Observations

It's kind of interesting the observations we make when we are put in situations where we have little else to do but observe our surroundings. I've found myself in this situation several times over the last couple of weeks and I have noticed some things that are rather surprising and not the least surprising at the same time.

Scripture tells us what life on earth will become. We are warned that things will become like they were in the days of Noah. If we think back to Noah, we should recall that God destroyed the earth because the people's hearts were evil. Through Scripture we are told that we are all, since Adam, born into sin. That means that our hearts are evil because we know that sin is evilness...it is the breaking of God's laws and any time we oppose God we are evil. But Scripture tells us that God destroyed the entire earth, except for eight people, so much destruction that he even destroyed all the animals but the ones that were taken into the ark, and he did it because of the evilness of men's hearts. Could that evilness have been the same evilness as the sin we are all born into? Or might it have been a deeper sort of evilness? Something that goes beyond the sin we are all born into? I'm just questioning this here, not saying that that was the case.

What kind of evilness would make God destroy the entire world? Kill all the people on earth except for eight? What in those people would have offended God so much that he wiped them all out? Even the babies? Babies couldn't have done anything that wrong. How many evil deeds can a child under six months old or a year old do? Newborns barely know they're alive, they care only for eating and sleeping and being dry and comfortable. They won't even protest not being held if you never get them used to it. Some babies lay in a bed all day without a whimper except when they're hungry or need their diaper changed. So what could these babies have done that so offended God that he did not allow them to be saved on the ark?

The answer lies not in what they did but in what lay in their hearts. Their hearts were evil. God knew what they would have become. And because of what was in their hearts they were destroyed right along with all the other people on earth. It was pure evilness that cost every last person, except for eight, to be killed in the flood. That flood was God's wrath. It was anger that he poured out on the earth, anger over the evilness of men's hearts.

We are told time and again of what those on earth will become. Just one example is 2 Timothy 3:1-5...

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive,disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. 

Every single time I read those verses I can't help but marvel. I can't help reading those words, that warning, and seeing the world we live in today. When I think back over my life, which really is only a drop in the bucket for all the years that have passed on this earth, not my years but the space of time that the earth has been here, I see so many changes. I see the loss of morals, of consideration for others, of safety.

Logically, I know that the world wasn't safe when I was a child, and really if we think about what life was like in all of history...earthly life has never been safe. The 1800's had many outlaws, the government raided and stole, murdered and plundered, under the guise of war and keeping people safe. The 1700's saw the Revolutionary War which had it's own atrocities. The 1500's had Christian persecutions. Bible times had wars, murders, rapes, thieves, and all manner of tortures that we can't begin to fathom today. Life on earth has never really been safe, at least not since Adam and Eve, not since, for a time, the days following the flood when their were so few people on earth.

And yet, if we look back over just our own lives I think we can all see a downward spiral. In many ways it's to be expected, after all, we can't get to the point where Scripture says Christ will come back if we don't fulfill what Scripture says the world will be like.

It even seems that every generation believes that their lifetime is the end times, that they will see Christ return, and so many generations have been wrong. What we see as evil in our human minds and with our human hearts does not necessarily constitute the evil that the Lord says will be here when Christ returns, even if we think life on earth simply can't get much more evil than it is at any given time. History has shown us that it does get worse and that men are not a good judge of just how evil the times are.

And yet...I think every last person on earth, at least any person with access to any kind of news or to a broad set of people, can see that times are growing more and more evil. Society tends to get worse as a whole and not better.

A few days ago my husband was scanning over the headlines on an internet news site. I don't remember what he said to draw my attention but I remember questioning him about it. And I remember his response. He said something to the effect of how awful the news was, of how it was just more and more evil. And then he began to read the headlines to me. Someone killed here. A shooting there. A body found. A child abused. A gang attack. A peaceful protest turned violent. And on and on the headlines went.

I very, very, rarely look at the news in any way. I have my reasons, which I won't get into, for that, but yesterday was the first time in a good while that I had looked at the news headlines, and then I didn't read the articles. But I saw more of what my husband had seen the other day and I saw something else... I saw headline after headline about divorce. And I noticed a trend. It wasn't something I hadn't noticed before but there was no denying, if you simply read headlines without being bogged down by interest in the stories or trying to read any of the articles, that was easy to see.

Headlines about life in America or even in the world tended to be only about the horrible things that happen. This was an international news site so they had all kinds of news. There were the regular sports headlines, but even those now have a bent more towards promoting a certain ideal and not just on telling where games happen and giving scores. There were also headlines about financial situations but again I saw in those headlines not just financial topics but financial topics of how they pertain to a certain thing...and that thing was a disintegration of life as it once was, and something I will come back to in a minute. And then there were the same kinds of headlines that my husband had read the other day.

And so I found myself observing the news. In all fairness, I will admit that I observed the news through the eyes of my own beliefs. I know that not everyone see's things the same way I do and therefore what I saw as being awful, other's might think nothing of. But here's what I observed. 

There were numerous headlines about divorce. These headlines didn't speak of divorce in a shocking way. It was, at best, spoken of in a disinterested sort of, let me tell you how it is, and at worst it was spoken of in a good for you kind of way. There were headlines about entertainers that were getting divorced, some of them already seeing other people. There was a headline that said something to the effect of, 'I remarried my ex-husband and divorced him again', and showed a picture of a smiling woman. And then there was the headline, under the subject of finances, that was about protecting your money in a divorce.

Logically, I know that divorces happen and I know that money is an issue when they do happen. Some people go into a marriage with lots of money and divorce penniless. Some people have high paying jobs and want to protect the income they work for. Some people...I don't know what some people do, only that they love their money and the things that money bought and will do everything they can to protect it (them). 

But I couldn't help thinking, as I read that headline, that if a person was going through a divorce there are so many more things you should be thinking about than your money. Like whether or not you had done everything you could to salvage your marriage. I couldn't help thinking that anyone facing a divorce should be thinking about their children, grandchildren, even their parents and extended family long before they worried over their money. Money is money. No matter how much or how little of it a person has...it is replaceable. But what of the relationships that were formed because two people got married. How many of those married couples created children, some of them resulting in grandchildren...my grandparents divorced when they had great grandchildren...and how many of those marriages formed family ties, relationships...love...between people that would never have been connected if that couple had not married?

My husbands sister has children. Those children are related to me simply because I married their uncle. They had no say in any of that and yet those children love me. They know only that I am their aunt. They didnt' choose me to marry their uncle. They didn't ask for me. They simply got me as their aunt because their uncle married me. And because of that marriage, love was formed. Their love for me, mine for them. Most couples have relationships like that, with members of their husband or wife's family, where love exists, simply because the couple married. What happens to those relationships when a marriage ends in divorce. And is it fair to those that had no say in the marriage, no say in the divorce, to have to lose someone they love simply because a couple wants a divorce? And I guarantee most divorced couples do not want their ex having a familial relationship with their family.

