They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
- 2 Timothy 3:6-7
The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”
- Exodus 4:11-17
Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
- Proverbs 1:8
When I was in college, over fifty years ago, a professor surprised us one day. He gave each of us a bag of candy-coated chocolates. It was in the company’s “dark” period in that the red dye that they used was considered bad for your health and they eliminated the red candies, my favorite.
The professor told us to not open the bag until he gave his instructions. We were to count how many of each color. We were then instructed to decide how the bagging process worked. Basically, the question was how much brown candies were made by the process versus the green or yellow.
We wrote down how many of the different colors: Green, Yellow, Blue, Orange, Brown and Tan. Some had more green than brown, but most of those in the class had about twice as many brown candies as anything else. With each of our small sample sizes, being a small bag, the sample size was too small to figure out how the process worked. But, when we added everyone’s result, we found that the brown was about twice as much as the other colors. All the colors were about the same, except there were very few tan ones. He then said that there were no brown candies at all nor were there any tan candies. No one dared ask why.
Probably the brown was a blend of dyes. My first construction project when I went into the Army was to put the finishing touches on a veterinarian clinic that was attached to a monster dog kennel. The kennel held over sixty guard dogs, with some trained to sniff explosives and others trained to sniff drugs. With the money spent teaching the dogs, we had to treat them well. Since this was in Germany, we decided to create the look of an old German home with an outer stucco wall and dark brown rafters that were exposed. But we simply inlaid straps of wood to make it look like rafters, but the Facilities Engineer had no brown paint. We took yellow and red and made orange paint, we then added green until it looked the shade of brown we wanted. We had to be very careful. The Facilities Engineer gave us only one shot to get it right or we had to pay for the paint out of our pocket. My platoon sergeant and I returned to the site with the brown paint, the platoon jeered us for having too much fun playing around while they were hard at work. The final result was impressive.
As for the tan, it was probably from the dye vat being low.
But he said that the process line used the same number of feeders for each color. This also confused us, and he offered no explanation. Since then, I have worked with a variety of solid material feeders, most of them working with weight control. The feeder was usually a flat plate that vibrated. The tilt was based on the weight of material on the plate, thus, what dropped on the feeder belt was the right ‘recipe’ for what was needed. Thus, back to the candies. Sure, there was the same number of feeders, but the brown, or chocolate color, was set for twice the production rate. And my Psychology class would have said that there are those out there who would never consider eating a chocolate that was not chocolate color, thus the candy company was biased in that direction. But, wow, how those people with that hangup are missing out!
Why do this reverse engineering based upon a bag of candies? The professor wanted us to think. He taught in riddles because he was not going to be there when the equipment broke down the third day we were on the job after graduation. We had to figure out the solution on our own. We easily understood the small sample size throwing off conclusions, but the mechanical issues took some time.
Yet, I have been compelled to count the colors in the bag ever since, especially since red had returned.
But for another experiment, look at the photo above. What color seems to be dominant? It depends on what you are looking for. If you look for blue, there are a lot of blue candies. If green, a lot of green. The same for yellow and orange. If your eyes prefer darker colors, you will see more brown. If lighter colors, more yellow.
But then, the plastic jug was half empty. Forget this half full, half empty psychology garbage. It took me a month and a half, eating one hand full of candies a day to reach the bottom. Once I started, it never got “more full.” But my point is that the photo shows less than ten percent of what was left in the jug. And by that point, blue candies were in the lead with red and orange more than the other three. But red seems to be falling behind in the photo. Again, a small sample size that can throw off your conclusions.
After a month and a half of collecting delicious data, what was the result? Blue: 401, Orange: 367, Red: 341, Brown: 333, Green: 325, Yellow: 315. Only one handful was void of a single color, oddly, it was blue. But when you look at percentages, the numbers are not far off with Blue having a strong lead, 19%, and the rest being between 17% and 15%.
I have used little bags of colored candies in a course on statistical analysis, teaching process control inspectors what an acceptable range of deviation was in their product.
So, with just what we have discussed. You cannot determine a lot if the sample size is too small. In fact, you could draw a wrong conclusion.
But how does this fit into our lives? Have you ever learned something from a Sunday school class that stuck with you the rest of your life? I can still remember going into the pastor’s office, the curtains were drawn, and the lights went out. The globe on the pastor’s desk had a luminescence to it, and the Congo was left dark, to signify the “deepest, darkest” regions of Africa. National borders have changed since then, but there is still need for missionaries to go into those “dark” places and show the Light of Jesus. Odd, how the country that our senior class wanted to evangelize was Borneo. But really, the last person on earth that needs to hear the Gospel may be your friend next door.
The first Scripture talks about always learning, but never understanding. There are a lot of those who cannot seem to take the lesson from their head and apply it to their heart. But that is not our job other than to keep showing them love, correcting them when possible, especially if they hurt others. But we all teach. You may not think you do, but when you have a chance to help someone and you hesitate, people are watching. And when your heart goes out to someone and you reach down and show love for them, although they are infirmed or filthy, people see that too. And when we look back at the lessons learned, we may not remember the words, but we can remember whether the other person cared.
Let us love our neighbor, teaching others as we do so.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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