“THIS version of the facts”

The physicist Leo Szilard once announced to his friend Hans Bethe that he was thinking of keeping a diary. “I don’t intend to publish it,” he said. “I am merely going to record the facts for the information of God.”

“Don’t you think God already knows the facts?” Bethe asked.

“Yes,” replied Szilard. “He knows the facts. But He does not know THIS version of the facts.”

How many versions of the facts ARE there? Two motorists are involved in a minor fender-bender, witnessed — shall we say? — by no one else. They call a policeman to adjudicate. In such a situation, probably there are three versions of the “facts”. Each motorist has seen it all through his eyes, and with his perception of the other driver. And the poor officer needs to balance two biased, self-interested accounts with his own objective investigation of the evidence — skid marks, exact positions of the two vehicles, damage to each vehicle, positions of each vehicle relative to stop signs or traffic lights or lane markers, etc, etc.

Let us say that three bystanders are nearby, and they all witness the same crash. Each one is standing in a different place; each one has been looking at something different just before the crash; and each one has focused most on some particular feature of the incident.

Now there are almost certainly six different versions of the “facts”.

Are the “facts” further affected by the types of cars each motorist was driving? By the race, or gender, or appearance, or socioeconomic class of the motorists — or of the bystanders?

Yes, of course they are!

In some fundamental way, then, it may be said that every single person who has ever lived has lived in his or her own “world”. No one else has had exactly the same experiences. Even if two people were to have exactly the same experiences, then the subjective biases, dispositions, prejudices, or underlying philosophies of each party would certainly by very different. So each will have his own version of the “facts”.

Is there a TRUE version of the facts? Of course there is. It is God’s! How much time and energy and effort do we all expend, in the unexpressed (but nevertheless very real) “fool’s errand”… of trying to get God to see the “facts” from our viewpoint?

The irrepressible Snoopy sat on the roof of his doghouse, tapping away on his little typewriter. “I see you are still working on your book of theology,” Charlie Brown said. “Do you have a title yet?”

“Yes, indeed,” thought Snoopy — a gleam in his eye. (If you haven’t met them, you should know that Snoopy, being a dog, never actually speaks to the kids in the comic strip. But he has his own ways of getting his message across — the typewriter being one of them. A closer look at the page in the machine tells us Snoopy’s book title. The ultimate title for a book of theology? “Has It Ever Occurred to You that Might Be Wrong?”

Abraham Lincoln often asked visitors to the Oval Office a question. Pointing to a dog nearby, he would ask, “How many legs does that dog have?” “Four, of course,” would be the answer. “Now,” Abe would say, “let’s call his tail a leg. Now, how many legs does he have?” “Five.” “No,” replied Abe, “Still four! Because calling a tail a leg… doesn’t make it so!”

Your facts. My facts. God’s facts. Let’s resolve, from this time forward, to try to see things from God’s point of view; that, and that alone, is the way of understanding.

How do we do that? Read the Bible. Pray about it, and read it again. See what it has to say about real-life situations. Put its teachings into practice, as best you can. Read the Bible some more. See what it has to say about the future. See what is has to say… to YOU, personally. See what it promises to those who believe it. Pray again. Keep on reading.

Don’t ever let someone else tell you what the Bible says; check it out for yourself.

The Bible is the Word of God. In the things that really matter, there simply is no other version of the “facts”!

TOLERANCE, INTOLERANCE, AND IN BETWEEN

The following is a three-way exchange of recent days:

Brother X: “(There is)… a climate of confrontation and intolerance threatening to destroy our unique fellowship.”

Brother Y: “However, it should be pointed out that some of us believe that our unique fellowship is threatened with destruction from excessive tolerance.”

Brother Z: “So we should use slight intolerance…?”

Now this exchange is threatening to give me a headache, for which I have little “tolerance”. So, to head this off, and incidentally to figure out where I stand on this, I headed for the dictionary…

“Tolerance” has at least four distinct meanings (not that they are totally unrelated to one another, but there are gradations involved… and, as everybody knows, the fun is in the “details”!):

• a policy of non-interference with; the desire to allow or permit (something or someone).
• freedom from bigotry or prejudice. (This ought to be further qualified: “bigotry” is “blind, or narrow-minded adherence to a particular point of view” — at least that is the primary definition; and “prejudice” is “suspicion or irrational hatred”.)
• The amount of variation allowed from a standard. (This is basically a scientific definition — as in “allowable or workable deviation” from a manufacturing standard — but it does suggest some interesting points from a Christadelphian point of view.)
• allowing others freedom to hold religious views that differ from the established ones.

