“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15).

The enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman is equivalent to the enmity between the mind of the flesh and the mind of the spirit:

“For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom 8:6,7).

But Jesus brought an end to that enmity, in himself:

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3).

God’s plan of salvation required that His only-begotten Son be subject to the same weak flesh, or “nature”, as all other men, but that nevertheless he would do what no other man had or could do, that is, overcome the mind of the flesh (or the mind of the serpent) by giving himself over completely to the mind of the Spirit of God. In doing this, Jesus “condemned” (ie, pronounced judgment against) the “sinful” principle of the flesh.

Put another way, Jesus — being, like us, a partaker of flesh and blood, nevertheless “destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil” — or the diabolos (Heb 2:14,15).

The same principle is demonstrated typically, prophetically, and pictorally, by the brazen serpent lifted up on the stake in the wilderness (Num 21), a figure which Jesus appropriated to himself:

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14,15).

How could Jesus equate himself with a serpent? This is an extraordinary and improbable figure of speech, and only makes sense — I would suggest — if the “serpent” describes the flesh, or “nature”, with its susceptibility to a “carnal mind”, which Jesus possessed — a “nature” or disposition of mind which, by God’s grace, he overcame, condemned, and destroyed by his faithful obedience to the Spirit-will of his Father.

Whereas Job was plainly a righteous, indeed a “perfect” man (Job 1:1) — under extreme testing, physical and mental and spiritual, he came up short. But this should be no reflection on him; almost certainly, none of us would have fared nearly so well as did he.

And that seems, to me, to be one of the key features of the Book of Job. Even though Job is a type of Christ — and that is very plain to see — he can, of necessity, be nothing more than an imperfect type! The very best of men, tested in something like the way that Jesus would be tested, while comporting himself very well in the beginning, and enduring fairly well the continued trials (brought on by his “friends”!)… still came up short: drifting down into self-pity and anger and bitterness.

But, of course, it would ill become us to make any disparaging remarks about Job’s reactions to his extreme trials. What might our reactions have been, in similar circumstances? I almost hesitate to ask the question, for fear of… whatever!

The Book of Job is there in the Bible, I think, to remind us: here’s what the VERY BEST or men could do with something approaching the VERY WORST of trials. Job is both a comparison and a contrast, to Christ. And in his great trial, and his (relative) coming short, Job simply emphasizes to us the incredible nature of the character and trials and sufferings of our Lord. How humbling is that!

I am a sports fan, and baseball is my game, especially. It’s interesting, from a historical perspective, to note that in the history of baseball — with literally thousands of players participating on the highest level for well over 100 years — there have been maybe a dozen pitchers who could consistently throw a baseball over 100 miles per hour. Hundreds and hundreds of pitchers can hit, maybe, 95 miles per hour; and thousands could generate, say, 90 miles per hour. But only the very, very greatest could have occasionally thrown a baseball at 100 or 102 miles per hour — and they are legendary: Walter Johnson, Satchel Paige, Bob Feller, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson. (For perspective’s sake, very good amateur pitchers might hit 80 mph — and ordinary people, on the best days of their young lives, might throw a baseball at something like 60 mph.)

Anyway, with that in perspective, suppose there came along a pitcher would could consistently throw a baseball… let us, say, 150 miles per hour. Well, first of all, it would revolutionize the game of baseball — such a baseball would be, for all practical purposes — unhittable. The very rules of the game would have to be changed. (120 miles per hour would probably be unhittable, for that matter.)

In the realm of such pitching (which, admittedly, has limited value otherwise — but just for the sake of discussion), a Walter Johnson or a Bob Feller would be… Job. The extraordinarily talented or gifted man — one among thousands — whose feats are so far beyond other mortals as to make their comparison with him ludicrous.

But alongside such a “superman”, how would we characterize the man who could throw half again faster than he?

“By faith Abraham, even though he was past age– and Sarah herself was barren– was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise” (Heb 11:11).

So the writer to the Hebrews clearly implies that Abraham was in fact “past age” to become a father (as does Rom 4:18,19).

“Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” (Gen 17:17).

Is it possible that Abraham laughed, not the laughter of doubt, but of joy and hope based on faith (Joh 8:56; Rom 4:19)? And so the question may be one of amazed wonderment.

“Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad” (Joh 8:56).

