The Story of Soap

(Susie, wonderful mother-in-law to my daughter, this is for you.)

Disclaimer: The following may or may not be how it actually happened, but I like the story.

Years ago, our homeschool group went to a soap-making company and learned how soap was made. While I'm sure the chemical process is somewhat more complicated, the basic process is that lye and tallow heated together become soap. That's all the chemistry you need to know for the story.

While we were there, I wondered aloud to the proprietor, "How did people ever figure out how to make soap in the first place?" This is what she told me.

Long ago, people used to go up to the mountaintop to make animal sacrfices to God. They would build altars of stone and build fires with wood underneath, and burn the animals. Much of the flesh would be burned off, but the fat would melt and drip down into the ashes. We get lye from wood ash. So over time, lye would develop, then the fat would drop down into the warm ashes and get stirred up and make a rudimentary soap. When the rain came, the soapy run-off would get into the streams and the people living downstream noticed that things got cleaner with water closer to the altars. Eventually they figured out why and refined the soap-making process.

Granted, this might be a stretch. BUT it does not change the fact that soap to cleanse the body is a by-product of the process God gave man to cleanse the soul. Years ago, when I related this story to my friend Dr. Root, he commented that it was very typical of God to be concerned about the WHOLE person.

I don't think of soap as just soap anymore. Whenever I wash my hands, I consider that the product I am using to stay healthy in the body is derived from a process that God designed to keep us healthy in the soul.

At this time of year, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Hebrews 10 tells us that the priests had to make sacrifices again and again, year after year, because the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away our sins, but we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Because of this, God says of us, "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more."

We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

Now, I dare you to wash your hands with soap and NOT think about the One who was sacrificed for you. and I dare you to wash your hands without giving thanks That because of His sacrifice, God remembers our sins no more!!