Now, this suggests a question: When they use the word “tolerance”, or its negation, “intolerance”, which of the four definitions (or its negation) do each of Brothers X, Y, and Z mean?

Does Brother X mean there is “a climate of blind, narrow-minded… suspicion and irrational hatred”? Or does he mean there is a “climate in which certain beliefs are not allowed”? My guess is… the first. But can I be sure?

When Brother Y says that we may have “excessive tolerance”, does he mean that we have gotten too far away from “blind, narrow-minded… suspicion and irrational hatred”? Or does he mean that we’ve gotten (or could get) to the point where we “allow or permit” certain beliefs that we should not? My guess is… the second.

Is Brother Z suggesting that even “slight bigotry or prejudice” is too much? Of course. Or is he suggesting that we should, as a community, “allow or permit” any and every doctrine? I hope not.

Just a little case study of how the use of the same word with different meanings can drastically affect our discussions. Or, as the fellow once said, “It all depends on what you mean by what you say!”

Now take the four definitions of “tolerance” above:

(a) If by “tolerance” we mean a policy of non-interference with particular doctrines or practices IN THE BROTHERHOOD, then… certainly… absolute “tolerance” would be absolutely destructive of our faith, or at least of our community’s uniqueness. Amongst Christadelphians, such absolute “tolerance” could never be tolerated!

(b) If by “tolerance” we mean freedom from bigotry and prejudice, then we can never have too much! It’s like Peter says in Acts 10 and 11, “I have learned not to call or consider any man common or unclean!” However, as with Cornelius and his household, such men (and women) could not be “tolerated” in the ecclesia unless they believed the first principles and were baptized.

What is interesting about this definition is how the commonly-accepted definitions of ordinary words may come to affect our very thought processes (think “gay” and “pro-choice”). If “intolerance” is so readily equated with “prejudice” and “bigotry”, who would ever want to be “intolerant”? But sometimes, I am sure we all agree, we must be “intolerant”! When and where, that is the question!

(c) If by “tolerance” we mean an acceptable variation from a generally-recognized standard, then — again — tolerance is a very real desideratum (sorry, I was reading John Thomas today: “desideratum: a thing greatly to be desired”). Part of what keeps us together is our adherence to a generally-recognized standard (a statement of faith). But another part of what keeps us together, practically speaking, is that we generally recognize that there are acceptable variations from that standard, ie, certain doctrines and practices not specifically forbidden, because not of a first-principle nature. As has been said, “In essential things –unity. In doubtful things — liberty (or tolerance). And in all things — love.”

(d) If by “tolerance” we mean allowing others to hold religious views that differ from the established ones, we better believe in this. If our governments did not believe in this, where would we be, with our “non-orthodox” views? Hiding in cellars and caves, that’s where!

Submitted in a spirit of equal parts “tolerance” and “intolerance”,

George

I’m not quite sure how one does it — nor even how I do it, sometimes — but I think it’s a good idea to develop some sort of “circuit breaker” in the mind. So sometimes, when I’ve been pretty hard on myself — deservedly so — for a failure or shortcoming or even a chronic deficiency — then I find myself “turning off”… as in, ‘I’m not going to think about that any more for a while’… and maybe going for a walk, or just resting, or sitting in the back yard and listening to the birds… and thinking — not very profoundly or deeply — but just letting the mind wander over… the goodness of God, and how Jesus loved sinners, and stretched out his hand and touched even the leper or the prostitute. And remembering that he — that THEY, God AND His Son — love me! In other words, going “easy” on myself for a little while, and reminding myself that I am the child of God, and that He loves me, warts and all.

Now that doesn’t mean that I should stay in that pleasant, soothing state altogether, or too long. But sometimes I need it, so as not to overload. And being strengthened by that little “break”, after a while, I can go back to the “struggle”, whatever form it takes. But I can’t — I just CAN’T — be struggling all the time!