But the news headline wanted to give advice on how to protect your money in a divorce. Why not have a headline on how to protect your marriage from a divorce?

I was grown and had a child when my grandparents divorced but I can still remember the thoughts and feelings that went through me, the adjustments I had to make, when my grandparents divorced. It was easier on me than it would have been on a child whose parents divorce but it was still hard. All of my life my grandparents had been there. They were...my grandparents. There was Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa and Grandma. I will admit that they fought like cats and dogs. I think they may have argued over dirt...probably really did argue over dirt. But they were my grandparents. There was security in them. They were there. They had always been there. Even grown I knew I could go to them if I needed anything. All through my life people knew who I was because they knew my grandparents. When I went somewhere in the town, and often in other towns, where I knew no one, I could usually walk in and tell them my grandparents name, tell them I was their granddaughter, and just like that I was treated different. It wasn't just my grandparent's family that knew them as a couple but many, many other people. 

Thinking back on my grandparents as a couple, I must admit that they didn't have a great relationship. If nothing else all the fighting had to be bad. But all that fighting was just a part of who they were. And then...there came a day that my grandparents weren't anymore. I still had Grandma. Still had Grandpa. But I no longer had Grandma and Grandpa. 

And I was grown.

I remember the shock. The loss. The hurt. I was old enough to understand why they were divorcing but my heart couldn't grasp that thought. I was collateral damage in my grandparents divorce. And I wasn't the only one. My grandparents had five children, fourteen grand kids, numerous great grand kids. We were all collateral damage. We may not have lived with them but the damage was there. 

Gone were the family holidays at Grandma and Grandpa's house, in fact, gone were family holidays at all. With their divorce went all the family get together's that had always happened between my grandparent's children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. There were no more Christmases. No more Fourth of July's. No more Thanksgivings. 

Instead we had to visit Grandpa at one house, where we eventually gained a new Grandma, and we visited Grandma at another house. There were no holiday's together. No family events. No security in just knowing Grandma and Grandpa were together. Instead we traded security for worry and comfort for caretaking. Where Grandma and Grandpa had looked after each other, now the kids and grandkids worried over them. Grandma had no one to do things with, she sat home alone, day after day. Grandpa did eventually fill his life with a new Grandma and there was less worry over Grandpa because he wasn't alone any more but Grandma...Grandma really never got over it. And neither did we. Neither did I. 

In my mind...Grandma and Grandpa still reside as a team. They were the backbone of our family. The heart of it. The center that kept us all together. They were the ones we could all depend on. At least...that's how I saw things and that was the security I grew up with. My grandpa is dead now and my grandma lives in a nursing home...but somewhere in my mind, Grandma and Grandpa still reside, sitting side by side in the living room or across from each other at the kitchen table. I can still see Grandpa kissing Grandma goodbye. He did that every time he left, even if they had just argued. Even after they were divorced.

But those were not the kinds of things that article wrote of, I know that without reading the article, because that news story was about protecting your money in a divorce. 

Who cares about your money? 

What about your marriage?

And so, as I observed the headlines, I saw articles all but applauding divorce. They say that there was a time in history when being divorced was a stigma. I've heard that during the 1800's divorced women were seen in about the same regard as prostitutes...that upstanding, meaning married, widowed, or spinster women looked down on them and would have nothing to do with them. I have no idea if that's true or not, I just heard, possibly read, it somewhere. But it makes sense. And if we look back over time we can see that divorce was much less prevalent than it is today.

I recently saw a question posted on a reformed Christian site. The question was about someone's friend that was being emotionally and possibly physically abused. I'm not promoting any kind of abuse here, not suggesting that anyone should have to live with any sort of abuse, I'm just going to share my observations. The responses to that question all centered on the woman getting away from the man. Now some of those responses did say the abuse should be reported to the 'church', I'm not real sure what good anyone thought that was going to do, but that seemed to be a genuine agreement between several people that replied. Thankfully, one person answered by saying it was highly unlikely that the husband in question was a Christian and therefore wasn't real likely to put any stock on what the 'church' said. But the rest...the rest suggested the woman leave the man, divorce him, and have him arrested.

I'm not promoting abuse, not saying it should be accepted, but I saw little in those responses that gave answers based on Scripture. Sure, taking a Christian before other believers to show them their sins is Scriptural, but as the one person said, it's highly unlikely that the husband was a Christian, but the advice to divorce the man...I did not see as being Scriptural. I don't even see abuse listed in Scripture as a reason for a couple to divorce. Divorce is only allowed in Scripture for two reasons, sexual immorality...adultery...and if an unbelieving spouse leaves. That's it.

We can, shockingly to our modern minds, even see marriages in Scripture that started with rape. Mistreatment in any way does not appear to be a good enough reason, Scripturally, for divorce. There is no 'out' in Scripture for a person in such a marriage.

And yet, these presumably reformed Christians promoted divorce. Now to be fair, not all of them suggested divorce, they didn't even all suggest the woman leave the man. And quite honestly...I don't know what else they could have suggested. 

What I do know is that even among Christians, our society has influenced our thoughts. Divorce is wrong and yet divorce or separation is suggested, even by Christians, when marital problems crop up. There was a time when society would have thought nothing of a man emotionally or even physically abusing his wife. There was a time that a woman literally belonged to her husband for him to do with as he pleased. And there was a time when no one would have dared ask for ideas of what a woman in an abusive marriage should do because there was nothing a woman could do.

We no longer live in those times. Women in abusive marriages can do many things. They have options. And our society puts no stigma on whatever choice they make, except maybe if they chose to stay with their husband.

If only the downward spiral in evilness were contained only to marriage and divorce...bad as that is...but it isn't. That evilness pervades just about every part of American life today. Society flaunts what the Lord abhors. It promotes evil...promotes sin...so much that it has filtered all the way down to the youngest children.  It lives in the hearts of people that live in direct opposition to the Lord and in the hearts of those that claim to belong to Him.

I have a family member that would claim to be a Christian in a heartbeat. She teaches her children about Jesus, takes them to 'church' because that is what she sees as part of being a Christian, reads them Bible stories, and helps them pray often, even over little things. I've seen her stop in a store and pray with her children. And yet...she watches movies that promote and esteem sin, lets her children watch movies, even those made for adults, about zombies and monsters, loves, and encourages her children to love, super heroes. Foul words roll off her tongue with little thought and she laughs when those same words come out of her preschoolers mouth.

I must adopt one of my husband's often said statements, 'I'm sure glad the Lord knows which ones are His because I sure can't tell'. 

