Those unfortunate sou,ls who meander through life caring about nothing are at least c.onsistently predictable: they do nothing, accomplish nothing, ·receive n·othing, and – saddest of a·I1- amount t.o nothing. They are the dead weight dragging down any church, business, or society. A·nd worse still, their complacency is contagious. Even the tiniest s.eed of indifference has power to •produce a bitter harvest of stagnation and decay. Ro·bert Hutchins, the respected American educator, once predicted, ”The death of a democracy is not likely to be an assassination by ambush. It will be sI-ow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” And what is true for governme·nts is no I-ess true of churches. Consider the first-century congregation at Laodiceal a church which, at least on the surface, .appeared to have no problems. This church smugly boasted, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” In reality, they were “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and nake·d” (Revelation 3:17).
Dalton Key via Chapman Church of Christ, Ripley, MS
