1 Thessalonians 2: 7-20 (links validated 9/13/23)

My friend Marv could talk to almost anyone about the Christian faith. His method? Marv always read the comics, financial pages and sports sections of newspapers. He, after all, reasoned most men were interested in at least one of those subjects. The Holy Spirit then used that interest as a bridge across which Marv could share the gospel. Of course, for God’s adopted children’s words to be God’s word, they must always be deeply rooted in the Scriptures that proclaim that word. Marv knew the Scriptures even better than he knew our cultural context. He spent far more time reading and meditating on the Bible than his local Salt Lake Tribune.

always good insights!

From Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC. Harper & Row, 1973, pp. 96-97. “God never seems to weary of trying to get himself [his word] across. Word after word he tries in search of the right word. When the Creation itself doesn’t seem to say it right—sun, moon, stars, all of it—he tries flesh and blood. He tried saying it in Noah, but Noah was a drinking man. He tried saying it in Abraham, but Abraham was a little too Mesopotamian with all those wives and whiskers. He tried saying it in Moses, but Moses himself was trying too hard; tried David, but David was too pretty for his own good...

From Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC. Harper & Row, 1973, pp. 96-97. “God never seems to weary of trying to get himself [his word] across. Word after word he tries in search of the right word. When the Creation itself doesn’t seem to say it right—sun, moon, stars, all of it—he tries flesh and blood. He tried saying it in Noah, but Noah was a drinking man. He tried saying it in Abraham, but Abraham was a little too Mesopotamian with all those wives and whiskers. He tried saying it in Moses, but Moses himself was trying too hard; tried David, but David was too pretty for his own good. Toward the end of his rope, God tried saying it in John the Baptist with his locusts and honey and hellfire preaching, and you get the feeling that John might almost have worked except that he lacked something small but crucial like a sense of the ridiculous or a balanced diet. So he tried once more. Jesus as the mot juste [exact right phrasing] of God. ‘The word became flesh,’ John said, of all flesh, this flesh: holy, hick, whore’s hero, poor man’s Messiah, savior as schlemiel. Jesus as Word made flesh means take it or leave it: in this life, death, life, God finally manages to say what God is and what man is. Means: just as your words have you in them—your breath, your spirit, power, hiddenness—so Jesus has God in him.”

includes numerous quotes

(includes several quotes)