Sometimes the Status Quo is the Way to Go by Chris White

^" Do not move an ancient landmark
    or enter the fields of the fatherless"  --Proverbs 23:10

Proverbs 23:10 is a message for all of us.  In context it prescribes equity between neighbors and just treatment of the poor.  The old saying “people aren’t against you as much as they are for themselves” holds true here.  We all have a side to us that tends to want to arrange everything according to our own interests even if that means blurring the lines to do so.  In the ancient world, property was marked by boundary stones or landmarks.  These established normal property lines and determined what belonged to whom.  An incremental land theft could be made when a boundary marker was moved and in so doing the property owner on the receiving end of this was actually being robbed of their livelihood.  If the landowner is poor, their poverty is exacerbated.  A question worth asking here is why only ancient landmarks are mentioned and not new ones?  New ones still having living witnesses who can and will question any alterations in the lines.  Ancient ones, however, don’t have any living witnesses to defend them.  With no one alive who was part of the original decision and formulation, the present generation is easily tempted to take liberties according to their needs and desires now.  Obviously this moral value regarding real estate has a broader implication for any person or society.  Some things do need to be updated over time to fit current realities.  No one understands this better than pastors who are often torn between the pressure of staying current with a constantly changing society and the safety of “we’ve always done it that way”.  Both positions have their pluses and minuses.  But other boundaries need to be changed with extreme caution or not at all.  It seems especially true now where modern man is questioning the very foundations of human society such as marriage and family structure.  Behaviors which were once considered evil are being declared harmless, and that which was once aberrant is now normal.  Even now in America, matters that have long been constitutional rights are up for discussion and modification, while new rights are being ‘discovered’ that would have been utterly foreign to our nation’s founders.  What to do? Never question an ancient boundary?  Perish the thought!  The wisdom in this matter is to investigate why the boundary was set where it was long ago and who set it in the first place.  In some rare circumstances a change might be in order for antiquity alone is no guarantor of always being right.  But in most circumstances, if an honest inquiry is made without a particular bias for novelty or antiquity, good reasons will always be found for leaving the boundary marker right where we found it.