The kind of stuff folks just don't want to know about...
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail there is a classic scene set during the height of the Black Plague. Dejected government workers are pulling a cart through the street crying, “Bring out your dead!” Somebody is trying to throw an old man onto the cart who keeps protesting “I’m not dead yet!”
Which leads us to Clue #3 for the quadruple entendre meanings behind the name of this blog:
The phrase "Leave the the dead to bury their dead" is found hidden in one of Jesus' most famous puns (substantial proof, contrary to popular opinion, that making puns is not a sin.)
This gives the word "dead" two of my intended quadruple entendre meanings in one sentence! He means, "Don't waste your time on the spiritually dead or the physically dead. You can't do either kind any good. Focus on those who will hear."
But, being of soft heart and similar mind, I've wondered,
"Er, what if they're not dead yet?"
I got it backwards. Jesus patiently explains (John 3:5-7) that we are all born spiritually dead and we’ll stay that way unless we are born a second time spiritually ... something He goes on to say can only be accomplished One Way.
Thus, we have a pun cast as a paradox wrapped in a riddle:
Those who are born once, will die at least twice.
Those who are born twice, will die at most once.
I'll leave the unravelling of that mystery to this, almost correct,
thought-provoking discussion, and finally get to my point:
“What if someone we care about is not yet permanently dead spiritually?"
(Spiritual death is not permanent until physical death ends your last chance.)
To save my own skin from an impending disaster, as pondered profoundly in Post 002, I might give up on warning people who remain dead asleep (ostriches that "just don't want to know") if I'm confident they will only die once. But do I dare give up on someone for whom that same event would mean locking in a permanent second death? (i.e. Should I risk a temporary first death on the slight chance I can save someone from a permanent second death?)
How long should I delay my own flight to safety sittin' up with the spiritually dead?
Turns out, its a difference without a distinction: God knows which is which, but I don't. So whatever the answer is, I'm forced to apply any proposed give up and bug out rule uniformly for everybody.
Cue the Jeopardy think music:
The correct questions, Alex, are:
How long did Lot wait before bugging out of Sodom and Gomorrah?
How long did Noah wait before sealing up his Ark?
Rats.
I was afraid of that.