I recently found myself at the local fair with my family, not once but twice. I enjoyed going, enjoyed spending that time with my family, but being there put me in a position to observe what was going on around me. I spent most of my time at the fair standing around waiting on family members that were riding rides. Out of two visits to the fair, I rode only one ride, the ferris wheel, which not surprisingly, still leaves you observing what's around you, only from a different vantage point.

Because I spent so much time standing and waiting there was little for me to do but observe what was happening around me. People coming and going, children laughing and crying. I saw men and women cuddling small children and babies. I saw a woman scream obscenities at her toddler and threaten to beat him. I saw children's hands lovingly held by their parents and children grabbed roughly and dragged along. I saw children obeying parents at their first command and children that showed no signs of listening to their parents. There were children that were closely guarded by adults and children that seemed to have no adult with them. I saw a woman swat a child for throwing rocks after the child was told not to and I saw another child swatted for throwing a cup. One child laughed when swatted and continued to misbehave, the other child stopped misbehaving. I saw couples that appeared to be enjoying their time together, couples that looked like they wished the other wasn't there. Families that were enjoying being together and what they were doing and families that acted as if they wished they were with anyone but who they were with. In other words, I saw the same kinds of things we can see every day of the week if we venture into an area where people tend to be.

But it wasn't those sort of things that kept me thinking about what I had seen long after I left the fair behind, no, what kept me thinking, still has me thinking, days later, is the other, less obvious until you start to see the pattern kinds of things.

Out of thousands of people, there seemed to be some kind of common theme. A theme I noticed again a few days later while looking at pictures of people on social media. In both cases, the fair and social media, there were exceptions to the general theme but the exceptions are few and far between. At the fair I saw a family that appeared to be Pentecostal. The women were wearing long skirts and had long hair, their shirts were more modest. I also saw a group of women that were wearing head coverings and they and their children were clothed in dresses that looked native to another country and another religion. On social media there were the women wearing more clothes in their pictures, posed in natural, relaxed, everyday life, sort of photos. But at the fair and on social media there seemed to be a strong trend toward barely there clothes among the women and even little girls. My husband pointed out a woman wearing a pair of jeans. The jeans should have been decent but they were far from it. They hugged every curve they touched and had the better part of all of the front of the legs cut out. What was there was more of a frame for the woman's lower body than a covering.

I saw more shirts that covered little and revealed lots than I wanted to see. I saw high heels, I saw spiked heels. I saw shorts that cover less than undergarments should cover. I saw children's undergarments because their clothes were too skimpy to cover them. I saw adults undergarments for the same reason.

But it wasn't just the clothes. It's a look they all seem to have, or maybe that so many seem to have. Their hair, no matter the color or style, is so similar that you'd be hard pressed to identify one from another. They stand in similar ways, walk in similar ways. And on social media they pose for pictures in similar ways. 

And the prevailing theme between them all appears to be provocation. As in, sexually provocative. Even their children, especially their little girls, are dressed in skimpy, skin tight clothes that leave little or nothing to the imagination. I had a small child stand before me wearing pants so tight that every outline under the pants was visible. I saw a little girl wearing heels that had to be four inches high. 

But it doesn't stop at how they're dressed. There is a theme in the skulls on their shirts, the ear rings in their ears that show up in other parts of their bodies too. Spikey balls in their eyebrows. Neon spikes in their noses. Metal things in their lips. What looks like rings for your fingers or buttons for your clothes in their ears. And then there are the tattoos. Everywhere you look there are tattoos. And women seem to have more tattoos these days then the men do.

I'm not speaking for or against anything here, just sharing observations.

Not all that long ago my husband and I were talking about a certain sport. I told my husband that in general the people that like that sport tend to be a certain way. And from observations it does tend to be that way, and not just in the sport we were talking about but in all sports. People don't usually associate short skinny men with football. Big men are usually what comes to mind when football is considered. Scrawny men in glasses that love to read books are not usually associated with bull riding. Women are not usually what comes to mind when one thinks of basketball.

That's just the way it is. We make observations on all sorts of things. In my conversation with my husband I told him that the sport in question was one that most people tend to associate with business men. That's just the way it is. Golf is generally looked at as a sport for those that wear suits and dress pants. Rodeos are seen as the sport for those in Wranglers and cowboy boots. We make assumptions based on our observations.

I did nothing different in observing those at the fair, although I tried not to assume anything about them as individuals. It wasn't each one as a person that had my attention but the whole of what the majority of them made up. Just as golf players, as a whole, are often thought of as being business men, at least they are among the people I have known, and cowboys are generally thought of in jeans and boots. It is the overall of what they are as a whole and not what they are as an individual. One golf player may not be a suit wearer or have ever worn a pair of dress pants but he is still going to be lumped in with those that do when he is thought of as a golfer. 

In the midst of all those thousands of people...I looked not at each person but what I was observing in the whole of the crowd surrounding me. The same with the pictures I saw on social media. I looked at what I saw in the whole of what was before me and not in each person. It was the same thing I saw in the whole of what was in the headlines of the news. Each headline, each person, made up only a single thing, a single story, a single life, but they all flowed together to create the whole of what was the news headlines, or the crowd at a fair, or a list of people one might wish to befriend on social media.

And it was in that whole that I saw the theme.

I saw it in the way the majority of the crowd dressed, age and shape of body seemed to have no bearing on the style or look of the clothes. I saw it in the way they pose for pictures to post online, whether they were taking them in front of me or whether they were posted on social media. I saw it in the way they walked. The way they stood. The way they wore their hair.

After that...if there was another theme under the one I was seeing, it was evil on their clothes or their bodies. The skulls on their shirts, their jewlery, their bodies. I saw it in the words painted on their chests. I saw it in the pictures of characters from television shows and movies on their shirts.

It was as if there was a general theme that ran through the majority of the crowd but you could peel away one thing or another and continue to see the same theme, evilness, sin, in every layer. 

And is it any wonder? Lets think again of the headlines in the news. Why are we fed nothing but divorce, murder, strife, fighting, death...evil...in our news articles? Why are those that have the tendencies to do those things not ignored instead of sensationalized in news and social media?

Just yesterday I saw a satellite image of a hurricane and what that image appeared to be was some kind of evil skull or monster. My first thoughts of it were that it looked like the grinch from a child's book. My husband said it looked like a fish. Our minds see what we are conditioned to see. I could see the evil face/skull but I could also see something else, something much less sinister. But social media was abuzz over the skull. Why? Why did everyone see something evil, and it did look evil when seen as what they described, instead of a bunch of clouds or a fish or a character from a children's book? What makes people, as a whole, see evil first?

The fair was only one place that I recently was in a position to observe what was before me. I went to the public library with family and was there only because they wanted to be there. I was not checking out books for myself so was not looking at books. I found myself in several different libraries over the last couple of weeks for the exact same reason, and therefore I observed what was before me in those libraries. During those library visits I walked the aisles in most of the sections, at least I walked through a good number of them. But in each visit I somehow found myself in or close to the children and young adult sections of the libraries each time.