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” [Gen 15:5] Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead — since he was about a hundred years old — and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (Rom 4:18-21).

Yet “against all hope”, Abraham “did not waver through unbelief”. Sounds like he must have known that he, at the age of 99 or 100, could not have children… and this despite the evident fact that his father has fathered him at the age of 130.

My guess (and it can only be a guess) is that (1) Abraham had experienced some debilitating disease, and/or (2) (how to put this delicately?) he simply knew in his own personal experience what no observer could know… that, humanly speaking, he could no longer father children. Although Abraham was not nearly as old as his father Terah had been when he was born, still he knew that — as far as he was concerned — he was “past age”!

Yet he still believed God, against all the evidence of his own body! And the laughter (Heb “tsachaq”) of Abraham and then of Sarah — whether a joyful or a incredulous laughter, or something of both — found expression, when another year rolled around, in the naming of their infant son, “Yitzhaq”, Isaac, “Laughter”:

“Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac [‘Isaac’ means ‘he laughs’] to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me” (Gen 21:1-6).

Now the birth of any child can inspire, in its parents, the profoundest and most subtle of “laughter”, the sheer joy of new life, the miracle and wonder of God’s ongoing creative process, in which even humans may be blessed to have a part. The joy of recognition, at some level, that God has not yet given up on the human race, since He is still allowing new “entrants”! The joy of looking at a future, and hoping for a future, of which the newborn may be a part.

I think something of all this was in the minds of the parents as they looked upon their son. And they named him “Laughter”. As Sarah put it, “Everyone who hears will laugh with me!”

Can we laugh with joy that the old couple could still, by God’s grace, have a special child of promise? “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” (Gen 18:14).

And can we laugh with joy that the young virgin could, by the power of the Highest, conceive and bear a son who would at the same time be Son of man and Son of God… and set the angels singing in the heavens? “For nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

The babe in the manger in Bethlehem… his name is “Laughter” too! We should all laugh together, in joy that God is still “creating”! In joy that He hasn’t yet given up on the human race! In joy that, through His Son, he is still looking for new “sons” and “daughters” to be “born anew” in Him! In joy that in times and places where no human power is sufficient, God is still working! And in joy that God’s future is — through His Son — bright with promise!

So, come on, everybody. Laugh!

The Bible refers to two very different sorts of people:

(1) those who love Christ’s appearing:

“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2Ti 4: 8)

… and

(2) those who love this present world:

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1Jo 2:15).

It is a simple fact that every knowledgeable, responsible adult falls into one of these two categories. For each of us, it is an “either-or” situation: Either we love Christ and eagerly look for his Coming, or we love this present evil world.

It is true that one’s love for the world may be expressed in various ways: one may go in for the “high life”, or one may be generally sober-minded, hard-working, and a “good citizen”. And there are a myriad of other variations on the theme “lover of this world” — but they all come down to the same thing in the end. It really does not matter by which of the many available paths a man becomes lost in the “wilderness” — the only thing that does matter is that he has missed the one path that leads to the Kingdom of God.

But the most deceptive of the ways, or “paths”, by which man demonstrates his love for this world is… the pseudo-religious path. To walk in this way, a man may speak highly of Christ and his Coming. He may thus fool others (and he may even fool himself) into believing that he loves Christ’s appearing, when what he really loves is talking about it!

How can we tell if we fall into this special sub-category of “lovers of this world”? If we are indeed fooling ourselves, then the time to discover that unpleasant truth is now, while we can still confess our sin, and return to our first love.

The Bible can help us answer this question, by directing our attention to a similar class of people in earlier times. These were Jews who lived many years ago, even before the first coming of Jesus. Like many professing believers today, these Jews attached a great deal of importance to the coming of their Messiah. Their prophets had taught them to look forward to the Messiah’s coming, and this expectation had become a central feature of their religion.

Yet God instructed Amos to write:

“Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD!”

— Why?…

“For what end is it [ie, will it be] for you? the day of the LORD is [ie, will be] darkness, and not light” (5:18).

And Malachi wrote:

“The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?” (Mal 3:1,2).

Unfolding events justified the stern warnings of the prophets. When God’s Son did appear in Israel, many Jews — including most of the really “religious” Jews — were still unprepared. The circumstances of the Lord’s coming were dramatically different from what they had expected. And the Messiah who appeared was radically different from the “Messiah” they had come to expect. And so they actually hated him and rejected him, bringing condemnation upon themselves.