Now it’s not as though, when I am “wrestling” with this or that problem of mine, or trying diligently to improve in this or that aspect of my life, that I can’t — simultaneously — think of the goodness and mercy of God. And probably that “double-thinking” would be the ideal. So maybe it’s more like… at times, I could easily forget what I SHOULD be remembering all the time: that God loves me, because — well, just look at me! What’s there to love? As brother Dev told us this weekend, “We are a miserable mass of sins and temptations and lusts, and the flesh — like a subtle snake — is inextricably entwined in all we do and think and say!”

And THEN he REALLY got going!

Seriously, though, Dev had a lot more to say than that. But the point is worth remembering, and that can be a corrective to the tendency to dwell too much in the pleasant, soothing atmosphere of “God-loves-me” Land — where a too-long sojourn may possibly leave us thinking something like: “Well, now, since God does love me — freely and without reservation — then why should it make any difference what I do, or don’t do?”

I remember a while back we had this same sort of discussion, when some expressed reservations about my quoting brother Growcott in daily exhortations… because he could be very uncompromising — and too much GVG could leave one feeling hopelessly inadequate.

But what I tried to say then, and I’m trying to repeat now, is: in our lives, we all need some comfort AND some challenge. Some patting on the back AND some kicks in the… backside.

And we each need some of both, but in different proportions. And we each need different proportions at different times.

So, taking GVG’s comments and exhortations, for example, I’ll say for myself that I wouldn’t want to read him all the time or exclusively, any more than I would want to dwell ONLY on the passages in the Bible that tell me, “Be ye holy, as God is holy” or “Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. But I need those passages, and those sorts of exhortations, sometimes. And other times, I need to hear that, yes, God loves ME! And I need to believe it.

Why were the Canaanites so bad that God told Israel to kill them all, including children?

Well, it’s a tough question, isn’t it? But the OT is full of the same question — just phrased in different ways: Why was the whole world so bad that God destroyed them all, young and old alike, but saved only eight in the days of Noah? (And, of course, it can be pointed out that in the NT Jesus gives explicit support to the account. If we believe in Jesus, we can’t help but believe that the story of Noah is literally true.)

On one level, the answer is: the Canaanites (so far as we know about them) were grossly idolatrous people; their systems of worship involved the worst forms of sexual abominations, hetero and homo and other things totally unmentionable. Their worship was totally tied up in these things; you couldn’t “worship” the Baalim and the Ashtoreth, etc, without visiting the equivalent of brothels on a regular basis. There were male prostitutes and female prostitutes, who were called “priests” and “priestesses”. The whole business was publicly witnessed, and glorified. And it was “fun” and “exciting”. (Probably not much worry about getting young and old alike out to the “mid-week Bible class” there!) And then there was the offering of babies in the fires to their gods! Sex and violence galore. Las Vegas, Mardi Gras, and the abortion clinic all wrapped up in one!

One can’t tell for sure, but there were possibly some terrible diseases — including sexually transmitted ones — epidemic in these peoples too. There are at least a couple of occasions when God tells Israel to destroy certain peoples, and leave alive only those.. young?… girls who were virgins.. no one else (was this because all the others were so infected?). Other times, of course, He commands that ALL be destroyed. Sometimes He even saves others — like Rahab and all her family — even though a decree of death was placed on all the people of Jericho. Presumable He knew what He was doing in every case… even if we can’t understand it.

What problems might this have presented for Israel if there were pockets of these people, and their worship, everywhere in Israel? We know that some remained, and were “thorns” in the sides of Israel ever after.

On another level, there is this answer to the question: God doesn’t OWE anyone anything. Life, even brief life, is a gift from God, and He is free to take it back when and how He pleases. He cannot be unjust. The only problem is: we have trouble understanding WHY. But that’s our problem, not His. It’s like Job… he keeps asking WHY. Why am I suffering? Why aren’t THEY suffering? Why won’t God explain it all to MY satisfaction? Why won’t God at least come and talk to me?