In two of the libraries I found myself in an area of the library labeled as being for teens. These areas had comfortable looking chairs, posters on the walls, little papers with sayings from books or movies, and other things speaking of things that are of interest to most teens. The walls were lined with shelves of books aimed at teens.

In another library I found myself making copies at a copy machine. While waiting for the copies to print I looked at the wall of books behind me. That wall was geared for 'young adults' as a sign said and was part of the young adult section that began just the other side of the copy machine. I paid little attention to the young adult section so can't describe it but I did notice that wall of books behind me. And what I noticed was a common theme. The books all seemed to hold to a theme. 

I did not read each title, did not look over every book there, instead I scanned all that was before me, quickly skimming over titles and taking in words and pictures on the spines of books.

And that's where the theme came in. Those books were grouped together in what appeared to me to be series but could have been multiple copies of the same books, chances are it was a little bit of both. But as I scanned the spines of the books on that wall of shelves I saw a disturbing trend. It was a trend I had seen in the other libraries that had sections devoted just to teens. 

The titles of the books were made up of words like, 'ghost', 'wizard', 'magician'. The overall look of all the books, no matter their size or color, was such that they all looked like they belong together. They had a similar theme and that theme was not only fantasy but things that should be labeled as evil.

I noticed a similar issue as I scanned titles in the children's section. I admit that I looked a bit further, dug a bit deeper, in the children's section. After all, kids books should be clean, safe, right? Well, some of them were but more of them weren't.

I remember taking my oldest to the library years ago. We spent hours and hours there, days and days. We read book after book after book. We read books about teddy bears, trips to the zoo, bubbles, even food. We read books about kids and their lives. Yes, we had to pick through the books. There were books about ghost stories and myths, but we could find the books that were safe fairly easily. The mythology and the ghosts and whatever other vetoed books were few and far between and often had their own little section, separate from the other books. Halloween books were on their own shelves. Ghost stories in their shelf.

But as I perused the shelves upon shelves of children's books in the libraries I found myself in over a couple of weeks time span, libraries that for the most part I had never been in, I saw something disturbing. 

There in the children's picture books, in the baby board books, in the easy readers, and the early chapter books, were book upon book upon book of 'ghosts', 'monsters', 'wizards', 'warlocks', 'dragons', 'super heroes', etc. I'd pick up a book that looked okay only to discover the kid was in wizard school or ghost hunting. I'd skim through a book that looked like it might be decent and discover it wasn't.

These books, with their prevailing theme of evil, evil that is written of as being good, exciting, something to try and attain, are being put into the hands of thousands...millions...of children. 

I have always enjoyed reading. I've heard the sayings, seen the logos, encountered the agenda's that promote and push reading. I've read the articles on how to make readers of your children. I've seen the 'experts' comments that a child must not only be read to if they are to grow up to love reading but that they must also see the parent read, seen their comments that speak of lower crime rates, higher IQ's, better lives, for children that read. I've read books about books that your child should read. I've watched programs on getting kids to read. I've smiled at the posters that encourage taking a child to the library.

But...

After what I've recently seen in the library I have to wonder how good a library really is for a child. Children don't have the ability to discern things the way adults do. I was able to skim spines of books and immediately pick out books promoting evilness...zombies, murder...how about a children's book about dolls that murder?...witches, wizards...but a child doesn't have that ability. They don't inherently know that those things are wrong.

One of my trips to the library found me with my two year old grandson in tow. He kept pointing to a poster on the wall. This poster had a group of super heroes on it. It was strategically placed at a child's eye level and made to look appealing. I heard a librarian speak highly of books about dragons, books based off a movie that I happen to know teaches of gods that have nothing to do with the Lord. And the librarian's audience...a preteen girl.

I saw board books made for toddlers and babies that were about those same kinds of things. I picked up books that should have been simple stories, stories of right and wrong, stories that help a child figure out how to navigate their world, only to discover those books had more sinister plots.

I found a chapter book whose cover looked like it might be a sweet story. Upon reading the back of the book I discovered it was about divorce. Now, I know kids live through divorce, I know many, many kids must live with the consequences of divorce every single day and I know that sometimes it helps them to work through their own feelings to read a book or watch a movie about someone that has experienced what they are going through, or went through, but this book wasn't that kind of book. I don't recall exactly what it was about but it was something along the lines of the kid celebrating the parents divorce.

I did not personally see anything like this while I was in the library but I know someone that was approached by an author and offered a free copy of a young adult book that they had written and was in publication. This book was supposedly a romance. The person that was offered the book said she read only a small ways into the description before seeing that it was a homosexual romance between two teenage girls.

I've never seen that in any book I've picked up but I can well see how books would have it in them. And I would guess that there will be more and more of that and other things as time goes on. I remember reading a book in my teens that had a girl in it that had an abortion. I read many, many books about teenagers having sex. I read books about teenage mothers, some married, some put their babies up for adoption, but always the baby was conceived before marriage.

On the other hand I have read books that had teenagers as the main characters, teenagers that if you didn't know they were in their teens you wouldn't have known they were teenagers. The characters thought and acted as adults. They were mature. They made decisions. They did what needed to be done. They were people that, for the most part, were upstanding people, sometimes 'Christians', that most parents wouldn't mind their children emulating. Some of those teenagers married and had families in those books but the marriage came first.

I've read books about kids that come across the same way. They are kids that do what's right, or do what's wrong and suffer consequences that make sure they learn to do what's right. They are kids that, for the most part, parent's wouldn't mind their kids reading about.

But those kinds of books seem to be few and far between on bookstore and library shelves today. Those wholesome sorts of books...I could find not a single copy of Little house on the prairie...have given way to witches, zombies, and ghosts.

There is a popular children's company that makes clothes, dolls, and books for kids whose stories appear to be wholesome and safe to let your children read but I recently read an article that showed how that company is now backing popular social ideas that are anything but wholesome. How long before those ideas show up in their books and toys?

A number of years ago I used to occasionally rent movies from a video rental store. I was always careful of what I rented but it only took one visit to that store to see that I had to look through, and at, all manner of movies to get to the decent ones, or what I considered decent at the time. It took me only a few minutes in that store to discover I couldn't protect my then young children from the horror movies or anything else because kids movies and adult movies were all shelved together by alphabetical order. After that I tried only to go in there when I didn't have kids with me and eventually quit going all together.

But what I saw back then, horror movies and other things of evil, things kids nightmares are made of, has now filtered down into the children's sections. No longer are those things in adult movies and books only but the fill the pages and scenes of children's books and program's too.