Why were the people of Israel not prepared? What went wrong? Let Paul explain:

“For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him” (Acts 13:27).

“They knew him not!” They did not recognize the One for whom they and their forefathers had been looking for hundreds of years. And this, despite the fact that they did read the Old Testament Scriptures about him “every sabbath day”.

They would have read Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 time after time, but they gained nothing from their reading. Because their minds were filled with their own ideas about the coming Deliverer, they were not open to receive the truths revealed in those Bible passages. They could not receive the teaching that their Saviour would be despised and suffer — they read but they did not understand; and, ironically, they became the very people who despised him and caused him to suffer. And so they fulfilled these scriptures to their own confusion.

These “religious” Jews read their Bibles as a solemn duty, a ritual performed most regularly and carefully. Probably the mere physical exercise of reading the words made them feel good. But, sadly, it was all a deception and a snare. They did not read to gain instruction: they thought they knew all the answers already. And because they regarded themselves as a holy people, full of wisdom and knowledge, they were altogether unaware of how unreceptive they were. Those truths they did not like, the truths which would have prepared them to receive their Messiah when he appeared, were automatically rejected.

Do we know men like this? Is it just possible that we, today, are shutting our minds to unpleasant or difficult truths when we read our Bibles? We should face the possibility that our mental picture of the coming Christ, and our ideas about the events related to his appearing, may be shaped at least in part by human prejudice. And it is just possible that our prejudiced acceptance of certain traditions, and our prejudiced rejection of certain Bible teachings, may be as dangerous to our spiritual well-being as the similar prejudices of earlier generation in Israel were to theirs.

How can we know if this is true of us? The only proper answer is this: Those who truly love Christ’s appearing (as distinct from those who love to talk about it, and those who love to have others think they love it) will always read their Bibles with open minds, and will always be willing to be taught further from its pages, especially as regards its prophecies of the Messiah’s Coming!

How amazing that some of those who, in other settings, readily approve of the principle that the Bible must be the ultimate authority, seem to forget that this principle also applies to the Bible’s prophecies about the Last Days.

Past Bible students have sounded out similar warnings against a “comfortable”, “traditional” reading of the Bible:

“All writers and speakers must be unceremoniously tried by this [the Word of God]; for, God hath said, that ‘if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them’. It matters not who the sinner may be; pope, cardinal, archbishop, bishop, minister, or their admirers; or, even one of the saints of God, or an angel himself; nothing he may say, or write, must be received unless in strict conformity to this word; and of this the people must judge for themselves upon their own responsibility; and in the face of their eternal weal [well-being], or rejection from the Kingdom of God. To this Book [the Bible], then, we appeal for light — for information concerning the things which shall be hereafter” (John Thomas, Elpis Israel, 1847, p 170).

These words, written over 140 years ago, are powerful reminders of what must be the measure of our prophetic understanding and the direction of our lives: for Christ is coming soon!

Some of us will be familiar with the expression: “You are what you eat.” All of us will have heard someone say: “Oh, I can’t eat that… I’m watching my weight.” We are becoming more aware of cholesterol levels, sodium levels, fiber and sugar content, etc, in our foods. This is the day of dieting, food fads, weight-watchers’ clubs, and — at the extreme — bulimia and anorexia. Then there are other parts of this strange world where people can only wish for such ‘problems’ as too much food and too many choices.

Our Lord taught his disciples to pray: “Give us today our daily bread” (Mat 6:11). In the Old Testament we see the example of daily bread in the giving of manna to the Israelites in the wilderness. Israel, once again, were murmuring, this time because they lacked bread. They had, as one writer said, “sand in their sandwiches, monotony of landscape, thirsty kids, bickering families, no supermarkets at the corner… and now no bread”. So God provided, once again: “He rained down manna for the people to eat, He gave them the grain of heaven. Men ate the bread of angels; He sent them all the food they could eat” (Psa 78:24,25).

The manna came from heaven, on a daily basis, to all alike without distinction. It was like a natural product, yet superior. It was adequate for the needs of all. It was white, pure, sweet and pleasing, although there were those who despised it as “this light bread” (Num 21:5). All the people had to do was to get up early and gather it, day after day, freely provided, for forty years.

