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Today this saying is being acted out more, it seems,
than ever. As Christians we know that lies started in the Garden of Eden when
Satan, disguised as a serpent, told the first one to Eve. The Bible tells is that Satan is the father of
liars. He enables his followers to make untruth sound like truth. There is
usually just enough truth in a lie to deceive people.
We live in a
world in which many people care only for themselves and their families. Some
don’t care who they have to step on, figuratively speaking, to get ahead and
make it to the “top of the ladder.”
Although the
gospels don’t quote Jesus as saying this, per se, Luke, in his later history of
the church, the book of the Acts of the
Apostles, does. It is found in Acts 20:35. The most usually quoted
version of the entire verse is from the Authorized
King James Version of 1611:
“I
have showed you all things, how that so laboring you ought to support the weak,
and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Jesus said that
in order to be His true followers we must show love to everyone, even our
enemies. He taught that peace of mind comes from sharing His blessings with
those in need, both spiritually and financially.
This idiom now refers to making a special effort to
induce guilt or remorse on another person. But we need to look at the origin
and its purpose. It comes directly from the Bible. The text most usually quoted is in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, 12:20:
“Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”
Actually, King Solomon, said to be the wisest man of
his day, wrote this in Proverbs 25:22
hundreds of years earlier, with St.
Maybe I should have saved this one until the 4th of July because of it’s origin, but it was just on my mind this morning. This is a warning against procrastination. Good intentions rarely reach fruition. It is a quote from third U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson (April 17, 1743—July 4, 1826), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, who died on the fiftieth anniversary of U.S. Independence Day. Christians are not
unlike others when it comes to procrastination.
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Genesis 1:1 (KJV)
Daniel Biddle, the author of Knights of Christ: Living With the Virtues of Ancient Knighthood, has a website. Not only that, Mr. Biddle has essentially placed all of the material inside the book online. If you didn’t want to pay for the book, you could read all the material for free.
Pay for the book.
1 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;
2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
Ephesians 5:1-2 (KJV)
Mr. Biddle opens this chapter with, “Being godly means imitating God in your daily life.” What does that mean? He very quickly quotes I Timothy.
11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
1 Timothy 6:11 (KJV)
The questions he asks at the end of the chapter are poignant to building a life that is “godly,” but especially number five.
“What does a godly life look like?”
Well, what does it look like? The point of that question isn’t to go looking for other people who are living a godly life. The point of that question is to look in the mirror and decide if that life looks like a godly life. If it doesn’t, what needs to change to make it look closer to a life that someone else would look at and consider godly?
Someone who ascribes to be elevated to the title “Knight” shouldn’t be trying to figure out how to massage scripture so that what is being done now is “approved.” The lives we modern humans live are many things, but “approved of by God” is not one of them. That is a harsh statement, but it is true.
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Romans 3:23-26 (KJV)
“All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” All. Not some, not a few, not most. All. So, what does that mean for someone who wishes to carry the title Knight? It means hard, convicting introspection to identify and scour away those things that keep us “…short of the glory of God.” How do we do that? Study. Relentless, persistent, focused study on the Bible and where we find differences between our lives reflected in the mirror and what is written on the page, effort to change. It won’t be easy. It won’t be quick. It will be worth it.
23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
Matthew 25:23 (KJV)
In the Christian world we take for granted the idea that
Holy Week has always been observed since the day of Christ. However, it only
began to be celebrated in the 15th century and originated from the
walking of the Via Dolorosa, the path in Jerusalem traditionally believed to
have been taken by Jesus between His mock trial before Pilate and His crucifixion
on Golgotha. Today this week is the most sacred week of the year because
it brings to our close attention the fulfillment of Christ’s earthly ministry
and His supreme sacrifice for our salvation, culminating in His resurrection. This week brings together the three great virtues of Christianity
as brought out by St. Paul in I Corinthians 13: faith, hope and love.
This old proverb is one that we don’t here very often in our fast-paced 21st century. But it is well worth bringing back into use. Because it is attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, and seemingly no one else, and because it agrees in principle with other Stevenson sayings, though the actual source is allusive, it is quite likely that it came from him. Also, because he was Scottish, this is listed as a Scottish proverb. It has great depth of meaning, and goes back to the biblical principle, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
As members of this holy order, each day of our lives
should include planting some seeds of faith, hope and love.
This metaphoric expression is used to refer to
rectifying damaged relationships with others. Too often in our hurried lives
feelings are hurt, even though unintentionally. Obviously it derived from repairing literal fences
which have been torn down or damaged by weather or decay. According to a major
online dictionary, the term originated in the United States in the late 19th
century in reference to a member of Congress returning to his home town to stay
in touch with his constituents and look out after their interests. This was
likely a reference to Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, who felt compelled to
do just that, according to page 2 of Abraham
Lincoln: Personal Reminisces of the Martyr Emancipator as he Appeared in
Memorable Campaign of 1854 and His Subsequent Career by James Minor,
published in 1912, where ‘mend his fences’ is in quotation marks.
Repairing and maintaining our relationships within
both our natural family and spiritual family is imperative.
I am
planning on using this old proverb in my local newspaper column soon, and I
thought it would be appropriate here as well. It’s one
my mama “told me a hundred times if she told me once!” She wanted to make sure
I never gave up on something that I needed or wanted to do even when it seemed
like it was impossible. It goes right along with “If at first you don’t succeed
try, try again!” And it has been in use for a long, long time. The
earliest reference to a version of it is in Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish
Proverbs and Sentences by George Herbert in 1640; it is number 730:
“To him that will, wais are not wanting. William C. Hazlitt used our modern version in New Monthly Magazine published in London in February 1822:
“Where there’s a will,
there’s a way.—I said so to myself, as I walked down Chancery-lane…to
inquire…where the fight the next day was to be.”
In the 20th century there are plenty of examples including this
citation in Good Night Little Spy by
German-born Canadian author Eric Koch in 1979:
“I’ve no idea how it
can be done.
We have all been
told that we should not hold grudges. But for many this seems easier said than
done. This saying
itself, in reverse, was first coined in English by Shakespeare in King Lear written between 1603 and 1606,
and published in 1608:
“Pray you now, forget and forgive.”
Then used by Miguel
de Cervantes in El Ingenioso hidalgo don
Quixote de la Mancha, first published in Spanish also in the early 17th
century, (1605, 1615) and translated into English shortly thereafter (1612,
1620).
“Let us forget and forgive
injuries.”
The roots of
this saying, however, come from the Bible. Forgiving is a command of Jesus found in Matthew
6:14:
“For if ye
forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”
It goes on to
tell us that God will not forgive those who are not forgiving of others.