And as a whole, it is across the board. It seems to be a social norm, a nations mindset. It is accepted and promoted among the majority of American's. It is seen as normal and acceptable. Babies wear look at me clothes and act in provocative ways. Their parents smile, laugh, applaud, and put them on social media, encouraging them and instilling those behaviors and clothing choices in their minds long before those children understand what they're doing. 

Monsters are now the heroes of little boys. Gone are the days when little boys wanted to be cowboys and went around chasing Indians. Gone are the days when they wanted to be...whatever man they emulated. Today little boys look up to men that are not men but some sort of mutant man. Their parents laugh and smile when they act as those so called heroes act. They dress them in Halloween costumes that make them look like monsters and talk of how wonderful it all is.

Then those same parents watch programs with their children about those mutant men, zombies, and so called heroes, they read those books to them, going to the library or the bookstore to buy them because they think they're cute and their children enjoy them. And then...those parents read headline news and wonder why that woman was attacked or that shooting happened or how that man could have become such a monster as to do what he did.

Evilness does not show up in things that go bump in the night or have glowing eyes. Evilness is not in a satellite image of a storm that appears to be an evil face with a red eye. Evil is in the hearts of men, women and children. Evil is in what a whole nation of people think they see when they look at a satellite picture of clouds, water and wind. Evil is in the lies children tell and the lies they grow up to tell. It's in the sexy clothes they wear and the poses they make that would have once been seen only in pornography. It's in the imaginings of being a monster and calling it a hero. Its in the costumes they wear, the movies they watch, the books they read... it's in their hearts.

And it's a diet that is now being fed to babies from birth on.

Journeying with Paul...part fourteen

Journeying with Paul continued...

When I last left Paul he had been in Rome for two years, working and teaching all that came to him. From my research it appears that the next letter that Paul wrote was Philemon and so it is to that book that I will turn.

I do find it kind of...odd...strange...confusing...that my Bible, and the majority of Bibles out there, have a layout that has nothing to do with how the Scriptures were actually written. Instead of being able to read the letters that Paul wrote in what is believed to be the order he wrote them, although that is disputed, I must read them in some disjointed order based on which letter is longest.

And so I flipped through my Bible, passing notes that I have taken, dates of when I read what, to find Philemon, Paul's next letter.

Paul begins his letter, the book we call Philemon, with, 'Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus', telling us that he was a prisoner when he wrote this letter. He follows that enlightening statement by adding, 'and Timothy', which lets us know that Timothy is still with him.

What must it have meant to Paul to have Timothy with him during his imprisonment? How much help and comfort must Timothy have brought to Paul? How much companionship must he have given him?

We see in this letter, as Paul begins to give instructions to Philemon and those with him, that Paul refers to himself as an old man. I have no idea what Paul considers to be an old man. We must remember that Paul lived in a different time, a time when a person's life expectancy probably wasn't what ours is today. But we must also remember that age is just a number and what some people consider to be old may very well be young to someone else.

I must also wonder...basing my thoughts only on what I know of Paul through this study...how likely it was that Paul would have even kept track of his age. From what Scripture says, Paul looks at life through Christ. In other words, he judges life on earth based on what he knows of Christ, Christ is his measuring stick for everything. Paul chose to know nothing but Christ among men. Unless Paul knew what year he was born in, and I have no idea if he did or not, than how likely was it that Paul kept track of birthdays and his age? Paul's whole life, after his conversion, appears to have been lived for the simple, single minded purpose, of furthering the Gospel...for Christ. He had a burning desire for Christ and He spread that desire everywhere he went whether or not the people around him wanted to hear it.

I just can't picture Paul keeping track of his own birthday. He seemed to have no regard for himself beyond what he could do for the Lord.

Whether or not Paul knew his actual age, he considered himself an old man as evidenced by how he referred to himself in his letter to Philemon. Paul also refers to himself as the father of Onesimus. I'm not entirely sure what he means here. If I were to guess, I would say he became a mentor to Onesimus, adopting him as his own, teaching and instructing him. But we are simply told that he became the father of Onesimus during his imprisonment and that Onesimus is now useful to the recipients of the letter and also to Paul. We also see that Onesimus was with Paul for a while during his imprisonment, that he came from those with Philemon and that he is returning to them, that he left them as a bondservant and is returning to them as a brother.

We see in this letter that Paul hopes to join those that he is writing to for he tells them to prepare a room for him, that he hopes to join them through their prayers.So he has hopes of being freed from his imprisonment. He follows that statement by speaking of Epaphras, who is also a prisoner, and of Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, 'my fellow workers' so we know that Paul is far from alone. With this bit of information it would appear that there are at least seven believers with Paul, one of them imprisoned also.

And that brings us to the end of Paul's letter to Philemon. We gained very little insight into Paul's life with this letter and no longer have the guidance of the book of Acts, or any other book, to flesh out, so to speak, Paul's story for us. This bit of insight is all we have. And so, basically, we have learned only that Paul is still in prison, that he isn't alone, and that he is sending a 'brother' to a group of people that he hopes to join soon.

To be continued...

Oh, for the simplicity of Scripture

A number of months ago I bought an ESV Reader's Bible. This Bible is designed for reading and not for research. When I read Scripture, it is my favorite Bible to read. I have discovered that I much prefer the simplicity of Scripture to all the things that men have added to it through the years. I also can't help but wonder if the simple way is the way Scripture was designed to be read.

Why do we need numbers in the middle of sentences? Why should things happening in Scripture be broken into different chapters. Pick up any fictional book, at least one that is put out by a major publishing company, and look at the layout. Very rarely are chapters begun in the middle of happenings. There is always a break and the end of one chapter and the beginning of another is a way to let the readers mind grasp the fact that there was a break in the story. Often a chapter ends on what is referred to as a cliffhanger by those in the writing world. Something major happens and the chapter ends, often abruptly. This is a writers secret. The purpose in doing that is to make the reader want to keep reading. 'Just one more chapter'. It is the way publishers and writers create books that have people saying they couldn't put it down.

If a chapter ends in the middle of a conversation, only to have the next chapter pick right back up in the midst of the same conversation, it's confusing to the reader and, quite honestly, dull. If, on the other hand, the chapter ends just as the lights go out and gas fumes are smelled following the roar and crashing of a tornado tearing through a house... The reader is left in a state of suspense that has them quickly turning the page and starting the next chapter almost without them realizing they were doing it. It matters not how many times they told themselves they would quit reading after this chapter, the suspense of the story has sucked them in and they simply cannot stop reading. And if, for some reason they do manage to stop reading, the story stays in their head, filling their thoughts, tugging at them, making them anxious to pick the book up again.

