Chapter 10

-
Image
 Starting chapter 10 exhausted. Need to take a break. The closer to the end I get, the steeper the climb, as it were. Just gets harder near the end. I’m having eye surgery consultation later this week. I’m thinking the eye strain is too much for this little pea brain. Everything jumbles together. But so excited this is happening!

Fire has a way

-
We all saw the detestation in Southern California from the wild firesthat came ripping through that area. Hundreds of expensive homes were reduced to piles of smoldering ruins. For many, insurance payments will allow them to replace the structures, but it will not be possible torestore exactly what has been lost. No one can reconstitute the ashes, re-glue the beams, and restore the broken windows making the homes exactly as they once were. Fire has a way of permanently changing things.

It is that very property of fire that Jeremiah uses to describe God's Word. The Prophet quotes God as saying, "'Is not My word like fire?' declares the LORD, 'and like a hammer which shatters a rock?'"(Jeremiah 23:29). The point of this illustration, I think, is to demonstrate that God's Word permanently and completely changes the personwho hears it. As fire chemically changes a house, and a hammer permanently changes a rock, so the Word of God permanently alters the person who hears it.

How has the ministry of the Word changed you?

(from my friend, Dr. John Williamson)

Popular posts from this blog

Made it to Chapter 8

-
Image
One probably wonders what I’m working on.  As an Independent Scholar, as I am not attached to a University, I am writing a commentary on the first book of a personal journal written by a 2nd Century Roman Emperor. In that book he lists 16 names and describes what each person contributed to his life. That’s the short version. I’ve covered the first 8 so far and hit a wall. Now I’ve gone back and am editing Chapters 1-3 to keep my mojo going. Not sure when I’ll be done but hopefully by years’ end. I already have another project lined up. 
Read more

"On Keeping A Notebook" by Joan Didion

-
Image
I'm nearly finished reading Joan Didion's collection of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem.  The book was discovered through another book I was reading, Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams . If Jon felt this book was good enough to pack along on a mountain climbing expedition, then I'm interested. Took me three tries, but I finally found my copy on Amazon. One of the best book buys I've made. Joan selected the title of this book from William Butler Yeats' classic poem, Second Coming . The book title is shared with one of her larger essays, a record of encounters with people in the 1960's drug culture. Didion's book is divided into three distinct parts: "Life Styles In The Golden Land," a collection of articles capturing the California experience of the 1960's; "Personals," a few of essays of the first-hand nature; and "Seven Places Of The Mind", some thoughts about those parts of California that are now long gone. One essay...
Read more