Bibles & Bathtubs

“Statistics have proven that there are 25 bathtubs sold to every Bible.” – Will Rogers

I’m not sure when Will Rogers said that or where he got his information. My best guess is that it was sometime during the height of his fame in the 1920s and 1930. As for the source of his information, I think Will may have made it up to entertain his audience.

Regardless of its derivation, there is a deeper spiritual meaning behind Will’s words and Jesus expounded upon it in Mark 7:1-23. When the Pharisee criticized His disciples for eating bread with unwashed hands, Jesus defended His followers while dressing down the Pharisees for their hypocrisy. Quoting Isaiah 29:13, He lambasted them for honoring God with their lips, but not with their hearts. Jesus also accused them of elevating the traditions and teachings of man to the same level as the doctrines and commandments of God.

He then gave them a crash course in Human Anatomy and Physiology as well as Theology 101…

“Are you still so dull?” He asked. “Do you not understand? Nothing that enters a man from the outside can defile him, because it does not enter his heart, but it goes into the stomach and then is eliminated.” (Thus all foods are clean.) He continued: “What comes out of a man, that is what defiles him. For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness. All these evils come from within, and these are what defile a man.”

Jesus reinforced this biblical truth at the Last Supper when He was modeling servant-leadership by washing His disciples’ feet. When Peter refused to allow Jesus, His Lord and Master, to stoop so low, Jesus admonished him by saying, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.”

In that case, Peter replied, “not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!”

Of course, Jesus was referring to an inner cleansing of one’s soul, not an outward washing of one’s body. But Peter and the other disciples would learn that lesson in the days to come as Jesus went to the cross and then rose victoriously from the grave.

Perhaps E.A. Hoffman asked the question best in his immortal hymn, Are You Washed in the Blood?...

Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless?
Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President