Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Jesus chose to cite the Psalms for his final words on the cross. In Luke 23:46, he shouts a phrase from Psalm 31:5, which he must have read and recited over and over, which expressed his life, not just his death: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

The Psalms have been a central expression of the deep relationship between humans and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for millennia. This collection of songs, hymns and prayers, flowing from the Torah (especially Genesis and Exodus) and the Prophets (especially Isaiah), has been shaped and molded over generations, reflecting the ongoing dialogue, the conversations of the heart of people who live their lives in reliance upon the God who promised to bless the whole world.

We have been given such powerful help in our own prayers. Not only by joining the “great cloud of witnesses”1 by praying these prayers, but by allowing the Psalms to guide us in shaping and molding our own prayers.

The experiences of Abraham’s extended family were developed with the help of poetry. It was a very common type of poetry in their day in which two lines expressed the same essential idea:2

Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,

‘Let us break their chains
and throw off their shackles.’ -Psalm 2:1-3

Jesus cited the Psalms 11 times in the gospels.3 For example, the famous phrase from the Servant on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” 4comes from Psalm 37: “A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity.” The New Testament as a whole cites the Psalms more than 70 times. The influence of the Psalms doesn’t end there.

The Psalms are often the first book of the Old Testament translated into a new language. The Gospels with the Psalms are frequently made available for reading before other books of the OT and the NT have been translated. Today they are a model for our own dialogue with God as we walk through the ups and downs of daily life.

Reading the Psalms helps us to express and deepen our relationship with God. But there is another way to work with the Psalms that can take us even deeper in our conversation with God. We are free to translate the Psalms into our own lives.

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Isaac Watts lived in a time when church worship was a bit tired, singing the words of the Psalms as they appear in Scripture. He set himself the following challenge: “…to improve singing and encourage frequency in public assemblies and private families with more honor and delight.” He sought to fulfill his goal by drawing together the Old Testament Psalms and what we learned about God’s purposes in the New Testament and expressing the result in the poetry and language of his day.5 For example, he offers three versions of Psalm 2, the same Psalm we quote above, using the poetic methods of Short Metre, Common Metre, and Long Metre:

The first verse of his Short Metre version (four lines with 6,6,8, and 6 syllables) is:

Why did the Gentiles rage,

and Jews with one accord,

Bend all their counsel to destroy

Th’ anointed of the Lord?

The first verse of his Common Metre poem, that is, four lives 8 syllables and 6 syllables alternately is:

Why did the nations join to slay

The Lord’s anointed Son?

Why did they cast his laws away,

And tread his gospel down?

And the first verse of his hymn based upon Long Metre (4 lines, 8 syllables each) is as follows:

Why did the Jews proclaim their rage?

The Romans why their swords employ,

Against the Lord their powers engage

His dear Anointed to destroy?

Watts achieved his goal. He wrote over 750 hymns, many of which (“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”, “Joy to the World”, and “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”) are still known to churchgoers centuries later. Today he is known as the “Godfather of English Hymnody.”

Church hymnody, however, was not his only goal. He also aimed to write hymns that would support private devotion; as he puts it, “devout pleasure and holy meditations.”

We are free to follow Watts in three steps. First, we need to read the Psalms as our own prayers. Second, we should read the prayers and songs of others, like Isaac Watts, who’ve written poetry based on the Psalms. Third, we can draw together our experiences with God and the Psalms of the Bible into the poetry and language of our own time.

How to begin? Following Watts’ suggestion for the use of his book, with a few adaptations of our own, is helpful :

• find a Psalm that fit our situation and needs,

• memorize it,

• write our own version, using our own language and situation,

• run your version by family members to help you sharpen your work,

• share them with friends.

Isaac Watts quotes Pliny the Younger’s descriptions of Christians in a letter to the Roman Emperor Trajan at the beginning of his hymnal. “They were accustomed to come together and to sing hymns to Christ as God.”

The Psalms are an abundant feast for us; a means by which every follower of Jesus can give voice to their faith in every moment of life. Enjoy!