We are told: “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deu 8:3). All were provided for: the rich, the poor, the righteous, the not so righteous. David tells us, in Psa 37:25: I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread”.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” (Joh 6:35). Is he the bread of OUR lives? He is available to us freely, to all alike without distinction, on a daily basis. All we have to do is reach out for our Bibles, open the pages, and enjoy the wonderful nourishment provided through it.

Our spiritual beings, like our natural bodies, need to be fed daily. Just as an ‘all you can eat’ buffet will not stay with us all week (although some folks go through one like they think it will), so ‘gorging’ on a Sunday at Sunday School or memorial meeting will not sustain us throughout a ‘meatless’ (and ‘milkless’ and ‘breadless’) week. We need, each day, to read, meditate, pray, and use the nourishment we receive from “the bread of life”.

The day is coming when, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “On this mountain [Mount Zion, in Jerusalem] the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine — the best of meats and the finest of wines” (Isa 25:6).

What a sumptuous feast to look forward to! But, even now, we can enjoy little ‘appetisers’ whenever we open our Bibles. So let us do it daily.

Abraham Lincoln was fond of asking visitors to the White House the following questions:

“How many legs does a dog have?”

To which the usual answer was, “Four.”

And then the President asked the follow-up question:

“Now, let us say that a dog’s tail is another leg. Now, how many legs does the dog have?”

If the visitor answered, “Five”, then old Abe would smile and say, “No, he still has four legs. Because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one!”

And thus to… religious “definitions”!

Are we Christadelphians “Christian”? Are we “orthodox”? Are we “evangelical”? Are we “pentecostal”, even? What about “catholic”?

In every one of these cases, it all depends — as one old brother once put it — on “what you mean by what you say.” And we can mean very different things by what we say. In fact, two peoples can mean ENORMOUSLY different things even if they are saying precisely the same thing. (Stop and think for a moment: how many things does “I love you?” mean? Unless we know the context, and the background, and the personalities involved, and their relationship, and — especially — HOW it is said, then we really have no idea what the words are intended to convey… or HOW MUCH they are intended to convey.)

Anyway, back to religous “definitions”:

• “Christian” of course meant — originally — a follower of Christ. That of course is what all Christadelphians aspire to be… but the world is filled with people who use the same term, and the question for us is: do we want to be — more or less — associated with all of them? When the news reporters talk about “Christian gunmen” in Northern Ireland, do we still want to call ourselves “Christian”? Hence the dilemma: are we “Christian”, or aren’t we? It all depends on what you mean by what you say.
• “Orthodox” means, literally, “conforming to an established or agreed-upon pattern”. Now the question becomes: who has established and agreed upon the particular pattern (of beliefs, presumably — but perhaps also of practice) the conformity to which makes you or me “orthodox”? In what context is the term used? This makes a world of difference. But when certain churches call themselves, more or less officially, “orthodox” — as in Greek Orthodox — then, of course, we are put in a position where we are NOT “orthodox” by their assumptions — although we could argue, persuasively, that we conform to the established pattern of the first-century church much better than they.
• “Evangelical” was originally a wonderful word: taken directly from the New Testament, it transliterated the Greek word for “gospel” or “good news”. Who could ever find fault with such a word? If anyone knows the gospel, it ought to be Christadelphians, right? But then other churches make that a part of their name: there’s Evangelical Lutheran, and Free Evangelical, and African Methodist Evangelical… and who knows what others! And “evangelical” has come to describe the whole broad, inclusive group of “believers” who have been “born again” (another good Bible term all by itself, but what does IT mean?!) by some “spiritual” (ditto!) experience — with little or no regard to particular beliefs. In this situation, we have to think twice before we want to call ourselves “evangelical” either, although if anybody is “evangelical”, it ought to be us.
• “Pentecostal” alludes to the day of Pentecost, referred to in Acts 2 — when the power of the Holy Spirit was poured out upon believers at Jerusalem. Given this, “Pentecostal” pretty plainly means those who believe in, and practice, the present-day manifestation of a so-called “Holy Spirit” power to speak in strange tongues — and also to perform miracles of healing and raising the dead. Of course, this loses us pretty fast: we don’t want to be “Pentecostal”, even for a moment! On the other hand, we DO believe in what happened in Acts 2, don’t we? We just don’t believe that the same gifts and the same experiences can be manufactured at will today. And if we believe in Acts 2, along with all the rest of Scripture, does that make us, in some sense, “Pentecostal”?
• “Catholic”: now there’s a good one. The English word itself means (or maybe we should say, “originally” meant!) that which is universal, or widespread… as in the “worldwide Church of God”. By this strictly-literal definition we should be able to say, “Yes, I belong to the worldwide body of believers called Christadelphians”… or “Yes, I am a member of the catholic church, or ecclesia, of Christadelphians”. But of course, we would never want to say such a thing, because of what has happened to the word “catholic” today — particularly its almost universal application to the Roman “church”.

