Articles - Miscellanea

In his essay, “On the Reading of Old Books,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight o’clock you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. . . . It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.” (Note: the preceding words from Lewis were written in 1944).

It has been nearly fifty years since I was introduced to some old apologetics books, which were among the earliest volumes of the Bampton Lectures that began in 1780 in Oxford, England. The Bampton Lectures were founded at the bequest of John Bampton to be a series delivered annually by a qualified lecturer addressing a theological issue.

There are numerous traditions that surround the dawning of the New Year. For example, there is the southern belief that eating black-eyed peas, seasoned with pork, will bring good luck in the year ahead. Another more familiar tradition rests simply in the greeting often spoken and heard: “Happy New Year!” Although the Bible does not explicitly contain the greeting, “Happy New Year,” it does contain various statements appropriate to a new year. One of these is the desire manifested in the statement of the elder to the beloved Gaius when he wrote, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 2).

As thought is given to mothers and motherhood there are two special elements in my memory of Mother’s Day, especially during the last 50 years. First, with a few exceptions, I have been blessed with the opportunity to annually write and publish a piece such as this with the aim of giving honor to mothers and motherhood.

Second, as a preacher of the gospel, but by the grace of God, one of the richest blessings of my life has been to study, prepare, and deliver the word of God . . .

In a 2019 book, Os Guinness makes the observation that gratitude is “foundational to . . . trust in and allegiance to God, and memory is gratitude’s oxygen just as forgetfulness is its poison” (92). Scripture implies that forgetfulness will poison thanksgiving while positive remembrance will keep it alive. Moses reminded Israel of this in the following: 

Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His rules and His statutes, which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . Beware lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth. . . . And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 8:11-14, 17-20, ESV) 

Reading an essay by syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, during the early days of 2015, introduced me to a small, but unusual book called the Fate of Empires and Search for Survival. The author of the book is the late Sir John Glubb, British diplomat who lived from 1897 to 1986. The Thomas essay was originally titled “America Interrupted” and first appeared in the Cal Thomas column published by the Chicago Tribune, 29 December 2014. I read it from a copy of The Intelligencer (Wheeling, WV) handed to me by a friend. The headline of the article in the Wheeling paper was “Without Duty, Decadence.”

Because of the debates like that which he had with the late Antony Flew, Thomas B. Warren is remembered as a great debater. However, Thomas B. Warren was also a great preacher. I recall listening to him deliver a masterpiece sermon a few years before his death in 2000. The sermon was on the Christian life, and the text was Philippians 4:1-23. In the introduction Warren observed that there are times when we need to take lengthy passages and “follow along” in the passage to see what it is telling us. In this case, he asked, “What is Philippians 4:1-23 telling us about the Christian life?”