“Old English idle ‘empty, useless’, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch ijdel ‘vain, frivolous, useless’ and German eitel ‘bare, worthless’” (My definition source is “Mr. Googlepants” online dictionary).

I found myself looking at Luke 24 early this morning.  My preferred way of reading, when I am alone, is aloud and slow. Taking each word or short phrase and chewing on them, looking for meanings and ways of approaching the passage. Today, using the same method, my mind began focusing on v. 11. “And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.” Who are the people in this story? There are several that are named, and others bunched into a group. Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James, are three that are named. There were other women with these three. We know that Peter and John were present, and it is possible that other apostles were as well. Get the picture? At least five women find Peter and the men with him, telling them breathlessly that Jesus is not in the tomb. Look at our verse again. “And their (the women) words seemed to them (the Apostles) as idle tales, and they believed them not.”

Idle tales: Words that are “empty, useless, frivolous, nonsense or madness.” Several questions entered my thoughts. Let me share three.

  1. Why were these words considered to be idle? Had not Jesus told them about the prophet Jonah? Had he not told them on several occasions about the resurrection? Yet here we have Peter, John and perhaps others dismissing these words as they were thinking about their next step. How many times do we read a portion of the Word only to treat it as “idle words?” We read, then promptly go right back to our own plans and blueprints. Nothing in the Bible is an “idle word.” Even those lists of names we call genealogies are not “idle words.” Each name was specifically placed in the Bible for a reason.
  2. Why were the words of these women considered to be idle? Christians can have tunnel vision. We have focused so hard on a single objective only to miss things of great importance. These Apostles did not even think about resurrection before these women brought the news of an empty tomb. Even then it was not believed initially. Do you get so focused on one thing that you miss important things? Perhaps the words were not considered because they were spoken by at least five hysterical women. That would have been the attitude of the society in which they lived. In the court system, a woman was not considered to be a credible witness. Jesus, in his life, elevated the status of women, making them to be a major force in the work of God. To this day, Christianity reveres godly women in the work of the Lord.
  3. What caused Peter to finally go see for himself? In my opinion, the ladies would not shut up about it. They were not going to be persuaded that what they knew to be true, was not. The squeaky wheel gets the oil is the old saying. Peter arrived and saw for himself and at once began to wonder about what had happened. The resurrection changed everything. It took a rag tag group of common men and a group of dedicated women and turned them into a group which turned the world upside down.

Are you serious when you read your Bible? Are you truly absorbing the Word when you hear it preached, taught, or sung? If we treat the Bible with anything other than respect and awe, then we simply by our practice declare the words to be “idle words.”