The thing is: God finally does come to Job, and talk to him, but He DOESN’T explain it! He doesn’t answer all Job’s questions. Not really. Instead, He says, in abbreviated form, “I’m God and you’re not. Were YOU there when I made the heavens and the earth? Who are you to question HOW I do anything?” And, apparently, Job is satisfied and repents — having seen the great and terrible glory of God, up close and personal.

Is that an answer? Sort of, I guess. Not easy to put over to others, I suppose. Unless they are disposed to see it.

But I think that to see a lot of what the Bible teaches, on a very basic level, we have to be prepared to give up a lot of our preconceptions (some might call it “humanism”). To put ourselves in that right place vis a vis God and His Law and His commandments… is very humbling to the flesh and pride of us human beings. We are not the center of the universe, all things do not revolve around us… that’s hard to grasp, because for everyone of us, they do! We are born thinking about ourselves, we live thinking about ourselves, we see the whole world through our own eyes, and no one else’s. And we just have to keep learning, time after time, that there is something bigger than us!

Exhortation for the day concluded.

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed… We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence… Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2Co 4:8,9,14,16-18).

The apostle Paul and his companions spent years trudging up and down the roads of the Roman Empire — always seeking opportunity to bring the good news of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom to their fellowmen. It was not easy work. The demands on the spirit as well as the body were almost overwhelming. There were dangers on every side, at every turn in the road. Foul weather, hunger, thirst, disease, shipwreck. And the constant threat of physical harm — or even death — at the hands of Jewish partisans or Roman authorities (2Co 11:25-28).

Paul never minimized the physical and emotional trials of such work. He knew too well the limitations of mortal man, even though “born again”, forgiven, spiritually re-generated, and Holy Spirit-infused. The life he had pursued was grindingly hard. Sometimes, he despaired even of life itself. Paul wrote: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered… We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death” (2Co 1:8,9a). But he continued: “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us” (vv 9b,10).

So why did Paul go on? Because he hoped in God who raises the dead. Because there had come to him, in that dark room in Damascus years earlier, the absolute knowledge that Jesus was alive — raised from the dead, never to die, again! Nothing else was so real as that simple but earth-shaking fact. Jesus was alive!

Jesus is alive! And those who believe in him, who trust in him, who commit their lives to him, will live with him (1Co 15:20-23; 1Th 4:14-16)!

This is real. This superlative fact will never change. No matter what sufferings a believer must endure, whether for days or weeks or months or years, this reality of a living Lord will never change. In the truly big picture, framed by God and the universe and eternity, the resurrection of Jesus and the offer of everlasting life to his followers are irrefutable fact and unshakable promise. For the believer, these are reality.

For Paul, then, “my troubles are light and momentary and temporary” was much more than a few brave words. In the context of divine reality, “the glory that awaits me is weighty and eternal” made absolute sense. Nothing else counted. Not the pain. Not the illness. Not the privation. Not the heat nor the cold nor the damp nor the blazing sun. And not even the cruelty of other men who should have known better. The sum of all these seemingly terrible things counted for nothing compared with the new life found in Christ.

Listen how Paul explained “what really counts” to the Philippians:

“If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phi 3:4-11).

By Jewish reckoning, Paul’s pre-Christian life was outstandingly admirable and righteous. But even the “best” of men are only actors on a stage of God’s devising. They play their parts, and all too soon they make their final exits, like the “great” men of a hundred generations before them (Eze 31; 32:18-32). All too soon, they go to the eternal grave of dust and ashes — unless they have a hope in God (Ecc 3:18-20; 9:1-10; Psa 49:5-20; Luke 13:1-5; Isa 26:13,14,19-21).

Any “achievements” of those same “great” men — wealth, power, fame, etc — are short-lived and rarely survive the next generation (Ecc 2:1-23). “All of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

But Paul knew what to strive for. Continuing on in that same letter to the Philippians, he wrote:

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me… Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you” (Phi 3:12-14,16-17).

So what is real? What really counts? What will turn to dust and ashes and what will last forever? In 2Co 5 and 6, Paul says those who find a new life in Christ (being reconciled with God) will fearlessly pursue a lifestyle inspired and controlled by the love of Christ, persuading other men and women that this life, lived with its eyes glued on the future kingdom, is the full, true life — not the shadowy existence. Read his Spirit-inspired indomitable words for yourself:

“As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you” (2Co 6:4-11).

