A SECOND-AND THIRD-CENTURY Roman clergyman calculated that Jesus would return in AD 500. His prediction was based on the dimensions of Noah’s Ark. Christ did not return at that time. On January 1, 1000 many Believers in Europe, as you can imagine, predicted the end of the world. Sadly, some Believers, if they can be called that, reacted to that millennial mark in a military fashion.
NEAR THE END OF World War II downtown Warsaw was almost completely leveled. According to one witness, the only skeletal structure remaining on the main street was the Polish headquarters of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The words engraved upon the only wall standing, which were clearly legible from the street, were the words, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
I PROMISE NOT TO USE C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia for all my introductions from here on out, but I am compelled to start this chapter with another Narnian dialogue. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, when Mr. and Mrs. Beaver tell the four children that Aslan (the Christ-figure) is a lion, Susan replies, “Ooh!... Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
I ENDED THE LAST CHAPTER with five Greek vocabulary words. I begin this chapter with one Latin word, lustitia. lustitia means justice or righteousness. It is used in the Bible for the doctrine of justification by faith—lustitia Dei, “the righteousness of God” (Romans 3:21) and ex Deo est lustitia in fide, “the righteousness from God that depends on faith [in Christ]” (Philippians 3:9).
ON APRIL 29, 2011 the world once again was taken into Westminster Abbey. This time it was to witness the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Westminster is the usual place for British royal weddings. It is also the place for royal coronations. If a prince is being crowned as king or a princess as queen, he or she sits upon a throne housed in Westminster. The throne is called King Edward’s Chair. It was built in 1296, and all but two English monarchs sat on it for their coronation.
“OUT OF THE EATER CAME SOMETHING TO EAT. Out of the strong came something sweet.” Within any Children’s Bible certain Old Testament stories are sure to be found—the story of Noah and the ark, David and Goliath, Jonah and the whale, and, of course, the story of Samson and the lion.
IN FOURTH GRADE I earned the prestigious honor of becoming the first boy in my class to have a girlfriend. She wasn’t nearly as attractive as her older sister who coerced me into establishing this relationship, but Miss Francesca Quantra (Franny) was a start, a start to a twenty-year quest for love.
I ONCE HAD THE PRIVILEGE AND JOY of teaching a high school class on medieval literature. We studied some beautiful but often complex pieces, such as Beowulf and the Song of Roland. We read from Thomas Aquinas, Bernard of Clairvaux, Dante, and my favorite, Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are quite fun, especially if you speak Middle English for fun as I do. “Virginitee is greet prefeccion, And continence eek with devocion” (105-106), I often hum around the home.
NEAR THE BEGINNING OF James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the main character, young Stephen Dedalus, has been dropped off at boarding school. There Stephen encountered some of his classmates. One of the boys, Wells, asked Stephen:
