It isn’t about math
Math is a funny thing. It seems to me, our culture privileges things that can be numerically quantified. For example, no matter the issue you will undoubtedly be able to find an article that has some “X out of Y” or “Z%” in the headline. The way to remain unaffected by these numbers is to look for sources. If “Three out of four people prefer our product” is based on a sample size of eight and six people liked it . . . not convincing. If a clinical study had thousands of participants in a double-blind study which was published in a peer-reviewed journal . . . convincing.
Why am I talking about math? It isn’t to disrespect mathematics it is to remind us that math is good at measuring some things and not so good at measuring other things. Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” (Matthew 18:21 NRSV) It might seem at first that Jesus answers with numbers but we need to understand that in the context, when Jesus replies with “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22 NRSV), this is the functional equivalent of “a bazillion times.” In other words, stop counting there are bigger things at work here.
Blessings,