Bible believers will see each day’s measure of evil and trial for the trivial thing it is in the light of eternity. They will turn the other cheek. They will walk the extra mile. They will not lose heart. For they know what is coming. They know who is coming! And they know why (Rev 11:15-18)!

When to keep your mouth shut:

• In the heat of anger: Pro 14:17.
• When you don’t have all the facts: Pro 18:13.
• When you haven’t verified the story: Deu 17:6.
• If your words will offend a weaker person: 1Co 8:11.
• When it is time to listen: Pro 13:1.
• When you are tempted to make light of holy things: Ecc 5:2.
• When you are tempted to joke about sin: Pro 14:9.
• If you would be ashamed of your words later: Pro 8:8.
• If your words would convey the wrong impression: Pro 17:27.
• If the issue is none of your business: Pro 14:10.
• When you are tempted to tell an outright lie: Pro 4:24.
• If your words would damage someone else’s reputation: Pro 16:27.
• If your words will damage a friendship: Pro 16:28.
• When you are feeling critical: Jam 3:9.
• If you can’t say it without screaming it: Pro 25:28.
• If your words will be a poor reflection of the Lord or your friends or family: 1Pe 2:21-23.
• If you may have to eat your words later: Pro 18:21.
• If you have already said it more than one time: Pro 19:13.
• When you are tempted to flatter a wicked person: Pro 24:24.
• When you are supposed to be working instead: Pro 14:23.

“Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles”: Pro 21:23.

[Brother Gary Burns died after a long and difficult struggle with leukemia. Just before his death, he wrote Suffering, the why of — see Articles and Lessons.]

Just thinking… about RR (and JT), about “providence”, about good brothers and sisters who suffer, in a thousand ways, and sometimes ask “Why?”, and about friends who die young…

So while I was thinking thus, I decided to read a bit of RR’s “Ways of Providence” — and was reminded again, that even if RR had never given us anything else, how his little narrative book “W of P” would be enough!

I wound up reading his retelling of the life of Jacob, in which — as he says — the “ways of providence” are so well-illustrated. In one place he focuses on a part of the narrative that is more or less hidden “between the lines” or “behind the scenes”. Meaning… the main story has moved on elsewhere, to Joseph in Egypt, and to the brothers going down there in trepidation and fear, but out of necessity because of the famine. But here RR concentrates on the one they left behind, the aged Jacob — who had, as far as he could see it, “lost” one son already, endangered another, and so desperately did not want to lose his beloved Benjamin… but who could only wait and worry and fear…

RR proceeds…..

Jacob is left alone in distress. His sons are all gone to a country where he knows they are suspected and from which perhaps they will never return. The austere “lord of the land,” the burden of his apprehensions, may fall upon them all, Benjamin too, as he had done upon Simeon, and make them bondsmen, and he may never see them again. He is uneasy; he cannot rest; he trusts in God, yet the clouds are dark and his heart heavy. It is almost at the breaking point. He cannot endure much longer. Poor Jacob!

“To the upright, there ariseth light in the darkness.”

His sons return in due time, and what fine equipages are these they have brought with them? Wagons that Joseph has sent to carry Jacob and all the little ones to Egypt. Who? Joseph!

“Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt.”

Jacob faints at the report! No wonder. Give him time. He slowly rallies. He listens; Benjamin and Simeon are there. He looks at the wagons. He puts all things together. He comes to the only conclusion admissible in the circumstances:

“It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die.”

What more forcible illustration was it possible for God to have given to all succeeding generations of His children that trouble (so far from being evidence of desertion) is a means employed in His hands to lay the foundation of future joy and blessedness. Let His children then be comforted and strengthened to endure even the deepest and most inexplicable affliction. Let them learn to see God in the darkness and to feel His hand in the tempest. Let them beware of the folly of Job’s three friends rebuked of God. Let them know that this time of our pilgrimage is the night, and that though weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning and that joy a joy prepared by the weeping. Let them apply the consolation Christ has given them:

“Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall be comforted.”