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. -John 1:14

Have you ever wondered why Michelangelo’s Moses has horns on his head? Why do some Biblical manuscripts feature unicorns? And why does Matthew 27:46 quote words of Jesus in Aramaic, then tell us what they mean in Greek, with that explanation then translated into English in our Bibles? All of these questions are the result of something unique to Christianity.

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Judaism tells us, in the original Hebrew, that the world began with language: יְהִי אוֹר (Let there be light!) Muslims believe that the final and perfect medium for divine revelation is the original Arabic of the Quran. But Christianity tells us that God has related to us, not through a particular language, but through the translation of speech itself into a human life. When God in Christ became man, Divinity was translated into humanity, saying, “This is what God is like.”

At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. -Matthew 11: 25-26

Judaism has struggled with the validity of the 2nd century translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, the Septuagint. Muslim scholars debate whether the Arabic of the Quran is eternal or the ideas they convey. Some Christians have also sought security in a particular language or translation of the Bible. But the authority given to the Quran in Islam is, in Christianity, given to Christ, not to the Bible. This gives followers of “the Word made flesh” a particular challenge.

Jesus became a particular person, living in a certain context and a particular time. He was a first-century Jewish man who grew up in Nazareth and spoke the Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek of his time. The sense and meaning of God was translated into humanity under very specific cultural conditions. Yet Jesus is global grace promised to Abraham in Genesis 12:

‘I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’

In Acts 15, Early Jewish Christians argued over the way God’s blessing spreads. Some argued that the promise spread when the non-Jewish convert became culturally Jewish like them. Others argued that the good news spread as followers of Christ translated their relationship with Jesus into the existing language and culture of their own time. We are the result of their discernment that God’s promise would spread as Christ was translated into the culturally specific communities of every culture and language.

This complex translation process resulted in some challenges. The sculpture of Moses with horns is based upon a translation, or a mistranslation, by St. Jerome. The Latin Vulgate Translation of Exodus 34: 29, 30 and 35 was Jerome’s effort to faithfully translate the difficult, original Hebrew text, which uses the term קָרַן‎ or qāran based on the root word, קֶרֶן‎ or qeren, which often means “horn”); the term in these passages is now interpreted to mean “shining” or “emitting rays” (somewhat like horns).

The King James Version of the Bible, specifically Numbers 23:22 and 24:8, Deuteronomy 33:17, Job 39:9-10, Psalm 22:21 and 29:6, as well as Isaiah 34:7, translates the Hebrew “rame,” as unicorn. The unicorn was chosen because, like the Hebrew word, it speaks of strength and power. The Unicorn, traditionally depicted as a horse-like creature with a single spiral horn, has deep historical and cultural significance. It represents not only beauty and grace but also serves as a symbol of protection and chivalry in medieval contexts. In more recent translations, however, the unicorn is replaced by a wild ox or a similar powerful animal.

More personally, however, this translation process means that we, as present-day followers of Christ, have work to do. It isn’t enough to give a friend a Bible to read, even in their own language. It isn’t even enough to dress up and go to church on particular days of the week. As followers of Jesus, we are responsible for showing everyone we meet, in word and in deed, what God is like. They need to see Jesus translated into our everyday life.

The biblical book of Colossians tells us to “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you…”1 Peter tells us to Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”2

Our language shouldn’t be run-of-the-mill but surprising and interesting. When we speak of Jesus with others, we should move beyond the “Christianese” we speak amongst ourselves to words of wit and wisdom. That is what “seasoned with salt” means.

This is quite a challenge. As Andrew Walls puts it:

“Politics is the art of the possible; translation is the art of the impossible. Exact transmission of meaning from one linguistic medium to another is continually hampered not only by structural and cultural difference, the words of the receptor language are pre-loaded, and the old cargo drags the new into areas uncharted in the source language. In the end the translator has simply to do his best and take risks in a high risk business.”

We don’t have the responsibility of translating the Scriptures from one language to another. We have been entrusted, instead, with a greater work: translating the heart of God, as lived out in the life of a first-century man named Jesus, to those around us in our context and our time.

