Wadis you talking about, Jesus?

Looking at Matthew 7:24-27, I think this is another instance of Jesus pointing out the obvious. Whoever hears my words and does them is wise, like a builder who builds on stone. Whoever hears them and doesn't obey them is an idiot, like the guy who builds his house on the sand.

One of the things about scripture that I both equally like and hate is that it is so fixed in the history where it originated. I like it, because it rings so true. There's a grittiness, a realness about it. The stories make sense in their context. What I hate about it is that I'm not a part of that context. I don't immediately identify with the situations. I don't put what people are saying into their proper contexts. I miss so much, just because I am separated by so much time and space from those situations.

Jesus is talking to people in the middle east. It is a place of rocks and sand and homes that look infinitely different than the one I live in. When Jesus talks to them, they immediately have the context to put this story into. I do not. However, I think through some time and research, I've come to a reasonable conclusion at what is happening in this story.

There are, in Israel, what are called wadis. Essentially, these are flood plains. Floods are never predictable, nor are they consistent. It can be years in between. But I get the feeling, that if you grew up in that part of the world, you'd be familiar with them, and you'd know the areas that would generally be flooded.

Jesus says the wise man built his house on the rock. I'm going to assume that he built it there because he is wise, not that he is wise because he built it there. If you know the area, you know what can happen, you know where not to build a house. The wise man looks for a good spot, builds a good house, and when the rain comes, the house stands.

I'm going to assume that the foolish man built his house on the sand because he is foolish, not that he is foolish because he built it there. If you know the area, you know what can happen, you know where not to build a house. The foolish man either doesn't heed the warnings, doesn't do his research, or just plain doesn't care and figures it's no big deal or that he'll get away with it.

In both cases, they know better. One does something about it. One doesn't. Jesus is saying that once we've heard His words, then we know better. We are either wise (for obeying) or foolish (for not), but we cannot claim ignorance any longer.

Understanding a little about the people Jesus is talking to, and the area they live in helps me immensely. I see Him speaking into the lives of those people. Sometimes, I think we expect Jesus' words to come off as these universal words of wisdom that we should all instinctively get right away. But that's not the case. He's not talking to me. He's talking to them. And by understanding what He is trying to say to them, and what they are taking away from it, that helps me to understand how I can apply it to me.

One of the reasons I like this section of scripture is because I heard a story once of how it this story was misunderstood by a tribal people in (if I remember correctly) Papua New Guinea. They couldn't make any sense of it, because what Jesus was saying was totally backwards. Only fools build their homes on the rocks. The good place to build a home is on the sand. That's because those tribal people built these homes with long pole stilts sunk into the sand as a base. A house built on rocks could not have those poles sunk into the sand for stability. That house would topple over with the first storm that came by. These people would never have been able to figure this story out if the background context wasn't given to them alongside of the scripture.

Too often I hear, "all we need is the scripture", but that's the case. We need the history, the customs, the atlases. Without these things, we can't fully appreciate what's going on. Yes, we can get by without them, but the scriptures are so much fuller if we understand them in their proper context.