****

And there you are. For the time would fail me to speak of “Amended” and “Unamended”, and “clean flesh”, and “Andrewism” and “Stricklerism”, and “immortal emergence”, and “Adamic condemnation”, and “eternal death”, etc, etc… all of which may be defined differently — very differently — by this person or that… but that’s another story! Or seventeen.

Meanwhile, we’ll just go by the strictly-literal (and original) definitions, and call ourselves…

the Catholic Christian Evangelical Orthodox Pentecostal Church (the real one!). Right?

George

PS: NOW I’m in BIG trouble!

What are our ambitions, our goals in life? What are our attitudes toward work and leisure and money? Are they different than the world, or are they all too similar? What sets us apart from the masses around us who have no true hope? Is it enough that we believe differently without living differently?

I have a recurring “nightmare” that goes like this: in the counsels of heaven a new angel is assigned to my case, but in route he somehow loses my address. He checks the telephone directory only to find five fellows with the same name. So he thinks to himself, “I won’t bother going back to headquarters, because it’ll be no trouble finding the right George Booker. I’ll just watch all five of these fellows for a day or so, and I’ll be able to spot the ‘Christadelphian’ right away.”

But it is not that easy That day, and the next, the “real” George Booker does nothing to distinguish himself from the others. He kicks the dog, yells at the wife, and skips the mid-week Bible class, and even neglects his Bible readings and his prayers.

The poor bewildered angel has to wait ALL WEEK, until Sunday morning, when two George Bookers sleep in, one mows the lawn, another goes to early mass with his golf clubs in the back seat, and — finally! — the fifth one heads for the ecclesial hall. “Aha! There’s the right one!”

But just suppose I hadn’t even bothered to go to meeting that week. Would my guardian angel have EVER found me?

Once upon a time there was a young man who lived in the land of Centralia, but in his travels he had met various folks in the remote little land of Unamendia, and some others in an even more remote land, Cogaphia. To his initial surprise, he had discovered among these “others” some kindred spirits, folks who shared his most heartfelt beliefs and worldview — individuals to whom he felt at least as close as his fellow Centralians. True, some of the citizens of these other lands were not the sort who inspired such warm, fuzzy feelings… in fact, on more than one occasion, he was approached personally by other denizens of Unamendia and Cogaphia with rather blunt and rude questions: “Why are you, a Centralian, visiting here in our land?” “What mischief do you have in mind?” “You must be a Centralian spy; are you going to carry back bad reports?” Sometimes, he was strongly encouraged to leave the foreign lands, go back to his “own kind”, and never return. But he kept returning, because there were some folks there who genuinely seemed to enjoy his company, and with whom he had some heartwarming conversations and interactions.

Sometimes, when he did go back to his own land, he was questioned by his countrymen: “What do you see in those Unamendians anyway? Some of them are pretty strange characters.” “How can you have anything to do with those Cogaphians? Don’t you know that some of them are highly undesirable?”

There were times when our young man thought, “Maybe I should just move to Unamendia… or even to Cogaphia.” But then he would think, “You know, some of the Unamendians want no part of me… and some really are a little strange… that might not be pleasant”… and “Some of those Cogaphians turn and walk away when I get near… how would it be to live there fulltime?” Meanwhile, he also recognized that, for all the questions and hard looks he received when he returned home, he did have a lot of friends in Centralia, and it would be a shame to leave them behind for good.

