It’s important how we define a word and how we use it. Looking at a word or phrase the way we’ve always looked at it isn’t necessarily the same way the Lord wants us to look at it. We need to be absolutely sure our words are used correctly.
Several years ago, my sister took all of us who worked for her travel agency to Little Rock for supper. I was in the front passenger seat while she drove. Three ladies sat in the back.
Conversation part 2 follows.
Don’t look for conversation part 1. There isn’t one. Two reasons: (1) part 1 was not as important as part 2, and (2) I have no memory of part 1.
So picking up in the middle of the conversation, the girl in the middle of the backseat said, “Oh, that’s awful. Yeah, I knew this guy once who was riding his motorcycle through a cornfield, and he ran into a concubine, and it poked his eye out.”
Crickets.
I said, “You mean combine, right? He ran into a combine?”
She replied emphatically, “No! He ran into a concubine, and it poked his eye out!”
I said, “Well, um, in the Bible, a concubine was a kind of second wife. She wasn’t actually a wife, though. Didn’t have the status of a wife. She was more like a servant usually, who was around if the man of the house wanted extramarital dalliances. King Solomon had, like, hundreds of them.”
Crickets.
She asked, “So what’s a combine?”
Children, take heed. Consider this critical warning carefully: stay away from concubines; they’ll poke your eye out.
