A friend was helping me hang wallpaper. She took off her wedding ring and tied a string to the ring to make a plumb line. She said that it would help us to hang the the wallpaper straight as our vision and the walls could deceive us.A plumb line is a simple yet valuable tool to determine whether something is vertically straight. From the Latin word “plumbum”, meaning “lead”, a plumb line is a line with a weight attached to the bottom of the line. The force of gravity causes the the string to trace a straight, vertical line. Plumbers, masons, carpenters, surveyors, and landscapers all use this tool.This simple tool has been used in construction since ancient times. Jesus probably used a plumb line as a carpenter tool. References in the Bible are usually that of the Lord’s plumb line. This is in reference to how righteously people stand, or how upright their stand of God.Many of the prophets in the Old Testament warned the people about their crooked ways. Amos writes his conversation with the Lord about the people living
their own ways and not in the ways of the Lord in Amos 7:7-8.
with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord asked me, “What do you see Amos?” “A plumb line,” I replied. Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.”
top to bottom on a piece of paper. Then make a simple plumb line tool.
Demonstrate with the plumb line how the lines drawn by the child appeared to be
straight yet when compared to the plumb line they were crooked.Our thoughts of righteousness differ from those of God’s thoughts on righteousness.
The word “righteousness” occurs 277 times in the ESV. This word would be a good word study as an extension of the previous object lesson of the word plumb line.
If the verses mentioned earlier seem too overwhelming to incorporate in a study I suggest the following verses:
1 Samuel 26:23 “The LORD rewards every man according to his righteousness and his
faithfulness, for the LORD gave you into my hand today, and I would not put out
my hand against the LORD’s anointed.”
2 Titus 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, or reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”
Until the next truth sharing moment,
Cathy Jo Johnson