God has entrusted us to with this task. Let’s have fun with it!

And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the people of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth. Ezekiel 3:1-3

Savoring scrolls. Biting books. Gnawing on knowledge. We don’t typically think of these adjectives modifying these nouns. But eating and learning come together a surprising number of times. In the book of Proverbs, for example, we read:

Wisdom has built her house; she has set up its seven pillars. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table. She has sent out her servants, and she calls from the highest point of the city, ‘Let all who are simple come to my house!’To those who have no sense she says, ‘Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of insight.’ -Proverbs 9:1-6

Taking our initiative from the biblical Solomon, let’s share a meal and see what we learn. Maybe it will taste like honey in our mouth.

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It turns out that Solomon is not the only chef at wisdom’s banquet. Thirty sayings of the wise include dining wisdom like “Do not eat the food of a stingy host, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of person who is always thinking about the cost.”1 King Lemuel (chapter 31) has advice about beverages when he says, “…it is not for kings to drink wine, not for rulers to crave beer, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed, and deprive all the oppressed of their rights.”2 Agur son of Jakeh’s addition to the smorgasbord of knowledge has a complex flavor profile for us to savor. You might call Proverbs 30 biblical umami.

This word “umami” originated in early 20th-century Japan. It is widely recognized as the fifth basic taste, alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. It captures the deep savoriness of broths, mushrooms, and aged cheeses.

Agur’s umami captures a deep humility joined to a detestation of arrogance. The result is an artistry with dark overtones leading, unexpectedly, to wonder and awe. It enables us, beyond the sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, to experience a deep and new savoriness of life.

So let’s begin.

We take the first bite. Like umami, Agur’s wisdom isn’t a cloying confection. Instead it begins with notes of humility. But within that humble flavor is the beginning of a sapid salubriousness, leaving us wanting more.

I am weary, God, but I can prevail. Surely I am only a brute, not a man; I do not have human understanding. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I attained to the knowledge of the Holy One.

Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Whose hands have gathered up the wind? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is the name of his son? Surely you know!

With our second bite, we get the first taste of something which will dominate the flavor profile as his wisdom becomes a heartfelt prayer:

Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar. Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, “Who is the Lord?”Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of my God.

Not only is there longing for faithfulness, but a desperate call for protection. For deep in his experience is the knowledge, not only that the world in which he lives constantly threatens destruction, but that it also tricks us into participating in its strife.

Our next bite is the bitter fruit of human temptation, deeply embedded human habits like slander, cursing, pride, and discontent, which erode the strong ties of human community.

• Do not slander a servant to their master, or they will curse you, and you will pay for it.

• There are

  • those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers;

  • those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth;

  • those whose eyes are ever so haughty, whose glances are so disdainful;

  • those whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are set with knives to devour the poor from the earth and the needy from among the human race.

Then he moves into a numeric structure that will guide us through the rest of the meal:

• ‘The leech has two daughters.

  • “Give! Give!” they cry.

• There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, “Enough!”:

  • the grave,

  • the barren womb,

  • land, which is never satisfied with water,

  • and fire, which never says, “Enough!”

He then concludes his grotesque portrayal of the world with the kind of extreme judgment desired by people who long for the horror to be neutralized by justice and replaced by beauty:

• ‘The eye that mocks a father, that scorns an aged mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures.

Now, as we near the end of his meal, we begin to experience his first expressions of wonder and beauty:

‘There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand:

• the way of an eagle in the sky,

• the way of a snake on a rock,

• the way of a ship on the high seas,

• and the way of a man with a young woman.

This last, and beautiful description of human love is disturbed by another grotesque description of humans breaking the most beautiful bond of one human to another:

This is the way of an adulterous woman:

she eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

This thought draws him still further away from natural beauty to ways in which, in his context, the structures that support and facilitate the good life are threatened and broken down in miscarriages of justice:

Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up:

• a servant who becomes king,

• a godless fool who gets plenty to eat,

• a contemptible woman who gets married,

• and a servant who displaces her mistress.

