I was pastoring in a small town in North Carolina. I had not been there even a year when I realized my training had missed some important issues. This first struck me when a rumor circulated that a certain family in the church had head lice.

Of course, nobody wanted to talk to them about it. But when the whispers persisted, something had to be done. I was equipped to talk to people about their sin, but I had never dug too deeply into how to approach people about lice.

I remembered that the Scriptures had spoken of lice during the plagues of Egypt, so I did a careful exegesis of the verses only to find that the more recent translations said "gnats" instead of "lice."

So my wife and I finally went to see the family and told them we'd heard they might have a lice problem, which was not actually news to them. We gave them all the practical advice we could and were very pleased at how graciously they received it. They assured us they would deal with the problem. We scratched our heads all the ...