What Questions Do I Ask?



My Goodly Heritage

 Heritage. How do you define that?

In worship service one morning, I gave testimony of how the responsive reading reminded me to be grateful for God-given heritage (the passage had included the clause, "I have a goodly heritage.") When I was done, a person sitting behind me nudged me, asking me if she had the right reference (Ps. 16:6). Yes, that was it. She looked perplexed, as if she didn't know how in the world I could've gotten that thought from that verse.


Psalm 16:1-8

I looked at her Bible. No wonder. The Japanese rendering for "heritage" was ゆずりの地, an expression referring to the inherited property, the land; and that is an accurate use there in context with the first part of the verse referring to the way the land was alloted. I need to check my Japanese translation a little more carefully before opening my mouth and talking about the scripture "we just read." And I should have referred back to the verse just before it, where it clearly says (in Japanese too): "the LORD is the portion of my inheritance".

Isn't it great though, that that was her response: it was not to the speaker's hairdo, not to the style of speech, not even to the personal experience shared, but to the Bible TEXT. That church member is pretty outspoken; she makes it pretty clear what's important to her. I wonder, what kind of questions do I ask?