But he does not give way to despair. He turns from temptation by searching for things that surprise, rather than threaten, that prove that hope is not lost:

Four things on earth are small, yet they are extremely wise:

• ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer;

• hyraxes are creatures of little power, yet they make their home in the crags;

• locusts have no king, yet they advance together in ranks;

• a lizard can be caught with the hand, yet it is found in kings’ palaces.

Which leads his thoughts to more beauty, to behavior that encourages, strengthens and encourages hope:

There are three things that are stately in their stride, four that move with stately bearing:

• a lion, mighty among beasts, who retreats before nothing;

• a strutting cock, 3

• a he-goat

• and a king secure against revolt.

The meal concludes where it began. He frames his banquet of wisdom with a warning to be humble and avoid destructive behavior. Continuing to use picturesque words, he writes:

If you play the fool and exalt yourself, or if you plan evil, clap your hand over your mouth! For as churning cream produces butter, and as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife.

Do the ancient words of Agur taste like honey to you? Why or why not?

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. -Proverbs 4:7

A few days before our recent trip to Tuscany, I was feeling wonderfully self-satisfied. I was preparing for our adventure by packing, getting an international driver’s license, purchasing tickets, and making reservations. I was also going above and beyond by reading a 14th-century epic poem by the man considered not only the greatest Italian poet of all time but the author of one of the greatest works of literary history in the world. I felt quite intellectual and scholarly. After all, how many tourists traveling to Tuscany are reading Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy? I also felt like a good Jesus follower. I believe that the adventure of seeking deeper understanding should be a major pursuit in all of our lives. Little did I know that this adventure was going to take me to places I never thought I would go.

It began when I turned to the last page of Dante’s Canto XXI. My sense of self-satisfaction evaporated when I read the final sentence:

“And he made a trumpet of his ass.”

Hmm.

Now, I’m not one of those guys who gets excited by bodily functions. As a matter fact, I have learned, as a father of two boys, that I am on the extreme opposite of the continuum. And I’ve realized that I need to lighten up. The book of Isaiah, in one of those passages of the Bible I have never heard preached, helped me a little bit in that regard:

We were with child, we writhed in labor, but we gave birth to wind. -Isaiah 26:18

The earthy prophet used the same bodily function, with wit and irony, to show how much his people were missing the goal of God’s promise to them. Now Dante was using the same metaphor to depict the grotesque among demons and, through them, in humanity.

The odd thing is that when I read Dante’s words, I experienced, not just my standard abhorrence, but an unexpected excitement. This phrase moved me forward in the pursuit of understanding. For, at the same time as I read those eight words, another image, an illustration that had always perplexed me, popped into my mind:

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The man with an awkwardly placed flute is, as you can see, one of hundreds of grotesque figures in Hieronymous Bosch’s famous 15th-century Garden of Earthly Delights. All of them are perplexing. But now, after reading the end of Dante’s Canto XXI, I can take another step on the adventure of wisdom. I doubt it will lead to great riches. I am a little trepidatious as to where it will lead. But now I know that Bosch was inspired by Dante. I wasn’t sure how, exactly, but I knew I had taken another step on my journey for deeper understanding.

Canto XXI, in Dante’s journey from sin to salvation, describes corrupt public officials reaping what they have sown in their lifetimes. Magistrates who took bribes, city councilors who filed lawsuits to slow down the wheels of justice, and hinder their political foes. As Dante and his guide watch, they are plunged into a river of boiling pitch by a gang of demons who warned of more suffering if they dare to emerge to breathe the air. These same demons agree to take them to the next section of hell, and the journey begins with the trumpet under discussion announcing the journey’s beginning. As Dante writes in the next Canto, “…never have I seen horsemen or seen infantry…move to so strange a bugle.”

