“But God found fault with the people and said: ‘The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah'” (Hebrews 8:8 NIV).
Charles Dillon (Casey) Stengel was a 20th century professional baseball player and manager. Although he was widely recognized for his tortured use of language, Stengel was a respectable ballplayer who once hit an inside the park home run to help win a game in the 1923 World Series.
When his playing career ended, Stengel turned to managing with considerably less success. Over the first nine years of his major league managerial career, Stengel’s teams never held a winning percentage above .500 with one exception- and that was only by two games. But after a five- year stint in the minor leagues, Stengel was named manager of the New York Yankees baseball club in 1949 and subsequently began what is perhaps the greatest managerial stretch in major league history.
Stengel’s Yankees won seven World Series championships in twelve years, including an unprecedented five in a row from 1949 to 1953. Nevertheless, he was relieved of his duties following a loss in the 1960 World Series. Stengel later resurfaced as manager of the New York Mets, a newly formed team that went on to lose more games in a single season than any major league baseball club in history.
In seeking to explain his successes and failures as a manager, Stengel was widely quoted as saying, “I was once asked what it takes to be a great manager… my response? Great players.” You see, Casey Stengel did not lose his managerial abilities when he transitioned from a perennial World Series contender to a team that lost more games than any team in major league history. The difference was in the athletes he had to work with. As one of his former players stated, “I’m probably the only guy who worked for (Casey) Stengel before and after he was a genius.” (1)
That brings us to the following observation regarding Hebrews 8:8…
“…the trouble was not with the first covenant itself: ‘the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good’ (Rom_7:12). The trouble was with the people to whom it was given; the law had poor raw materials to work with. This is stated here: Because finding fault with them… . He did not find fault with the covenant but with His covenant people.” (2)
Image Attribution: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
(1) Warren Spahn, quoted in Sports Illustrated, “Scorecard – They Said It” August 20, 1973, p12 https://vault.si.com/vault/1973/08/20/43209#&gid=ci0258beb2c00026ef&pid=43209—012—image Retrieved 22 July, 2022
(2) William Macdonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary Edited by Arthur Farstad Thomas Nelson Publishers p.2182