A New Devotion - The Myth of the Ice Cream Shop

Here's a new devotion that I wrote. You can find a recording of this devotion at the bottom of the page.

Romans 1:16-25

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "The one who is righteous will live by faith."

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

The Myth of the Ice Cream Shop

Have y’all ever heard the story of the kid who was hired to work in an ice cream shop? Well, according to the story, the owner of the shop allowed his new employee to eat as much ice cream as he wanted, knowing that he’d eat so much that he’d get sick and never want to eat ice cream again. Now, that’s the story in a nutshell, but frankly, I have my doubts. I mean, first, since a kid can eat a lot of ice cream even in a day, it doesn’t sound like good business. And second, not every kid is a glutton. If he stopped eating just south of nausea, he’d be free to eat ice cream everyday. And third, even if it worked, why would the owner of an ice cream shop want an employee to hate ice cream? That would seem to create a PR problem. In my opinion, a better way to control ice cream consumption would be to say, “If you eat any ice cream without my permission, you’re fired.” To me, that makes sense, and so I serious doubt the apocryphal story I’ve personally heard so often.

But having said this, according to Paul, that’s really what God did with humanity. Although all people have this inner sense of God and can tell the difference between right and wrong, we like to do things our way. Therefore, rather than looking to God for direction, we focus on ourselves to determine what’s appropriate and what’s not. In this sense, we trust the creature rather than the creator. Of course, that gets us into big trouble. But instead of forcing us to do things his way, God let’s us trust ourselves and of course pay the consequences. Now, for Paul, this aspect of human nature is at the core of sin, a reality that binds us until the coming of Jesus Christ.