And lead us not in to temptation, but deliver us from evil…
1 Corinthians 14:20b “In regard to evil, be infants, but in your thinking be adults.”
1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put childish ways behind me.”
One of the best known prayers in all of Christianity is the Lord’s Prayer. It has been said that one could meditate on its intricacies for years and grown deeper in faith each day. I have always been intrigued by the phrase, “…deliver us from evil…” The passages above seemed to lead me in my reflections on this important phrase.
How are we to be like children in regard to evil? Perhaps the question is more one of ensuring that we are not practicing evil, simply because we are told it is wrong. When we were children we obeyed and followed the direction of parents, teachers and others without question. It was a matter of trust.
Perhaps that is what we need to be about today, trusting God and the Bible when it identifies something as evil, or sinful. Not going blindly without thought or reason, but taking seriously biblical admonitions and studying carefully the issue before we decide, “That no longer applies.”
Then I believe we would be like a child in regard to evil, not truly knowing it or worrying about it but living in the good. Yet, we are to think like adults. We are to think through those actions that are wrong and recognize that evil does exist.
We must also recognize that not everyone is good. Some are truly evil or insidiously so. During the time the SALT II treaty was implemented, Ronald Regan was quoted, “Trust everyone, but verify.”
We too must do what we can to protect others from evil. We can trust others to behave properly, but still have in place safeguards and consequences to protect society from those who are truly evil. We cannot live in a vacuum and erroneously believe that everyone is good. Yet we must always urge ourselves and others to turn from evil to God’s ways; even as we protect our selves and seek to reform our ways to bring our lives into accord with God’s will.
Merciful God, we are all sinners of your redeeming. Help us Lord, deliver us from evil and guide us as we seek to be children, with a clear sense of right and wrong in our lives. Grant us the reasoning of adults to make good choices in our lives. This we ask in the name of Christ our Lord. Amen.
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