So for years he tried to live in two (actually, three) different worlds… never quite at ease in any one of them, but never wanting to turn his back forever on the others. But his life was a real prescription for schizophrenia: when he was home in Centralia, he was afraid to talk about his friends in Unamendia and Cogaphia. And when he was in these other lands, he would try discreetly to encourage his friends either to emigrate to Centralia, or to petition Centralia to annex their lands to its country… this was usually met with politeness, but never acted upon: “Why should we go to Centralia, and live there? If they wanted to know us, they’d come here to visit us — like you do!”

Sometimes his foreign friends would even visit Centralia — a land of greater prosperity and more opportunities than their own — but he could never prevail upon them to stay for very long. “We don’t feel quite at home on your side of the border,” they would tell him. “Now if you would just open all the borders, and do away with all the immigration laws and tariffs and rulers… then everybody could come and go as they pleased.” But the young man knew such a change in the government would never occur; Centralia just didn’t work that way!

One day the man (by now not so young) looked long and hard at himself, at his children, and at his close friends in Centralia… and he realized… that while trying to be “all things to all people”, he wasn’t really a Centralian any more — he was a man without a country! “Dad,” his eldest son asked him, “are we Centralian or Unamendian or Cogaphian? I can’t remember!” And now he knew that he must do something… to reclaim his birthright. He had to be a true Centralian, and consider his fellow-countrymen first, and be a part of the community where he lived. And so he was.

But what about his old friends on the other sides of the border? He would send messages to them: “I still love you, but I can’t sneak back and forth across the borders to see you, and I can’t aid you in sneaking in and out of my country… But if you will come to Centralia, then I can assure you that you and your families will be welcome here; my fellow-countrymen will be happy to have you, but you must swear allegiance to your new land.”

Some of his old friends were angry with him, “No, thank you,” they said. “We’ll just stay where we are… and we’ll wait until Centralia drops all its border restrictions… meanwhile we’ll just keep slipping back and forth, when no one is watching, and encouraging others to do the same.”

But the man knew that Centralia would never change its laws and open all the borders — because there were some people in Unamendia and Cogaphia to whom Centralia would never allow open access into their land. So he told his friends, “If you think like the Centralians, and you want to be one of them, you will need to openly ask for citizenship, and be prepared to abide by their laws. There is no other way to receive all the benefits of Centralian citizenship. Nothing else will ever work; I’ve seen this from both sides; I’ve been there, and I’ve tried… and I know. It will be very difficult, and in the end unsatisfying, trying to live in different countries at the same time.”

Now some of his old friends were very angry with him. “You have abandoned us,” they cried. “You don’t love us any more, because you won’t come to visit us now.”

“But I can’t continue to visit like before,” he told them. “Now I must act like a Centralian. But you can move to Centralia any time you wish.”

“Never!” they cried. “We were born Unamendians and we will die the same!” Likewise said some of the Cogaphians.

But others said, “You know, our Centralian friend has a point. He still loves us, and he wants only what’s best for us. Hey, maybe we should look at this emigration business again!”

“Johnny Lingo gave eight cows to Sarita’s father.”

I’m reminded of it every time I see a woman belittling her husband or a wife withering under her husband’s scorn. I want to say to them, “You should know why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife.”

Johnny Lingo wasn’t exactly his name. But that’s what Shenkin, the manager of the guest house on the Pacific island of Kiniwata, called him. Shenkin was from Chicago and had a habit of Americanizing the names of the islanders. But Johnny was mentioned by many people in many connections. If I wanted to spend a few days on the neighboring island of Nurabandi, Johnny Lingo would put me up. If I wanted to fish he could show me where the biting was best. If it was pearls I sought, he would bring the best buys. The people of Kiniwata all spoke highly of Johnny Lingo. Yet when they spoke they smiled, and the smiles were slightly mocking.

“Get Johnny Lingo to help you find what you want and let him do the bargaining,” advised Shenkin. “Johnny knows how to make a deal.”

“Johnny Lingo!” A boy seated nearby hooted the name and rocked with laughter.

“What goes on?” I demanded. “everybody tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up. Let me in on the joke.”

“Oh, the people like to laugh,” Shenkin said, shrugging. “Johnny’s the brightest, the strongest young man in the islands. And for his age, the richest.”

“But if he’s all you say, what is there to laugh about?”

“Only one thing. Five months ago, at fall festival, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife. He paid her father eight cows!”

I knew enough about island customs to be impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one.

“Good Lord!” I said, “Eight cows! She must have beauty that takes your breath away.”

