Consider the Ant

Published in the Omaha World Herald’s “From the Pulpit”

June 29, 2025
Reverend Eric L. Jay

“Consider the Ant”

Myrmecology. That is the scientific word for the study of ants.

Ants are everywhere. We don’t think about them much until they are a problem, but maybe we should start paying more attention to ants. Did you know that God’s Word calls us to consider them? Yeah, twice.

In Proverbs 6:6, wise King Solomon warns against laziness and complacency, saying, “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.” Later in Proverbs 30:24, we are told of four animals God has made as a testimony and teaching for us, saying, “Four things on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise: the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer.”

Had the authors of the proverbs been blessed with the scientific technology we have today, which allows us to know more facts about God’s creatures, then maybe they would have written something more along these lines: “Consider the brain of an ant. It is not only small, but simple. The ant brain contains approximately 250,000 neurons, compared to the human brain, which contains many billions. If the ant understands how important it is to work together to fulfill their God-given purpose, how foolish are we if we neglect to work together as God’s chosen people in service to Him as His church?”

One myrmecologist I read said, “Acting together, ants are among the most dominant forces of our terrestrial environment. Individually equipped with unique strengths and capabilities, they work together to accomplish seemingly impossible feats. How has something so small become so astonishingly successful and important? The ant’s major advantage appears to be social organization. The operational unit is not the individual but the entire colony.”

Is it any wonder that the writer of Proverbs asks us to “consider the ant”? With one Lord, Jesus Christ, shouldn’t it be said of us that, “the operational unit is not the individual but the entire congregation”? Galatians 5:13 puts it this way, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

By grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ, we have been set free. We are free to live with and live for God even now, in and with the Church He built for those He has called out of the world and into fellowship with Christ.

Consider the ant.