It Has Started Reaching People Who Were Not Even There

His daughter is fourteen and has an opinion about somebody she has met four times.

She would not be able to tell you where she got it. He would, if he were honest, and it took him about a year to work it out, and the answer is that she got it from about eleven small things over about nine years, none of which was a statement and none of which he intended.

It was a tone in a sentence. It was a silence at a particular moment. It was a way of saying a name. It was who he did not mention when he listed people. Nothing that could be quoted back at him and nothing he could deny.

And she now carries a thing about a person who has never done anything to her, from a situation that occurred before she could read, and she will very likely pass some of it on.

Hebrews has a warning about exactly this and the image is agricultural.

The verse is about looking rather than about feeling

Here is the passage, and the instruction that opens it is about attention.

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. (Hebrews 12:14-15, King James Version)

Looking diligently. That is the instruction, and it is an inspection word.

Not: feel differently about anybody. Not: resolve anything. Look, carefully, at what is present, which is exactly right for a thing that operates below the level of statements and cannot be found by consulting your feelings about it.

And the looking is described as being done for other people as well as for yourself, which is the whole shape of the passage: lest any man fail, and then thereby many be defiled.

You are given an instruction about looking rather than about feeling. Hebrews 12:15 says looking diligently, which is inspection rather than sentiment, and it is the Spirit who searches all things, 1 Corinthians 2:10, in exactly the region a person cannot inspect unaided.

A root does not stay where it is planted

Then the image, and it is chosen for one property.

Lest any root of bitterness springing up.

A root is underground, which is the first thing about it: nobody sees a root, and the thing that becomes visible later is not the root, it is what the root sent up.

And springing up is a growth word. Roots move. They travel sideways under ground, they come up in places nobody planted anything, and they come up in a neighbor's yard as easily as in your own, and by then nobody can trace which tree it belongs to.

That is precisely what happened between a man and his fourteen year old daughter. He did not plant anything in her. Something came up in her that has its root somewhere else entirely, and she has no idea, and neither did he for about nine years.

You are able to look for what came up rather than for what you feel. Hebrews 12:15 uses a root and a springing up, and it is by the Spirit, Galatians 5:22, whose fruit is named as His rather than as anything a person cultivates.

The word at the end of the verse is a plural

And then the clause everybody reads past, which is the actual warning.

And thereby many be defiled.

Many. Not: and thereby you be defiled. The warning is not primarily about the person carrying it, and that is unusual enough to be worth stopping at.

The whole verse is constructed to say that this particular thing does not stay where it is. It is the one item in the list that is described as having a reach beyond its owner, and Hebrews puts that in the sentence rather than leaving it to be inferred.

I find that clarifying and I find it uncomfortable, which is presumably the intention. A person can decide to live with something in themselves. It is a different decision when the verse tells you what it is doing to the people around you who had nothing to do with it.

You are able to see the reach of it, and Scripture put the plural in the sentence. Hebrews 12:15 ends with thereby many be defiled, and it is the Spirit who searches all things, 1 Corinthians 2:10, in a knowing that reaches what nobody has traced.

What Ezekiel says about inherited accounts

There is a verse that matters enormously here, because a person who has just realized their daughter carries something usually goes straight to fear about her.

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. (Ezekiel 18:20)

The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.

Whatever has been passed on, it has not been transferred as a verdict. It has been transferred as an attitude, which is a real and serious thing, and it is not a sentence on her.

That distinction matters because these two get confused constantly in a community like mine, where a great deal is understood to run in families. Something can genuinely travel down a family and still not be anybody's inheritance in the sense of a judgment.

And it means the fourteen year old is not carrying a fate. She is carrying an opinion she was handed, and opinions handed down are undone the same way they were built, in about eleven small things over some years.

You are not passing down a verdict, and God says so about fathers and sons directly. Ezekiel 18:20 says the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and it is by the Spirit of adoption, Romans 8:15, that a person's standing is settled individually rather than by descent.

The undoing is the same size as the building

Practically, and this is the part I would want said to me.

Nothing about this requires a conversation with a fourteen year old about a nine year old grievance. That conversation would be about the man rather than about her, and it would hand her the whole thing formally, which is worse than the eleven small items.

What it requires is the same mechanism running the other way. A tone. A name said normally. A person included in a list. Good news about that family received and enjoyed out loud where she can hear it.

That is why the physical action on this page is what it is, and why it has to be said out loud rather than resolved internally. The eleven items were audible. The undoing has to be audible too.

Nothing here asks anybody to contact the person or raise anything with somebody it is not safe to raise it with, and there is no timetable on any of it. If what happened is still happening, or if it has got to the place where you do not want to be here, say it out loud to a doctor, a counselor, a social worker, or a pastor you trust, and in the United States the 988 crisis line is answered by a real person at any hour.

You are able to undo it the same way it was built, out loud and in small pieces. Hebrews 12:14 puts following peace as an active pursuit rather than an attitude, and it is by the Spirit, Galatians 5:22, whose fruit is peace and gentleness rather than a decision.

Follow peace is a hunting word

The instruction at the top of the passage is worth returning to, because the verb is stronger than it looks in English.

Follow peace with all men.

The word behind follow is the one used for pursuing and chasing. It is the same root Paul uses when he describes his own persecution of the church, which tells you the energy level involved.

It is not: be peaceable. It is: go after peace, actively, the way somebody goes after a thing they intend to catch.

That is a much better instruction for a man who has discovered a root, because it gives him something to do that is not an emotion. Chasing is available on a Tuesday. Feeling differently is not.

You are given something to pursue rather than something to feel. Hebrews 12:14 uses a chasing verb about peace, and it is by the Spirit, Galatians 5:22, whose fruit peace is named as rather than as a product of a person's resolve.