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:
MY WIFE HAS BEEN TO St. Peter’s in Rome. I have been to St. Paul’s in London. Between us we have seen the two largest churches in the world. And if you have ever been in such a building, something so massive, ornate, and meticulously designed, you likely experienced what we experienced— that inexplicable architectural euphoria.
AFTER HEARING THE previous tract on the greatness of the cross—humble servanthood and sacrificial suffering—someone from my congregation quoted to me a verse from a contemporary Irish “poet.” He goes by the name of Bono and hangs out with three other guys; they call themselves U2. The verse is this:
To touch is to heal, to hurt is to steal,
If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel On your knees, boy.
MATTHEW 20:17-28
FOR HIS COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY for New York University, Hugh Gallagher answered question 3A in this way:
3 A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?
A FEW YEARS ago a friend loaned me a book by Dr. Kevin Leman, cleverly titled Adolescence Isn’t Terminal. As I skimmed through the book, I came across an interesting story not about adolescence but about Einstein. Leman shares:
Alice was close behind [the White Rabbit] when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.
MATTHEW 19:1-12
HOWARD MARSHALL is a prominent New Testament scholar. He is also, on the issues of election and predestination, an Arminian. That is, he is not a Calvinist like John Calvin was and Martin Luther and Augustine and Paul and John and Jesus. Anyway, when I was in college Dr. Marshall came to my New Testament Criticism class and gave a guest lecture on the pseudepigraphy of 2 Peter. He answered the question, “Did the Apostle Peter write 2 Peter?”
MATTHEW 18:21-35
WHO NEEDS A good opening illustration when the Master storyteller has given his own? But before we get to Jesus’ parable, we will start with Peter’s question: “Then Peter came up and said to him, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’” (v. 21).
WHEN I WAS IN FOURTH GRADE, Sister Mary Bernard, the principal of St. Philip the Apostle’s Grade School, called me into her office. There she sat uncomfortably behind her big brown uncomforting desk. I sat obediently in front of it.