When my wife and I arrived in Bologna a week later, we found our next step on this journey for understanding. On our Airbnb tour of “The Secrets of Bologna,” our guide, Mersedeh, showed us a church with round-the-clock military protection. She asked us why we thought such a thing would be necessary. It turns out that the Basilica of San Petronio contains a 15th-century painting by Giovanni de Modena, which has so upset some people that they have tried to bomb it out of existence. She didn’t take us inside, but Cheryl and I knew we had to return to see this “secret of Barcelona” ourselves.

As soon as I saw the massive painting, I knew two of Modena’s sources.

Once inside the church, we found that the section of the chapel that contained the painting was roped off and could only be entered after paying a fee. They didn’t allow photographs, though some other visitors were furtively snapping photos. The photo above (from a book I purchased!) is only one part of Giovanni Modena’s work. Like the third part of Bosch’s triptych and like the first book of Dante’s Divine Comedy, it depicts hell. Modena’s depiction is organized according to the seven deadly sins. One section portrays those who committed sins of pride. Others showed the result of the seeds sown by the envious, the wrathful, the gluttonous, the lustful, the slothful, and the greedy.

At the center of this section is the horrifying portrayal of Lucifer crushing two famous traitors in his two mouths: Judas Iscariot and Brutus. In the upper right-hand corner is the reason for the soldiers. For 280 years, beginning with the conquest of Sicily in 827, the followers of this religious leader sought control over the Italian people. Can you see who it is?

The next step in my strange pursuit of understanding continued a few days later.

When we arrived at our hotel in Tuscany, the next step was sitting on our coffee table. I wouldn’t have given the book much notice if I hadn’t been on this particular adventure. Since I was, it caught my eye immediately. As I read the dust jacket and introduction, I learned that a few centuries after Bosch and Modena, the English poet, painter, and printmaker, William Blake (1757-1827) was inspired to draw over 100 illustrations of The Divine Comedy. He took on this additional project late in his life. The resulting illustrations, in various forms of development at the time of his death, had never been brought together in one book…until now. As I thumbed through the book’s well-produced pages, I was excited to find four illustrations inspired by Canto XXI. I knew that reading this book would help me continue my journey.

There were too many amazing things to see and experience in Tuscany! I had read only a few pages of the book that piqued my interest. We had made friends with a very kind young man named Samuel. Since he worked at the front desk of the hotel, I asked him if he would see if the hotel would consider selling the book to me. With his usual level of energy and enthusiasm, he agreed to look into it.

That evening, as my wife and I were having dinner in the hotel bar, Samuel approached our table with a dampened spirit. “I checked about the book, he said, and there is nothing the hotel can do.” It was strange, but the Margherita pizza in front of us drew me quickly back to our meal.

When we returned to our room, there was a gift, wrapped up and sealed with a local flower, sitting on the table. It was the book! The accompanying card was signed by Samuel and the hotel staff, expressing their joy in giving us the book for free.

My journey would continue!

Now that I am back in the U.S., I have more reading to do. I have another fifteen Cantos of Dante to read with the book on Blake’s illustrations. I also have other unanswered questions to pursue:

• Who was Dante influenced by?

• What passages of the Bible were most influential over the almost 13 years Dante took to write his epic poem?

• What was the common vision of hell and paradise before Dante wrote?

• How does Dante continue to influence our thinking about those subjects today?

A few other relevant questions:

1. Will I make any money from this pursuit of understanding? At this point, I would say it is highly doubtful.

2. Do I know if any of this information will be helpful beyond an Italian game of Trivial Pursuit and this Substack post? Unknown.

3. Has it been fun to explore this path, and do I want to continue on this journey? Without a doubt.

I so enjoy seeking understanding. So, I conclude this post with a hearty affirmation of Proverbs 4:7:

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.

What adventures of understanding are you taking?

“...the ‘strange world’ within the Bible is indeed a ‘strange new world,’ seemingly far outdated and yet peculiarly fresh, arresting, and life-giving.” -Karl Barth 1

As I mentioned in my previous post, my wife and I are on a long-planned journey to Italy. One of the things I love about travel is the opportunity to explore new worlds. The people of Tuscany, for example, have lived in a place that I have only seen in photos or read about in books. But on this adventure, I will get to actually live in this world that is their life. I know there will be things from their world that, when properly applied, will enrich my own world.

