GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 6:17
Cmpounding Errors
On June 17, 1972, burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., to search through the committee’s correspondence and plant listening devices. An alert security guard noticed tape covering the latches on some of the complex’s doors and called the police. The police apprehended five men, later identified as being connected with President Richard Nixon’s re-election committee. Rather than acknowledging the crime and distancing himself from it, the president then began attempts to cover up the crime, compounding lies upon lies, which eventually led to his resignation from the presidency on August 8, 1974.
Elizabeth Holmes founded a company that claimed to have a revolutionary blood-testing process that needed only a small amount of blood, such as that from a finger prick. Money flowed into her organization, making her wealthy and famous. In 2016, however, evidence emerged confirming that the whole process was a fraud. Instead of acknowledging the technology’s limitations, she doubled down with more lies about its capabilities, fake demonstrations and cover-ups that turned into a major criminal case, compounding her fraud. In 2022, Holmes received a sentence of 11 years for various crimes.
Herod Antipas, the son of the murderous King Herod the Great, provides an infamous example of compounding errors. “For Herod himself had sent and seized John and bound him in prison because of Herodias the wife of Philip his brother because he had married her.” (Mark 6:17) Herod’s half-brother Philip inherited none of his father’s kingdom and went to Rome, where he lived as a wealthy private citizen. On a visit to Rome, Herod Antipas seduced his half-brother’s wife, Herodias, and persuaded her to return to Palestine with him. He divorced his first wife, Phasaelis, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabataea. When the preacher John the Baptist told Herod that his marriage violated Jewish law (Leviticus 18:16; 20:21), Herod submitted to Herodias’ anger over the preacher’s message and had John arrested and imprisoned. He added one offense to another, compounding his wrongs.
Compounding wrongdoing usually leads from one deception to the next, each becoming worse—usually worse than the original misdeed. If President Nixon had avoided compounding his Watergate problem, taken responsibility, and dealt honestly with the break-in, he could have likely saved his presidency. If Holmes had avoided compounding her technology’s shortcomings and acknowledged its failure, she could have avoided prison. If Herod had avoided compounding his misconduct, he could have avoided killing an innocent man.
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