Back in the 1970s Peter Jenkins grew disillusioned with life, and decided the cure for this would be to walk across the United States. Halfway through his trip, he met Barbara Jo Pennell in Louisiana and asked her to marry him.
They hadn’t known one another very long at all; just a few weeks. Understandably she had her doubts about him. But one Sunday at church, the sermon was on the story of how Abraham’s slave went to find a wife for Isaac, found Rebekah, and concluded it was the L
I read this story in the National Geographic, where he first published “A Walk Across America” in two parts; it later
No, I don’t believe every coincidence is really God.
It certainly was a useful coincidence for Jenkins—and for any man who’s desperately trying to convince a woman to marry him, and she believes in signs. In fact if he’s clever, he’ll slip the preacher a $20 and ask her to say a bunch of sign-like things in her sermon. Like “Will you go with this man?” and “Be not afraid” and “I am my beloved’s and he is mine” and so forth. You can manufacture signs, y’notice.
As can Satan.
Looking for signs in nature, and interpreting nature as if you can find signs in it, is a very, very old practice. Predates Christianity. It’s called
Signs, signs, everywhere signs.
Ancient pagan gods didn’t talk to their worshipers. Of course they didn’t; they’re not really gods! But even so, the worshipers desperately wanted to hear from their gods. In any way they could.
So the ancient Greeks and Romans invented methods to interpret nature. Some of their customs passed down to the present day, and became
Pagans came up with a very detailed system of which events meant what messages. The priests who specialized in interpreting these signs were called
Roman augurs were known for watching the way birds flew. If they flew in a group it meant one thing. If they flew alone it meant another. If they made noises, or not; if they flew right or left, soared or swooped, ascended or descended; if they were eagles or ravens or owls or woodpeckers (and which bird’s activity outweighed which other bird’s activity): All these things were interpreted as good or bad omens, as divine pleasure or displeasure. And that’s just birds. Don’t forget augurs also interpreted the weather and the stars.
When an animal was sacrificed to the gods, augurs of different religions would examine the sacrifice: How the animal died, how the blood spattered, what the internal organs or entrails looked like. If you threw the bones, or dropped parts of the sacrifice onto a tray, how they landed might mean something too.
They’d interpret the weather or cloud patterns. They’d interpret the way bones or dice or joss sticks were thrown. They interpret how the tea leaves look in the bottom of a cup. Or how the lines in your hand connect with one another. Or which tarot cards were picked in a deck. Or where the planets are located in relation to the constellations.
Yep, people still practice augury.
But like Ecclesiastes points out, not everything has a meaning. Augurs are trying to extrapolate meanings from random things and lucky coincidences… and trying to deduce meaning from things which are essentially meaningless. How a deck of cards shuffle means nothing. How a dice falls is random. How the planets line up with the stars from our perspective is easily predictable… but why these stars and these planets? You realize we’ve discovered dozens of planets the ancients knew nothing about (i.e. Ceres, Neptune, Pluto, Eris) and if astrology is valid, the influence of these planets is going completely ignored? Every astrologer is committing malpractice.
Omens in the bible.
Some Christians defend their augury by pointing to the bible and claiming, “Well they did it.” And in fact… there are some instances where it appears they did.
The L
If you find this idea bothersome, so did
Yeah, that sounds iffy to me too. The Pharisees’ theory was offered several generations after the practice discontinued, so we don’t know how accurate it is. But it certainly sounds more like revelation than pulling rocks out of a box.
My own theory: The priest did hear God and did get an answer from him. But you always gotta
We likewise know Aaron and Eleazar, Israel’s first two head priests, heard the L
Omens and guesswork.
Here we get to the important distinction between omens and
When a mirror cracks, and you can’t deduce why it cracked, it’s not automatically “a sign.” Sign of what? Sign of seven years’ bad luck? It’s certainly not bad luck for those who make mirrors and replacement glass. Far more likely it’s a sign of a poorly made mirror, or frame, or vibrations in the building, or that one of the kids broke it and didn’t tell you, or that you broke it and hadn’t noticed. What’s not likely is it means you’re about to lose a job, someone’s gonna die, one of your investments will fail, or your football team will lose this weekend.
Ancient augurs worked out their interpretations well in advance. They wrote books about what flying birds or entrail splatters meant. No god told them, “Here’s what these things mean”; they figured out these meanings on their own. Just like when astrologers deduce what it means when Mercury is in one constellation, or Jupiter in another.
But when Christians try to read signs, or deduce omens, we tend to make interpretations on the fly. Usually based on what we fear.
Here’s a testimony I’ve heard far too often: Someone was wondering God’s will, and happened to come across a billboard, or a voice over the radio, or a passage in the bible, or something which pointed them one way or another. They didn’t know whether to buy a house, but today’s devotional reading happened to be about taking hold of the things of God, so they took ahold of that house. Or, conversely, they decided this house wasn’t one of the things of God, so they didn’t buy it.
Y’see the problem? The “sign” simply nudged ’em in the direction they were already going. They were hesitant, but they were looking for any excuse to say yes or no, and the omen gave them that excuse. Interpretation was entirely up to them. Not God.
And now if things go wrong—as occasionally they will—they’ll blame God.
Compare augury with legitimately hearing from God. When we ask God, “What sign will you give me to prove you told me yes?” God tells us precisely what signs to look for. That’s the difference between revelation and augury: God assigns the meaning to these signs, not us. No guesswork necessary. That’s revelation.
Further, God’s signs tend to not be commonplace. Other than rainbows being a reminder God doesn’t plan to flood the planet again,
But this sign was given to them. They weren’t casually walking home one night, happened to see a baby in a manger, and leapt to weird conclusions. They were told, “Messiah is born, and the sign this is true is a baby in a manger.” The sign didn’t come before the interpretation; it came after. God’s signs usually come after.
Yes, sometimes before; like when he gives weird dreams which need interpreting. Or when people see a mysterious hand writing on the wall,
Because guesswork means we invented the meaning. Not God.
Christians who practice augury.
As you know, not every Christian realizes,
Well, if you don’t believe God speaks, you’re invariably gonna start looking for other signs of God’s will
If you’re wise, you’ll realize this is what you’re doing and stop it. But if you’re desperate, you’ll do it anyway, and not care.
For the naysayers, who insist God could, if he really wanted to, work through an omen on someone who wouldn’t listen to him any other way: Yeah, if God really wanted to, he can do whatever he wants. I’ve met Wiccans who came to Jesus as a result of God using omens to get their attention. But these are extreme cases. Usual cases are revelation, like when an angel appeared to Cornelius,
Speaking of the magi. I’ve known Christians who say since God spoke to them through astrology,
So we Christians don’t have to resort to astrology or augury. God speaks to us. Plus we have bible, prophets, miracles, theophanies, and all sorts of legitimate communiques from God. We have certainty, not guesswork. Why resort to guesswork?