That is reading at it's best. It's writing at its best. And it is only one of the secrets, and rules of writing, that writers know and employ to write, and sell, best selling books. Dull books do not sell. Readers don't read books so that they can fall asleep. They don't read them because they want something so dull that their minds wander as they read, they don't want their eyes reading a story while their brains mentally make out a grocery list or catalog Jr's closet to see if he needs clothes for winter. A writer wants a reader to read in a way that keeps them coming back. They want the reader to love their book so much that that reader will forever remember their name and buy every book they ever write.

It's another secret of the writing world that authors build a fan base that buys their name. They must write with a style that allows readers to identify the writer by nothing more than what is written. And it works. People read and buy books based on an authors name and nothing else. It doesn't matter what the book your favorite author writes, it only matters that the book was written by your favorite author. People, once fans of a certain author, will overlook and forgive a bad book so long as their favorite author wrote it, and so long as it doesn't happen with every book.

But Scripture wasn't put into book form based on those secrets. Men, whoever they were, picked and chose how the books of Scripture would go together, books that were never really books, they were letters, scrolls, parchments. And now we call them books within a book. The very way men refer to the different labeled sections of Scripture as books distinguishes them as something set apart. This is good but it can also be bad.

By labeling each of the books that Moses wrote as a different book, the people who planned and set up the layout of what we call the Bible, have caused our minds to see the writings of Moses as something other than what they probably were. On the other hand, by labeling the different letters that Paul wrote, those same men, or others like them, with the same job, have given us a way to distinguish one of Paul's letters from another. There is good and bad in the way our Scriptures have been sectioned out.

The book names can be misleading if you don't know or understand how the Bible is laid out. The book of Matthew isn't about Matthew at all, neither is the book of Mark about Mark, or John about John. We read those books to see the life of Christ. Reading the book of Luke tells us of our Savior not of a man named Luke. Why then are the books labeled the way they are? Because they are named for the author of that book. Only thing is...the author is not the important One in those books. Christ is but there isn't a single book in the Bible that has been named for Him.

Why?

I don't know the answer to that question. I may never know. It would seem to me that if you're going to label Scripture, to set sections of it aside, that Christ would somehow factor into the name of that book. But not even the name of the Bible reflects Christ. We do, thankfully, have the word Holy tacked onto the man made label of Bible for the Scriptures, but we in no way see Christ in that title.

But the confusion and hard to read issues of Scripture continue far beyond the name of the Bible and the names of the books in the Bible. Imagine knowing nothing about the Scriptures, nothing of Christ, and picking up a modern American Bible today.

You would have to muddle through all of the Old Testament, a wonderful and necessary part of Scripture, no doubt, to get to Christ. If you knew nothing of Christ or Scripture and simply stumbled upon a Bible...would you make it through the Old Testament to get to Christ?

What would you think of the Old Testament? Some kind of history book? Some kind of story book? Too sketchy to have detailed stories, too sparse to contain enough history, and too gruesome to be a child's bedtime story book?

And if you do somehow manage, without any prior knowledge of what the Bible is, to make it through all of that, or if you skipped it, or skimmed through it...whatever you read will more often than not be split into two columns on each page. That causes your mind to stumble as you read. Your brain identifies it as some sort of reference book and not as a story book no matter what your conscious mind may be thinking. You stumble as you read, your brain processes the words as disjointed information.

But even that isn't enough confusion. No, men have split Scripture into chapters in places that don't even make sense to have a chapter split. Why do we have a chapter end in the middle of instructions being given and the next chapter pick right back up with those same instructions? And that is only one example of chapter endings and beginnings in Scripture.

Oh, but it gets even worse than that. Our modern day, oh so helpful, Bibles add in numbers for footnotes, numbers for references, section headings, pronunciation guides... Reference Bibles, although great, add in columns of references that further break the text and distract the mind. And make no mistake about it, all of these things are distractions to your mind. You may think that you pay them no mind, skipping over them as you read Scripture, but your brain processes them. They cause your brain to slow down, not a bad thing when reading Scripture, and stumble, even ever so slightly, as you read. It is good to slow down to read Scripture but it isn't good to do so because your brain must process all this...stuff....in the midst of your text. The unconscious processing of all these numbers, letters, verse references, titles, subjects, chapter numbers, book titles, etc all work against you in reading Scripture.

Don't believe me? Pick up a reader's Bible and see for yourself.

I was amazed at the difference it makes when you take all that other man added...dare I say, junk...out of Scripture. Scripture just flows. It goes together in a simple way.

Oh for the simplicity of Scripture.

Since discovering, quite by accident, the ESV Reader's Bible, I find myself looking at Bible's in a whole different light. For me, I now see Bibles as Bibles to be read and Bibles for doing research. If I could own only one Bible I would want it to be the most simple one I could find with the least man added things in it.

Men, as in all of human kind, have a way of mucking things up. We make things that should be simple, difficult. We add all sorts of things into things that were fine to begin with. We take what was simple and under the belief of making it better...we make it worse.

Bibles with names, references, footnotes, commentary, cross references, pictures, chapter numbers, titles, and whatever else are fine. They're great. They are needed. But they take away from what Scripture is. They take away from what it should be.

Scripture tells us to focus on Christ. Paul said he taught Christ. Paul chose to know nothing, despite being a very educated man, but Christ. Christ is simple. Christ can be understood in the simplest terms. But man messes it up. We add things in. We make it difficult. We try to see Christ through our 'educated' minds. Scripture says we must believe as little children. We try and understand Christ as educated adults. And by 'we' I'm speaking of people in general, not a certain group of people.

Men can't even get the order of the books of the Bible right, making us jump all around in Scripture, reading things out of order of how they most likely happened. What if you picked up a book, a work of fiction, and tried to read it with the chapters in the order of 1, 2, 4,5,3,7,6... how much sense would the book make? How much sense would it make if a books chapters were arranged by order of how long the chapter was? So long chapters would come before shorter chapters, with no concern for when or how those chapters were written, or how they fit in the story? I can tell you it would make no sense at all. You read about someone dying in one chapter only to read of them being alive and well in the next. You would read of the birth of a baby before you read of its conception. It would be nothing short of confusion. And yet...parts of Scripture are arranged in exactly that way...based on the length of the book.

Oh, for the simplicity of Scripture.

Men have arranged things in the Bible as they made sense to their fallen, human, minds and have given us things that don't make a whole lot of sense when one stops and thinks about what they have done to the simplicity of Scripture.

Instead of a letter written out, by hand, to the recipient, in letter format. We now have something that doesn't come close to resembling a letter. I had read Scripture many, many, many times, over many, many years before I understood that some of those books in the Bible were letters written by one man to a group of people. And those letters...well, it just makes sense for them to be broken into chapters, headed with numbers, and then further broken down into verses that are broken in the middle of sentences. Some verses don't even make sense if taken on their own. I'm not speaking of understanding the verse in context of Scripture but simply in reading the words in the single verse. They begin and end in the middle of a sentence.

