Moving Ancient Landmarks

The weather’s too poor to walk to chapel and the ground too sodden. Nevertheless, the usual path takes us through a field which the farmer uses to store his old junk. There are various domestic equivalents in my house, so I do not deny him the same courtesy. There are some stacks of rusting metal, large concrete cylinders and a pile of old stones, some of which were carved and dressed many years ago. Indeed, some appear to be old gate posts, the holes for wooden attachments and bars still showing. One wonders why they were removed. Perhaps the fields were made larger or the use of modern machinery demanded wider entrances. As agricultural practice changes, so many of these ancient stones and markers become redundant.

 

Do not remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set.

Proverbs 22:28 

Our own society has dispensed with many old posts, stones and boundaries. As our once Christian culture morphs into a secular paganism, so the old ways and assumptions are dying out. Marriage, gender, sex and freedom of speech are all uprooted and fallen, heaped in decaying piles. New norms and symbols are erected in their place, as our brave new world without God redraws the frontiers of morality and acceptable behaviour. Little wonder we gospel-folk appear starkly old fashioned and anachronistic. 

Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it.Deuteronomy 19:14