Do Bees and Don't Bees

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. – James 1v22 

Way back in the dim recesses of my memory I remember a children’s programme called Romper Room. By the time my family got a telly in the early 60’s I was a little too old for the target audience, but I remember my brothers and sisters watching it. One of the key characters was and large bumblebee called Mr Do Bee. Strangely enough Mr Do Bee came to mind as I read this verse this morning. 

Mr Do Bee had he job of reminding the boys and girls of thing they should be doing. “Do be a helper. Do be polite. Do be obedient,’ and so on. If Mr Do Bee were here today he would tell us ‘Do be a doer. Don’t be just a hearer.’

We need to be careful that we ‘do be doers’ in addition to hearers. We can read, study, meditate, memorise, discuss, debate, deliberate, hear, and listen all we want, but if we never do it we may think we are okay, but we are deceiving ourselves. I think it is interesting that it doesn’t say anything about deceiving other. We are only fooling ourselves if we think that being a Bible expert or a Bible scholar is enough.   

Romper Room also had a Mr Don’t Bee. While Mr Do Bee was the good guy and did all of the proper things Mr Don’t Bee epitomised the opposite. 

Do be a doer.

Don’t be a hearer only.

 A little catch phrase from Romper Room comes to mind – ‘Do be a Do Bee, don’t be a Don’t Bee.’ 

Are we Do Bees or Don’t Bees?