“She’s not ugly,” he conceded, and smiled a little. “But the kindest could only call Sarita plain. Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she’d be left on his hands.”

“But then he got eight cows for her? Isn’t that extraordinary?”

“Never been paid before.”

“Yet you call Johnny’s wife plain?”

“I said it would be kindness to call her plain. She was skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked. She was scared of her own shadow.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess there’s just no accounting for love.”

“True enough,” agreed the man. “And that’s why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny. They get special satisfaction from the fact that the sharpest trader in the islands was bested by dull old Sam Karoo.”

“But how?”

“No one knows and everyone wonders. All the cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold out for two until he was sure Johnny’d pay only one. Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said, ‘Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.’ “

“Eight cows,” I murmured. “I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo.”

And I wanted fish. I wanted pearls. So the next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi. And I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny’s house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians. And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery. We sat in his house and talked. Then he asked, “You come here from Kiniwata?”

“Yes.”

“They speak of me on that island?”

“They say there’s nothing I might want they you can’t help me get.”

He smiled gently. “My wife is from Kiniwata.”

“Yes, I know.”

“They speak of her?”

“A little.”

“What do they say?”

“Why, just…” The question caught me off balance. “They told me you were married at festival time.”

“Nothing more?” The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more.

“They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows.” I paused. “They wonder why.”

“They ask that?” His eyes lightened with pleasure. “Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?”

I nodded.

“And in Nurabandi everyone knows it too.” His chest expanded with satisfaction. “Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita.”

So that’s the answer, I thought: vanity.

And then I saw her. I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table. She stood still a moment to smile at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right. I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me. “You admire her?” he murmured.

“She… she’s glorious. But she’s not Sarita from Kiniwata,” I said.

“There’s only one Sarita. Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata.”

“She doesn’t. I heard she was homely. They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated by Sam Karoo.”

“You think eight cows were too many?” A smile slid over his lips.

“No. But how can she be so different?”

“Do you ever think,” he asked, “what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when the women talk, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two? This could not happen to my Sarita.”

“Then you did this just to make your wife happy?”

“I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes. But I wanted more than that. You say she is different This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows she is worth more than any other woman in the islands.”

“Then you wanted –“

“I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman.”

“But — ” I was close to understanding.

“But,” he finished softly, “I wanted an eight-cow wife.”

What a great price has been paid by Christ to “buy” us to be his “bride”! Do we truly appreciate that? Has the knowledge of the great value he placed upon us changed us as it should?

“You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1Co 6:20).

“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1Pe 1:18,19).

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph 5:25-27).

His name meant “Good Luck”, and he lived in an age when Lady Luck was even more fervently worshiped than at modern race-tracks or lottery machines.

Young “Lucky” had had a hard day; but slipping away after the evening meal, he had found his way to the meeting place to hear the famous Paul. However, the room was warm, and after several hours even the apostle’s impassioned discourse was not enough. He dozed, he slumped in his window seat — no one paid any attention — and then he disappeared! Did anyone reflect on his name as “Lucky” lay still on the dark street below? Had his “luck” finally run out? Did someone remember the Preacher’s words: “Time and chance happeneth to all men” (Ecc 9:11)? Was it just “chance” that had done in poor Eutychus? (This often-misapplied verse should yield its true meaning to a bit of concordance work on the word “chance”.)

Or… another possibility. Had this “accident” happened to the young sleeper so “that the works of God should be made manifest in him”? (John 9:3). Do not all things — even a fatal fall from an upper window -work together for good to them that love God (Rom 8:28)? Paul assures us that “whether we wake or sleep” we shall live together with Christ (1Th 5:10).

Brethren, have we fallen asleep in the “back row” because the “night” is long? Or have we suffered a reversal of “fortune” and blamed it all on “chance”? There may be a little “Eutychus” in all of us! Maybe a great fall is just the thing we need to wake us from our “sleep”. If it is, then the Father in His infinite patience and mercy will see to it that we receive it.

“And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, ‘Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him'” (Acts 20:10).

Let us wake from our “falls” with a greater awareness of the wonder of God’s healing grace. “Whom He loveth He chasteneth” (Heb 12:6) -and the dozing disciple may awake with a jolt. The “fall” may be unpleasant, but the “bringing up alive” will be the source of “not a little comfort” (Acts 20:12).