MUSINGS

THE HONEYCOMB The many scriptural references to honey and the honeycomb make this a very instructive subject and it was good to learn more about it from some bee-keepers. One hive we saw had a removable back and, through glass, you could watch hundreds of bees in constant activity. There can be 80,000 bees in a hive, all working for the common good. They may fly two or three miles in their search for flowers and research has shown that, when they get back, they perform a kind of ‘dance’ which shows other bees the direction in which they have found a new source of food. They have wonderful ability to navigate accurately between the hive and the food gathering grounds. The mature bees do the gathering of nectar and pollen; the younger ones keep the cells clean, feed the larvae, and receive and store in the cells the food brought in by the foragers. Others build the cells of the honeycomb.

How many lessons we may learn in all this! Let us all be working for the common good, bringing in food as a result of individual labour. Then when the food is brought back, let us be like the bees who fill the cells with good things, building one another up, getting the truth into one another’s minds and affections, so that there is constant growth in intelligent affection for Christ. How pleasing to the Lord is such activity in the assembly—selfless working for the gain of all, and the production of a complete, finished structure, the honeycomb, filled with what He delights to appropriate. In Luke 23 He took it and ate before them. References in the Song of Solomon show what this means to Him—“Thy lips, my spouse, drop as the honeycomb; Honey and milk are under thy tongue” (Song of Songs 4: 11), and in Song of Songs 5: 1, “I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey”.

Let us be diligent in the workings of love so that localities may be marked by this sweetness for Christ, the more precious to Him because of all that has entered into its production. He delights both in the honeycomb and in the activity of love which secures it for Him.

FCM

Published by F. C. Mutton, 22 Christchurch Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 4QY, England Printed by C. Ellis, Billericay, Essex, England