5th March 2019

I failed Question 7 of the IQ test that my son brought home from school. But I’ve not the least doubt that it was the book’s fault! Let me explain. Said the question: “Insert the word that completes the first word and starts the second. (Clue: Leave.) I N (…) T E R.” The answer is LET, forming INLET and LETTER, and LET meaning ‘Leave’, but I thought that the clue was giving information about the two outer words. And so with a cup that runneth over with humble pie, I have accepted the fact that I have an IQ of 35.

It got me thinking however about a test for calculating one’s Easter IQ. In the same style as the question above: “Insert the word that completes the first word and starts the second. (Clue: Consider.) R  E (….) E R.” Well of course the answer is DEEM, to give the two words, REDEEM and DEEMER; the first meaning to buy back, and the second meaning a judge or adjudicator, and DEEM meaning ‘Consider’.

And that’s the Easter story, isn’t it? The Judge of all the earth deems his Son to have paid, by his blood, the full price of the penalty due to our sin, and is willing and gracious to use that price to apply redemption to all who look to him for forgiveness and salvation. What a glorious message that is, and what a relief that a person doesn’t need an IQ of 140 to believe it.

DM 5^th March 2019