From my position at Central, overseeing the weekend worship services and our online presence, in addition to writing this blog for the better part of a decade, I have had experience after experience in being surprised by things people say. Honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised anymore. I’ve heard a wide spectrum of people’s opinions about just about everything. Yet every now and then I’ll hear something else that will cause me to pause and reflect. Consider a comment I got on my blog this week on a post I wrote back in 2010:

“Take your piety elsewhere.”

That was all it said. I had to laugh at the brevity and bluntness. Granted, I don’t think this guy is a regular reader of my blog and I’m not sure how he stumbled onto that post from years ago. Regardless, he felt the need to leave his opinionated response. Now piety simply means reverence or devotion to God in its basic sense, but can also be used to represent spiritual arrogance (which I’m guessing my commenter was implying). I had a number of reactions to his comment:

• Where else should I take my piety if I can’t have it on my blog???
• Does my piety fit better somewhere else?
• Am I really pious?
• Is it pious to call someone pious for a book review (which was the original post)?
• What was the point of the comment? To get me to stop blogging? To simply voice complaint?

Like it or not, this is our world. Anyone can leave their opinion in a comment on a blog (and anyone to share their opinions on their own blog). I’m the first to see the tremendous value in all of this (which is why I helped start this). But we must all realize that in this world of shared opinions, not all opinions are helpful. Honestly, I’ve met far too many people who are destructively consumed with their opinions about everything. Their dissatisfaction leads to more dissatisfaction with both themselves and others. In this digitally empowered world don’t forget that not all opinions are equally valid. Look for ones that are actually helpful in one way or another and try to be the type of person with those kinds of opinions. And if you want to be pious you’ll have to go somewhere else. Evidently my blog has enough piety for us all.

Do You Want to Read the Bible Without Falling Behind?

Sign up your email and I’ll send you a PDF to download and use my custom-made reading plan system. There’s no way to fall behind on this system and every day will be different no matter how long you use it!

I’ll send future content directly to your inbox AND you can dive into the Bible like never before.

---

Download Your Free Copy

---