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There is one difficulty with this learning experience, however. It always ends with the return trip home. I like home because it is the world I live in. But for that very reason it lacks the thing that I love about travel. So, here is the question: Can we get the best of both worlds - a strange new world while we are here at home?

For followers of Jesus, the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” And today’s quote points us in the right direction:

“...the ‘strange world’ within the Bible is indeed a ‘strange new world,’ seemingly far outdated and yet peculiarly fresh, arresting, and life-giving.”

Karl Barth was a Swiss pastor and theologian who wrote almost all of the Barmen Declaration, covered in a previous post, taking a strong and public stand against Nazi attempts to control the German Christian Church. He is also known for his 500 page Commentary, The Epistle to the Romans, in which he argued that the God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus challenges and overthrows any attempt to ally God with human cultures, achievements, or possessions. Rather than approaching the Bible through the eyes of his own culture, Barth set out to read the Bible as a world of its own.

The Bible on our bookshelf, then, is an opportunity to experience a strange new world in our homes. The story of the book of Ruth, for example, is set in a time and place far removed from our own. Yet, this beautifully told story continues to inspire us. The book of Jonah describes an upside-down experience in the ancient world. Yet it still has the power to make us laugh at our own prejudice, stubbornness, and pride. All of the books of the Bible, if read and understood, provide direction for our own journey of faithfully following Christ in our contemporary context.

Travelling is a wonderful experience. Reading the Bible is a daily adventure!

“Christianity summoned proud pagans to face torture and death out of loyalty to a Jewish villager who had been executed by Rome.”1

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I love quotes. I collect short snippets that spark ideas and invite me to seek and find new vistas from which to survey human life. This is the second in a series of three posts featuring some of my favorites. This snippet challenges the guilt trip many Christians feel when they share Jesus with others.

While studying for my religion and sociology degrees, I had to sit through four years of intellectual hand-wringing over the dangers of Christianity shared across cultures and religions. Our class was regularly warned about the potent poison of faith combined with “patriarchy,” or “colonialism,” or any other oppressive ideology. There was an underlying assumption that pre-existing religions were to be preferred and honored above Christianity. Bottom line: the good news of Jesus would be bad news for other cultures and people who received it. It felt as though I had to, at least tacitly, support this theme to complete my double major.

I had lived in three different countries at that point. I had worshipped Jesus with citizens of three different lands. None of them seemed oppressed. Their church service hadn’t been poisonous. Sure, the gospel, like anything else, can be subverted by more deeply held ideological commitments. But why was it so hard for my college professors to see that the good news of Jesus, used to force conformity, is not only rightly condemned as an abuse of power, but is no longer the good news of Jesus at all. It has been disfigured. It has become something other than Christianity.

The warnings continued after graduation. Politicians, political commentators, and even a certain brand of Christian leaders join the academics to warn us, with very stern faces, that our desire to share the faith we love and enjoy above all things is an oppressive act toward our neighbor.

I began to wonder if these warnings were less about the negative effects of a distorted religion and more about the obvious power of a properly understood and accepted faith in Jesus. Christianity not only changes lives, but can also transcend any structures established by politics and academia. A community that believes in Jesus brings people together in ways that erode existing definitions and distinctions.

This is where the quote from N.T. Wright comes in.

N.T. Wright has lots of academic and political credentials. He is an English New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian, and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham and Lord Spiritual in the UK Parliament from 2003 to 2010. Yet, in his present role as senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall at the University of Oxford, he can see what so many in the academic and political world cannot see. He expresses this incredible cross-cultural power of the faith in this quote from a book on early Christianity entitled, The New Testament and the People of God:

“Christianity summoned proud pagans to face torture and death out of loyalty to a Jewish villager who had been executed by Rome.”