---

Thereafter I read also some of RR’s story of Joseph — the same story on the “other side”, so to speak… There RR concludes:

Meanwhile, the lesson of Joseph’s life is unmistakable. It is what we have already seen illustrated, that God works when His hand is not apparent, and often when it would seem as if He must be taking no notice, and by means that seem to exclude the possibility of His being at work. The conclusion is comforting to those who commit their way to God. It may seem to them that God is not only working with them, but actually working against them. Let them remember the agony of Joseph in the pit, in slavery, in false imprisonment and learn that the darkest paths of their life may be the ways appointed for them to reach liberty and life, wealth and honour — yea, a throne in the kingdom of the anti-typical Joseph, who himself had to tread the dark and tearful valley of humiliation, and who, in the day of his glory, will introduce all his brethren, amongst many bright stars, to the most interesting of Jacob’s sons.

Thank you, RR. And thank you, GB (the OTHER GB, not this one!), for reminding us that it is through much tribulation that we enter the kingdom of God, and for reminding us that there is a reason for everything that happens to us or to those we love, even if we see it only through a glass darkly at this present time. “The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.”

Yes, I do believe it will.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also, too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
17. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
18. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
19. The passive voice is to be ignored.
20. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
21. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
22. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
23. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas.
24. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
25. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
26. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
27. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
28. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
29. Who needs rhetorical questions?
30. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
31. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

From a news report:

“So Mrs Risher, the mayor in this town of 1,400 residents for as long as many people can remember, sent him on down the road. She has made international news by banning Satan, by mayoral proclamation, from the Inglis city limits.”

So that means that every citizen of Inglis City, FL is breaking the law by continuing to live there?

This reminds me of Mark Twain, who once said that the individual that he would most like to meet was Satan. Why? “Because anyone who can hold total and absolute control over 90% of the world’s population, and a good bit of control over the other 10%, must be by far the most powerful person in the universe!”

And then there was Calvin, of comic page fame, who asked his favorite friend and stuffed animal Hobbes, “Do you believe in a supernatural devil — you know, the fellow who’s responsible for all the evil in the world?” To which Hobbes thoughtfully replies, “I don’t think man needs any help!” Calvin walks off, harrumphing to himself, “There are some things you just can’t talk to animals about!”

John Thomas interpreted the time periods to bring the 1,260 to a close in 1866-1870, and firmly believed that Christ would return at that time or very shortly thereafter (five generations ago!). When this proved premature, Robert Roberts (and others) resorted to the convenient 30-year “add-on” (1,260 to 1,290) and again “circled” a date, or time period: 1896 to 1900. They were wrong too.

The history of Christadelphian prophetic study in the 20th century has been a continual tinkering and retinkering with the basic framework of “day-for-a-year, 1,260-1,290-1,335” ideas… always guessing prematurely, and always being wrong. (Maybe not to the same degree as the JW fiasco, because the JW officialdom — being the next best thing to infallible — felt the need to make absolute pronouncements… whereas Christadelphians must know they are guessing, and don’t ever put great stock in their latest “guess”. For Christadelphian CHers, it’s been a “don’t put all your eggs in the latest basket” syndrome for some time: more like ‘if not this basket, then the next one!’ Or, ‘if you miss this bus, just wait: another will be along shortly.’)

The real problem is with the whole day-for-a-year idea, which is so unwieldy, with all its paraphernalia of dates, and has so many “moving parts”. Looked good in the 18th century, not so good in the 19th century, distinctly out of date in the 20th, and getting impossible in the 21st. CHers fix on a date as the end point of the whole rigmarole, having lined up about 15 previous dates to plausible (or semi-plausible) “pegs”. Then the date comes and goes, and Christ still isn’t here. What to do? First, do all the “add-ons”, 1,290 and 1,335 — but then they run out and still no culmination. Now you have to go back to the starting point and move ALL those ‘pegs’ forward 25 or 50 or 75 years and look for another “fit” — all the time pulling and pushing and squeezing, to get everything in the right place. And then that “absolute, final, last-time, for-sure” date comes and goes too.

Am I being too critical? I don’t mean to be. My point is: any Bible students who truly believe in the coming of Christ at the end of the age… are going to see themselves as living at or very near that end. And they are going to “fix” things in their prophetic apparatus to suit that deep-seated hope. No, the problem is with the CH framework, which just doesn’t work any more; it’s been stretched to the breaking point, and refitted, and stretched again, and now it’s broken.

