Faith Venture

Theologian/scholar N.T. Wright wrote a “magnum opus” on the Apostle Paul, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. The book contains 1,700 pages and weighs in at just over 5 lbs. It took me some time to read.

One nugget of insight stands out. I made a note and refer to it daily. Wright calls it Paul’s Shema—a truth thought one repeats daily. It’s found in 1 Corinthians 8:6. The Greek has no verbs. This is Wright’s translation. 

One God, the Father, from whom all things and we (belong) to him.

One Lord, Jesus Messiah, through whom all things and we (live) through him.

Ponder this, pray on it. There is great insight.

A story poet Carl Sandberg told concerned a farmer (imagine the old days) out contemplating his fields when a stranger stopped and asked, “What sort of people live around here?”

“What sort of people were there where you’re from?”

“Well, they are a mean, cantankerous, angry lot,” came the reply.

“Well, I imagine you’ll find the people around here a lot like that,” opined the farmer.

Later, a second stranger stopped and asked the farmer the same question. The farmer asked his question again, “What sort of people were there where you’re from?”

“Well, they are honest, hardworking, loyal people.”

“I expect you’ll find the people around here the same.”

The point?

The people you surround your self with determine your outlook.

Surround yourself with lying, thieving people and you’ll find yourself falling into that culture.

Surround yourself with honest, hardworking, achieving, generous people and you will find yourself being much the same.

How often do you yield to the urge to voice an opinion? Maybe it is live conversation where someone must be corrected? Or perhaps responding to some inane comment on Facebook.

I confess. Far too often. Many times silence is the better option. I once taped a little reminder to my notebook—STFU (shut up). Hmm, reminder…or reprimand?

John Climacus wrote instructions to monks around 600 CE. 1,500 years ago he noticed,

A man should know that a devil’s sickness is on him if he is seized by the urge in conversation to assert his opinion, however correct it may be.

Mahatma Gandhi wrote in 1909, “Formerly the fewest men wrote books that were most valuable. Now anybody writes and prints anything he likes and poisons people’s minds.”

We are far better served today reading from the classics and a few, carefully selected (like me), contemporary writers than we are by scrolling through much news and other opinions found on the variety of social media.