N.T. Wright’s quote encourages me. It highlights the power of the faith that means so much to me. The good news of Jesus has proven itself to be, again and again, more powerful than all human programs, built both out of good intentions or ill, meant to bring humanity into conformity with someone’s dream of a better world. Sure, it can be misused. But this is not a reason to be shy in sharing my faith with others. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to hear Jesus’ invitation and decide if they want to follow.

The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. -Proverbs 4:7

My wife and I are on a long-planned journey to Italy (an adventure I am certain will be part of future posts!). Given the lack of time at my desk over the next few weeks, I thought I’d share a few quotes that have sourced much wisdom in my walk with Jesus over these many decades. The first one clears up a very common source of confusion among Jesus-followers. The second has been strangely and wonderfully encouraging to me as a convinced Christian in a skeptical world. The third one inspires me to continue my daily adventure of reading the Bible.

I hope you find each of them as fruitful as I have as you read them over the next few weeks.

Enjoy!

-Randy

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Quote One:

I love the wisecrack of the pompous pastor proudly proclaiming the polar opposite of what he wanted to promote when he preached, “I am the most humble person that I know.”

Yet this joke rests on the idea that humility is thinking less of yourself. This assumption makes humility an impossible goal. You can’t intentionally pursue it. The only way to become humble, it seems, is to have life sneak up and hit you from behind. This is the basis for another joke I’ve heard, which warns against praying for humility. The punchline? God might answer.

George MacDonald, a preacher, a writer, and a mentor to the likes of Lewis Carroll and C.S. Lewis, offered a much more practical approach to humility; a way whose measure is less centered on our opinion of ourselves. The humble person, he says,

“…has no thought of making himself less than his neighbor, his thought is to make his neighbor greater than himself.”1

Isn’t that wonderful! It untied the knot in my thinking and made it clear how I could pursue humility every day. The key question is this:

Who can you make greater than yourself today?

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,

but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.

-Psalm 1:1-2

I am always searching for mentors, for people who are far ahead of me in a certain skill. If that were the only criterion, they would be easy to find. But I have two criteria. That makes the task much more difficult, especially when it comes to artists.

I remember finding a Dali painting that was perfect for the sermon I was preaching. I put the bulletin proof for that Sunday in my office administrator’s inbox and continued working on the sermon. About half an hour later, I heard a light knock at my office door. It was Patti, my office administrator, pointing out, as delicately as possible, that the elephant in the painting had no decorum when it came to his male biology. Maybe that wasn’t a perfect painting for the bulletin after all.

I had a similar letdown when it came to the poet Charles Baudelaire. I kept reading about the power of his poetry. I hesitated to buy a collection of his poems entitled “The Flowers of Evil,” but when I found a 1st edition autographed by … as a gift for… I jumped. His ability to draw out personal experiences with just a few well chosen words was, indeed, amazing.

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For example, I have a fondness for the ocean since it was a constant in so many of the countries I have called home. In primary school, I was in Sydney, off the Tasman Sea, which connects to the Pacific Ocean. In Houston, I was near the Gulf, which connects with the Atlantic Ocean. In Honduras, I lived on an island in the Caribbean Sea which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. In Los Angeles, I am next to the Pacific Ocean. In Mozambique, I lived within view of the Indian Ocean. In each location, when I sat on the local beach and looked out on the water, I imagined travelling across the ocean to one of the other places I had lived. The ocean kept me whole, though my memories were scattered across many lands. All of this meaning came rushing from memory into my consciousness when I read Baudelaire’s phrase:

“The ocean, strewn with sliding images of the sky…”

Wow! In nine words, he changed my thoughts and emotions.

The experience of reading his poem entitled “My Former Life” caused me to doubt the folk wisdom that teaches us that a picture is worth a thousand words. I had just learned that a few well-chosen, melodic, and inspiring words are worth much more than the 2 million pixels needed for a photograph.

His poem, “My Former Life” begins this way:

I can remember a country of long, high colonnades

Which mirrored in their pale marble the prismatic light

Cast from the bright sea billows in a thousand shades,

And which resembled a cave of fluted basalt1 by night.

After these few lines, I knew I was reading a master poet. My first criterion for a mentor was met. I want to learn to unleash the power and beauty of words and I can clearly learn from Baudelaire.