(An interesting irony, if you will, is that JT and RR, and others besides, have of course died at just about the time their prophetic time-period expectations ran out. So they haven’t been around to admit, ‘Guess I jumped the gun a good bit!’ or ‘Maybe I didn’t get all my numbers right!’ But then, on the other hand, as far as they were concerned, Christ DID — or should I say, WILL HAVE — COME at just about the times each envisioned.)

Of course, the (subconscious?) desire to be living at the very end, and to see everything as it unfolds, has led even really good Bible students to “read into” events and circumstances more than was really there, as may be seen in retrospect. It was true of John Thomas — who was ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ when he went looking for ten duchies and postage-stamp “kingdoms” that were closely connected with Rome in the 1860s… to fill out his scenario of a Last Days Roman power. (Just a test: how many of JT’s original “ten toes” can anyone name today? [Don’t laugh: I’m talking about “expositional” toes, not “real” toes!] No fair looking it up… if this is really important stuff, you should be able to do it from memory!)

Likewise, RR looked long and hard (as did others of his day) for signs of Jews returning to the Promised Land, and did in fact see the very, very earliest beginnings of a Jewish community there. He wasn’t wrong; he was just very premature in his predictions, and evidently thought (or hoped) that a few hundred — or at the most, a few thousand — Jews living in splendid isolation — with no government or military power or legal standing of their own — amongst millions upon millions of Arabs was enough for the divine plan. And his perspective of the Middle East of his day colored (how could it not have colored!?) his interpretations of Bible prophecies… all with a view to seeing Christ come very soon, even in his own day! He was wrong, but who can blame him?

Interesting, too, that the very latest things Harry Whittaker wrote on prophecy (in the late 1980s) contain some of the same sort of overblown, over-eager grabbing on to certain political situations as “key” to the return of Christ. In fact, some of those “guesses” are even now out of date. But not as out-of-date as a lot of JT’s and RR’s political surmisings. (Second question on the pop quiz: discuss in depth the causes and effects of the Crimean War, and how it has a bearing on Last Days prophecies.)

Of course, as far as HAW is concerned, Christ will have returned in 1992 (when HAW died, after long years of looking for the return of Christ).

So… we seem to have finally gotten to where JT and RR and lots of other folks expected: Israel in their own Land, still in ignorance of God for the most part, and threatened by many enemies intent on her destruction. It just took us longer to get here than anyone thought. And it wasn’t the CH 1,260-framework that got us here; we got to this point DESPITE that; we got to this point because a latter-day restoration of Israel was and is fundamental Bible teaching, and essential for the return of Christ.

I well remember a conversation I had with a brother and sister about prophecy in general. The gist of their objection to my views on prophecy was: ‘We could never accept that point of view, because you believe that several things must happen before Christ returns (which might take up to 3 1/2 years), while WE believe that Christ could return at any minute.’ And the way it was said indicated that they NEEDED to believe that Christ could return at literally any minute!

My experience and observations tell me that CH folks are the worst “offenders”… if it is an offense to require that Christ’s return will be in *their* generation. I should mention that that conversation took place almost 10 years ago. They NEEDED to believe that Christ could return at any minute, and couldn’t stand the idea that it could be 3 years away. And I guess they feel the same way today.

So every year or two they go back to looking at the CH dates, and seeing where they must have been wrong, and reworking the 1,260 and 1,290 and 1,335… and remixing Jubilee years, and figuring out how long a “generation” is and trying to figure out when the “generation” started: was it 1917 or 1948 or 1956 or 1967 or whatever? Trying to find a new date on the calendar to circle, so like the carrot it can be just out there, very close and beckoning them on.

Me? I don’t need to resort to the calculator and add all manner of two- and three- and four-digit numbers, looking for the next “right combination” that tells me 2002, or 2003, or 2004…. ad infinitum… is the one!

I just wait and watch to see when that volatile mix of ethnic and religious interests in the Middle East finally gets to the point of explosion. Maybe it will be this year, maybe next. For all I know, maybe it’ll be when I’m an old, old man… or asleep in the grave. But I guess I’m enough like JT and RR and HAW to think it won’t be that long!

“Maranatha.”