About Nothing

(Adapted from an article by  Peter Wade)

About nothing, one may think, nothing can be said, but Plato would disagree; he said “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is, that I know nothing.” Around 1600 Shakespeare wrote a famous play, “Much Ado About Nothing.” And you may remember a show a few years ago, called Seinfeld, which was summed up in this way in the last episode, “it was a show about nothing.” Ask someone what they are doing, the answer comes back, “nothing.”  A modern author has written, “If you have nothing, then you have everything, because you have the freedom to do anything, without the fear of losing something.”  It does look like an unlikely subject for a teaching, but in this sharing, we want to follow this word, nothing in the Bible and see where it is used and if there is some form of practical application.

In the New Testament, in the King James New Testament believe it or not, there are 115 “nothings!”

(teaching was blank between 10:58 - 12:28, below is the text of the missing portion)

Finally, one more verse, the nothing of self assessment. Paul wrote, “…For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works” (II Corinthians 12:11b-12). The Message Bible reads, “You know from personal experience that even if I’m a nobody, a nothing, I wasn’t second-rate compared to those big-shot apostles you’re so taken with.” It is dangerous to believe your own publicity!