The ocean, strewn with sliding images of the sky,

Would mingle in a mysterious and solemn way,

Under the wild brief sunset, its tremendous cry

With the reflected colours of ruined day.

But then there is that pesky second criterion. I want my mentors to not only be masters of their craft, but to live a life worth emulating as well.

I suppose this criterion was set for me in a reformed theology class in seminary. My professor was clearly a master of his area of specialty. He was well spoken, organized, and I learned many things I had not understood before. Criterion number one was complete. He knew his subject. But he also knew how good he was at his subject. As he taught us about Christ, he conveyed his own pride. I decided I would rather learn from the uneducated Honduran refugee pastors I had worked with on the island of Amapala years before. Their knowledge was real to me because you could see it transforming their lives.

Baudelaire’s poem had impressed me thus far. The sunset as “reflected colours of ruined day,” had worried me a bit. Where was this poem going? Then I read the next section:

There did I dwell in quiet luxury apart,

Amid the slowly changing hues of clouds and waves;

And there I was attended by two naked slaves…

Okay. Now I was really worried. So, I decided to test my second criterion with a dive into Baudelaire’s biography. His life made sense of his poem. But he failed my second criterion for a mentor. His life was a disaster.

• Baudelaire’s promise emerged as a student when he wrote his earliest poems.

• He regularly sank into deep melancholy. This certainly doesn’t exclude a potential mentor. The key question is what he does with it.

• He tried to break through his melancholy with, shall we say, “undisciplined acts.” This dark and dreary path gave him first contact with the literary world. It also resulted in the disease that would eventually kill him.

• He came into a large inheritance. (Could this be the “dwelling in quiet luxury” he is writing about?) but wasted his money on expensive clothing, books and paintings, lavish food and wine, as well as hashish and opium. He then struggled with finances for the rest of his life. (Maybe this is why the poem is entitled, “My Former Life.”

When I read Baudelaire, his words, both beautiful and gross, have their effect on me. But reading him felt much more like enchantment, like temptation, than enjoyment. He could never be my mentor because I am afraid of where his words will take my mind.

So, my search continues for a poet of the last few centuries who knew how to use the power of words and lived a life worthy of emulation. My search took me to one of the great hymn writers in the last few centuries, Isaac Watts.

Let’s look at how he uses the power of words, in his poetry and in his life, in our next post.

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein1

Writing my second book is a challenge. My first book, available on Amazon, is an historical look at some lesser-known stories of Los Angeles. That book r…

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…free yourself a while for God and rest a while in him. -Anselm of Canterbury

Almost a thousand years ago, an Italian child was born with the same malady we moderns have. As he grew in stature and faith, he found it difficult to slow his thoughts and spend time with God. However, Anselm of Canterbury developed a prayer to help him slow his …

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Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’ -Joshua 5:13

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Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters, (they are) driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweed before a gale. -From Isaiah 17:13

I dreamt I was walking past cobwebs, down basement stairs, and into the darkness of forgotten days. When I reached the landing, I turned on my cell…

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‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the v…

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In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. - Prov. 16:9

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For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. -The Peace Prayer.

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Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed? -The Riddle of the Sphinx (about 429 B.C.)

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“Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.”

-John Wesley1

I. Definition of Chapter Two Through Story

She was in tears as she came into my office in South Carolina. I was the associate pastor, just about her age, and we both had young children. “I can’t get through my morning Bibl…

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To live in love is to live an everlasting youth. Whoever enters old age by this royal road will find the last of life to be the best of life. Instead of finding himself descending the hills of life, he will find it up-hill all the way, into clearer air. There the vision reaches further; there the sunsets are more golden, and the twilights last longer. …

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When I journeyed half of our life’s way,

I found myself within a shadowed forest,

for I had lost the path that does not stray. -Dante1

I’m dying. Of course, that has always been the case and is for us all from the moment we’re born. But I’m in a stage of life that emphasizes the point. More naps and longer recovery time, my wife and…

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