And yet...that is what men have done to the Scriptures. We have taken something that wasn't broken and 'fixed' it until it's 'better'. It may work for the sake of preaching, for the sake of teaching, even for the sake of telling someone to look at verse whatever, but it doesn't do such a good job for simply reading and enjoying Scripture.

Oh, for the simplicity of Scripture.



And if you want to know how my writing goes somedays... I started writing this post as part of my studies to Journeying with Paul and have somehow managed to get myself so off base that I have written an entire post on the less than simple version of the Scriptures that we call the Bible. Imagine a grinning smiley face here, or maybe one with it's tongue hanging out, because this was never what I intended to write today.

Now Paul and his journey's must wait for another day as I must once again focus on real life for a while.

Journeying with Paul...part thirteen

Journeying with Paul continued...

For me, I move into this next phase of Paul's journeys with trepidation. Not because I don't look forward to this part of my studies, because I do, but because I have now lost what was something of a map through Paul's life.

As I studied Paul's journeys, up to this point, and as I have wrote out what I've learned and my thoughts along the way, I have found myself relying heavily on the books of Acts. Acts was, after all, the book that told me most of what was going on with Paul but now I have come to the end of Acts. With one simple sentence...

He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hinderance.

I must leave behind the guide I have been using to follow Paul and his journeys. I still have Scripture, still have a good bit of Paul's letters to lean on and learn from, but I must leave behind the guide so to speak. I must leave behind the book that told me where Paul was and a good deal of what he was doing and I must now rely only on Paul's letters for my study.

Which means...I must now glean my bits of information about Paul. I must pick through all his teachings to find the tiny bits of information about him.

Throughout this study, I have read every bit of Acts and as the place in Paul's life came up when he supposedly wrote each letter, I have read those letters, adding what I learned in his letters to what I could easily read in Acts. But what I gained from those letters, although great in insight, was small in details on Paul's life. Those details had to be picked out, carefully, from among all the wonderful things Paul wrote in his letters. And in case you've never noticed before...Paul was not to big on telling about himself. He gives only glimpses of him and his life, hidden in the midst of instructions or encouragement to those that read his letters.

It has taken me all of the book of Acts and bits and pieces from the letters that Paul wrote to piece together what I understand of Paul, to flesh him out, so to speak, to make him a man with thoughts and feelings, ideas and longings, pains and joys, and not just some deity type person that had direct revelations from the Lord, and therefore lived out a different kind of life, experienced a different way of life, than most people throughout all of history have lived.

But now I must move my studies away from the book that gave me an outline of Paul's life and must begin to study Paul only through the letters that he wrote. And that comes with a bit of worry. I well remember reading Paul's other letters. I remember how much of those letters didn't make it into this study on Paul, not because they weren't important, they are, very important, but because much of Paul's letters contain his instructions and encouragement and not much about him. I have several of Paul's books left to read, books I have read before, but now I will read them for the sole purpose of knowing Paul better and finding out what became of Paul, what he experienced, once the book of Acts ended.

And it is with that trepidation hanging over me that I move into the next, and final, phase of my study of Paul's life.

To be continued....

Journeying with Paul...part twelve

Journeying with Paul continued...

As with so much in life, the best of our plans are often set aside as we live out our life. I had figured to have finished my study on Paul long before now. For the last few weeks I have told myself almost daily that I needed to get back to Paul but time simply has not allowed. I find that setting Paul and his journeys aside works against me too. The more time I put between my studying of Paul, the harder I find it to connect what I'm studying, when I come back to it, to what I studied before. Sometimes I even find myself unsure of exactly where I left Paul or where I should begin to study his journeys.

This study has taken more out of me than any other study I've done or any other article I've written. There's something about all my other articles that simply lets me sit down and write them out, even if they take days of my time, I can easily move through them. Not so with Paul. Maybe because Paul is less of me and much more of Scripture. I don't know. But I find myself struggling with Paul and the more time that passes as I do this study, the more I struggle. I do hope you'll bear with me and keep that in mind if I happen to repeat myself or stumble in this study.

My study on Paul and his journeys has stretched into months and months and not the week or two I envisioned it taking. I would say that I've spent more time on this study, on this article, than anything I've ever written but I can't honestly say that because I don't know how much actual time has been devoted to it. I do know that it has stretched over more time than anything else I've ever written.

When I last wrote of Paul, last studied him, he had been imprisoned for two years and had written to the Phillipians. I wondered over what kept Paul pressing forward through all of his trials and earthly difficulties. I still wonder over that, wonder if Paul lived out all of his Christian life with the euphoria that comes with being a new Christian, or if he somehow just pressed forward with fortitude even when he felt like giving up.

There's something in the rosy hue of falling in love that lets us see all of life through different eyes than we ever see it again. We are able to experience things while in that rosy hue and come through them in a way we don't during other times. They say love is blind and that hue seems to keep us blinded. And I just can't help in Paul lived in that hue, that rush, of love for Christ? Scripture doesn't tell us and so it is something that I will never know the answer to but...I wonder.

Paul was brought to Caesarea  where the Jews brought many charges against him, to which Paul argued that he had done nothing. In that defense Paul appealed to Caesar. Paul was then taken before King Agrippa. As he stands before Agrippa, Paul gives an account of his life. In this account he tells how he persecuted Christians and cast his vote to kill them. This, from his own mouth, is what the man that wrote so much of the New Testament was. And yet he went on to be one of the most influential Christians of all time, if not the most influential.

When I was a kid my best friend was the daughter of a preacher. He told anyone that would listen that he had once been a drug dealer. I can still remember the shock of people that heard this. Preachers are not supposed to be drug dealers. But that one had been. He did not have the perfect life that most people envision a preacher to have before they step behind that pulpit.

Now...there is much I could say, have said, on preachers, but I'm not trying to cover preachers or what America knows as the 'church' in this article and so I will simply leave my comment about preachers at what I said above, at what I knew about that preacher. I spent many days and nights in his home, went out to eat with his family, went on family vacations with them. I was something of an extended part of their family. I was privy to a part of their lives that most that knew that preacher did not see. And what I saw was that he was just a man like all others. But those that heard his background were still shocked that he could be a preacher and have once been a drug dealer. There seems to be some unwritten rule that says a preacher cannot have a past that others wouldn't approve of.

That preacher was just a man, preaching in a denominational 'church' and leading people according to the doctrines that he believed. Right or wrong that is what that man was. Paul was so much more than that. Paul's influence stretched through time. His words became the inspired words of Scripture. Even words that he spoke by saying he was the one saying them and not the Lord. Paul's Christian influence has stretched over centuries, through generations, through the rest of time. And he was once a persecutor of Christians. By his own admission he hunted them down and voted that they put to death.

