I want to tell you about a little problem I have. I love my wife, Elsie, very dearly, but I'm getting quite a complex. In an argument, she always has the upper hand and I can never win because she can quote scripture so well. In fact, every time she says anything, she quotes a scripture - and I mean verbatim, word for word, from the King James Version, no less! For example, I'll tell you about a day one summer when our children, Amy and Randy, were young. (D = Don, E = Elsie, A = Amy, and R = Randy)

I was working on the roof of my house it was hot, and I came in to get a drink of water. Elsie was in the kitchen cooking super.

E: "Let him which is on the housetop not come down!" (Matthew 24:17)
D: "But…"
E: "Shake off the dust of your feet." (Matthew 10:14)
D: "OK, OK, but I just came in to get a drink of water!"
E: "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine." (1 Timothy 5:23)
D: "Whatever." And I started to reach for the wine.
E: "Cleanse your hands! Be ye clean, that bear the vessels!" (James 4:8; Isaiah 52:11)
D: "My hands are clean enough to pour a drink!"
E: "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh!" (2 Corinthians 7:1)
D: "Your hands aren't always perfectly clean."
E: "Behold my hands and my feet!" (Luke 24:39)
D: "I'm a very clean person! In fact, I can clean house as well as any woman. I've
cleaned toilets, I've mopped, I've waxed floors…!"
E: "men…shall wax worse and worse!" (2 Timothy 3:13)
"Every man at his best state is altogether vanity!" (Psalm 39:5)
"Women shall rule over them!" (Isaiah 3:12)
D: (I saw it was no use arguing over that). "What's for supper?"
E: "Bread and pottage of lentils." (Genesis 25:34)
D: "Oh, no, not lentils again!"
E: "Man shall not live by bread alone." (Matthew 4:4)
D: "Yes, yes, I know. Say, can I taste your bread?"
E: "Touch not, taste not, handle not!" (Colossians 2:21)
D: "Aw, come one, can't I just have a taste?"
E: "Use not vain repetitions!" (Matthew 6:7)
D: "But I'm hungry!"
E: "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst." (Matthew 5:6)
D: "But not all the time! I work hard, and I have a right to eat in my own home!"
E: "All the labour of man is for his mouth! (Ecclesiastes 6:7)
D: "Why won't you give me something to eat?"
E: "Thou gavest me no kiss." (Luke 7:45)
"Husbands, love your wive!." (Ephesians 5:25)
D: "Well, I'll make up for that right now. How about a kiss?"
E: "There's a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing." (Ecclesiastes 3:5)
D: (So then I got mad and said I was going back to my corner of the housetop.)
E: "It is not good that man should be alone." (Genesis 2:18)
(Just then Amy and Randy came into the house.)
E: "Put off thy shoes from thy feet!" (Acts 7:33)
"Anoint thine head, and wash thy face." (Matthew 6:17)
(Then Randy pulled a frog out of his pocket to show his mother.)
E: "Touch not the unclean thing!" (2 Corinthians 6:17) "Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby!" (Leviticus 11:43)
(So Randy put the frog outside.)
E: "Go and wash in Jordan seven times!" (2 Kings 5:10)
R: "Is that all?"
E: "Ye also ought to wash one another's feet." (John 13:14)
R: "I don't think so."
D: "Elsie, don't you think you are overreacting?"
E: "Except they wash, they eat not." (Mark 7:4)
D: "Kids, your mom is upset because she thinks we didn't do a god enough job of washing the dishes last night."
E: "Woe unto you! Ye make clean the outside fo the cup and of the platter, but within?!" (Matthew 23:25) "All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes!" (Proverbs 16:2)
"Repent in dust and ashes!" (Job 42:6)
A: "Mom, what was that in my sack lunch today?"
E: "Locusts and wild honey." (Mark 1:6)
A: "Oh, gag! How many more times will I have to eat that?"
E: "An hundred forty and four thousand." (Revelation 14:1)
A: "Oh, no! Well, what will I have for lunch tomorrow?"
E: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat." (Matthew 6:25)
A: "But the other kids think I'm weird when I bring things like locusts for lunch!"
E: "All these things are the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24:8)
"Do all things without murmurings and disputings." (Philippians 2:14)
"And having food and raiment let us be therewith content." (1 Timothy 6:8)

Well, we quit arguing then. You see, it's no use when someone can quote scripture like that! Most of the time we're real happy, and Elsie takes good care of us. In fact, she surprised us that evening with more than just the bread and lentils. She added fish and cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic. Because those are some more Bible foods. (Numbers 11:5) And when we sat down to eat, she said:
"Eat, drink, and be merry!" (Luke 12:19)