if we are either a) really drunk and b) convinced they aren’t serial killers. Back then, they didn’t have better beauty through science, or phone numbers, so they really had to work hard to get a guy’s attention. I can just see some ladies having cocktails one night and one of them saying, “What can we do to get these guy’s to notice us? Hey I know, let’s wash their feet.”
When Jesus made that fish and bread multiply to the point where he could feed a hungry crowd, I think he was showing the proper way to host a party. “Okay, I’ll feed you poor slobs this time, but get a hint. Next time you have me over for dinner, don’t ask me to bring my own Levin bread and wine.”
Take stoning as another example. Today, we just do an intervention when a friend has an annoying problem, like leprosy. “Dude, your face is falling off. Get some help.”
While the early Christians moved away from the whole “let’s sacrifice something,” trend, today we’ve circled back to that tradition. For example, W was mad because his daddy lost the first Gulf War, so he started a new one and sent soldiers in. There you go, sacrificial lambs.
Well, that’s all I can remember of the Bible from Sunday school, and God knows (no pun meant) that was ages ago. So if you can think of other parallels between the Bible and modern day etiquette, let me know.