Agrippa declared that Paul could have been set free except for his appeal to Caesar so Paul was kept imprisoned.So Paul was placed on a ship that was to set sail for Italy. After some time, Paul was transferred to yet another ship. During this time we really see nothing of Paul in Scripture. We read of how 'we' set sail, or 'we' were put on another ship, but there is nothing of Paul in those passages. If we didn't know that Paul was counted in the 'we' there would be no way for us to even know that he was there. We can see only bare details in what we are told of this time in Paul's life. We do see that Paul warned those in charge of the ship of dangers facing them and that he was ignored.

And why wouldn't he be? Who would listen to a prisoner? Especially one that is saying those in charge should do something other than what they were supposed to be doing? Would it not have been in his favor to lead them astray? To get them to do what he wanted them to do so that he could escape? I have no illusions that that was what Paul was doing, he was simply warning them, possibly because he had direct revelation from the Lord of what was about to befall them, and they chose not to listen, but I can't say as I blame them. Who in their right mind would take instructions from someone they had in captivity?

But in not listening to Paul those in charge of the ship put everyone on board at risk. They encountered a fierce storm, were ''violently storm tossed" and were without food. It was in this condition that Paul essentially told them 'I told you so', telling them, 'men, you should have listened to me'. But he doesn't seem to hold it against them, instead he assures them that no loss of life will come from this, only the loss of the ship. Paul goes on to tell them that an angel of God stood before him and spoke to him. I wonder what those on the ship thought of that? Did they believe him? Did they believe in God because of him? Paul said, 'God has granted you all those who sail with you'. I wonder, as I read that, what it means that God granted all who sailed with him to Paul.

On Paul's direction...which makes me smile to see who now appears to be giving the orders on this ship...they anchored the ship. The centurion and soldiers now follow Paul's words so much that they cut away a boat that was being lowered by some on the ship, a boat they planned to use to escape the ship. But Paul warned that if the men left the ship none could be saved, so the boat was 'cut away' in order that those in charge might be saved, something they were putting their faith in their captive to achieve.

We now see that they have been fourteen days without food. Paul urges them to take some food in order that they might have strength for 'not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you'.  Once they had eaten they threw the wheat into the sea, making the ship lighter.

Still following Paul's directions, the ship was run ashore on a reef. The soldiers intended to kill all the prisoners to keep any from escaping but the Centurion wanted to save Paul and so kept the soldiers from carrying out their plan. Everyone was brought safely to land.

The island they were now on was called, Malta, and was home to natives that showed them 'unusual kindness'. In making a fire, Paul was bitten by a viper and assumed to be a murderer by the natives. When Paul did not die from the snake bite the natives changed their minds about him and decided he was a god.

Again, here is a section of Scripture that I would love to know more about from Paul's view. What was he going through? Thinking? Feeling? He was the prisoner, saved by the Centurion, and yet he was the one that had saved them all. Now here he is first thought of as a murderer and then a god. Those are some drastic and quick changes in what people thought of him. We are told only that he shook the snake off but are given no clue to what he might have thought or felt at being bitten. There is so much more to Paul, to his life, than what we are shown in Scripture.

I would love to read the rest of his story, the story where all the left out parts are included, but are never to know the rest of his story. Several months ago I was able to buy some books from a reformed Christian company, this company reprints books that were written long ago and have been all but forgotten in our day. They change them when needed to make sure they meet with reformed Christian beliefs but the stories are all fiction and are all set in times long gone. I purchased the books during a major clearance sale and got them for almost nothing. Because of the prices the books were being sold at, the books were selling out while I was on their website. It didn't take me very long to realize that I had no time to research each book if I wanted any hope of buying any of them. I quickly changed my buying tactic, instead of researching each book before deciding if it was right for my home, I simply had to put my trust in what the company stood for. In other words I bought books from the company because I knew they were reformed and because their normally pricey books were selling for a couple of dollars each. And so I made choices, bought books, without knowing what the books were about.

I have yet to read all of the books I bought on that sale but haven't been disappointed yet in any of the books I have read. But there is one book, a book I bought solely for me and not because I wanted it for my family, that I have held in my hands many times but can't bring myself to read. I have only tried to read it once and found myself quickly closing the book.

That book is simply titled, 'Paul', and is supposedly about the life of Paul. I had envisioned, once I knew what it was about, that I would love that book. I don't really know what I thought it was but I guess I imagined it to be something other than what I encountered the one time I opened the book with the intention of reading it. You see...the book may be about Paul, it may stick very close to Scripture, I don't know, but that book, as I discovered after reading only a couple of sentences, is a work of fiction. It may take Scripture and follow it exactly but it is filling in gaps with made up things.

I want very much to fill in the gaps of Paul's life in my mind, to understand all the things that I'm left wondering, to know Paul in ways that Scripture doesn't let us know him, but I don't want to do it through imaginings, mine or someone else's.

But that's all we can do, imagine. We can imagine how Paul reacted to being bitten by a snake. We can imagine how he handled the ship being tossed at sea, imagine whether or not he got sea sick, imagine whether or not he was scared. We can imagine how he thought and felt at finding himself marooned on an island inhabited by natives. But we can only imagine it all. There is no fact in any of it. I would imagine that being bitten by a viper would hurt, I imagine it would be scary, but Scripture doesn't tell us that Paul hurt when the snake bit him or that he was scared. We do know that Paul was told that he must stand before Caesar so it's unlikely that he worried he would die. We also know that Paul said he was ready to die so there's little chance that the thought of death, no matter how it might come, would give Paul even a niggling of concern. But again...I am only imagining what I think by basing my thoughts on Scripture. I do not know what Paul thought or felt because Scripture does not tell me.

The native's chief's dad was ill and thanks to Paul, he was healed of his illness. That resulted in others coming to Paul for healing. So here Paul is, a prisoner now marooned on an island, having survived being bitten by a poisonous snake, healing people of illnesses. That was how they lived, honored, treated kindly, welcomed, with Paul believed to be some kind of god, for three months.

When their time to leave came, the natives put whatever they needed on the ship, and they set sail. Paul once again facing the encroaching trial before Caesar. And this is how Paul finally got to Rome. Not on his own. Not as a preacher, come to teach them, but as a prisoner come to face a trial.

Now in Rome, Paul is allowed to stay on his own with only the soldier that guarded him. What kind of imprisonment is that? Certainly not the kind we envision today but it is the kind that Paul experienced in Rome.

We see that Paul lived in Rome, supporting himself, teaching Christ to all who came to him, for two 'whole' years. And that is how we end Paul's journey's in Acts. We do not see the rest of his life, do not see the end of his travels and teachings. We really don't even see the end of when he wrote letters to the believers because it is believed that Paul wrote Philemon, Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus after the end of Acts. But that is where the book that records so much of Paul's life ends, simply by telling us that Paul lived in Rome, supporting himself, and teaching all who came to him of Christ.

To be continued...