When it comes to evil, be an infant

1 Corinthians 14:20

When it comes to evil, be an infant.  Paul echoes the second half of Job’s pivotal, two-part, life-changing verse on how to begin standing up under the weight of life: shun evil. Evil is base.  Basic.  Evil concepts, attitudes, and behaviors are the most readily detectable and therefore avoidable spirits of one’s soul. Like the ground is more familiar than the stars; such is man's lowness more familiar than his heights. And for the man reborn; the Job who lifts his eyes from the ashes into new life;  who innocently crawls towards his bipedal humanity: though he may not yet understand all that is good…all that is truth…at least he understands (without being told and from the beginning) what is lie; what is evil.
But beyond evil, when it comes to thinking, be an adult.  Paul encourages that when one comes across a challenging and paradoxical concept in one’s life--in one’s theology, in one’s psychology, in one’s religion, in one’s spirit-- and thinks, Man, I don’t like to think about that!   I don’t want to go there! :  don’t shun it.  That is exactly where one must go.  Otherwise at the crossroads of indecision, the moment one selects the path he prefers, he rejects all others.  And Paul, the once great and mighty hand of judgement for well-worn pavement, reminds us that walking along unwanted paths and in fields that are “not mine” is the one who stumbles upon buried treasure.  Again and again, within deeply mined quarries scarred with years of excavation,  it is among the rejected where the cornerstone is found.   Go there to build temples.