I began my blogging week on Think Upon These Things by sharing a testimony of a spiritual and emotional "dark ages" in my life that began two years ago. I thought it would be fitting to revisit this topic by discussing another book that became very dear to me during this time: the book of 1 Peter.
1 Peter is a little book in the back of your Bible with a powerful message. It was written by Peter to a dispersed group of discouraged Christians. I read this book like I drank water: freqently, and sometimes several times a day. Several verses were very special to me, and I wanted to discuss them today.
There are two groups of people who could potentially read this post; 1) those who have suffered, and 2) those who will suffer. Those who have suffered can be furter divided into groups. 1) Those who know God is in control and knows the answers to all their questions about why they have to suffer, and 2) those who have no hope because they have not recognized God's control of their life.
Suffering is a hot topic today. Self-help books by the million deal with the topic of pain, suffering, and what to do about it. My dad knew almost nothing of what was going on, and even less of what I was dealing with in my life when he asked me to read a small book for him that he did not have time to read himself. It was called If I Were God, I'd End All the Pain. I don't remember what I thought about it, but I do remember that I thought the title was very assuming and proud.
I still think the title is wrong. Romans 11 asks the powerful question "Who has given to God that God should repay him?" To answer it, no one ever has or ever will. God is God, and we just have to accept that.
1 Peter, though it's major theme is suffering, has many jewel-rank passages that have seemingly nothing to do with suffering. There is an excellent exaltation of the word of God at the end of the last chapter. Also, read this verse.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead........
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Silence.....
"Silence is more musical than any song."
Christina Rossetti
"There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub."
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Aldous Huxley
"True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment."
William Penn
"Silence is a text easy to misread."
A. A. Attanasio, "The Eagle and the Sword"
"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech."
Martin Fraquhar Tupper
"I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."
Kahlil Gibran
"Oppression can only survive through silence."
Carmen de Monteflores
"The cruelest lies are often told in silence."
Robert Louis Stevenson
"Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time."
Thomas Carlyle
"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth."
Mahatma Gandhi
"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
John, Lord Morley
"He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful."
Sydney Smith, referring to Macaulay
"Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence."
Robert Fripp
"Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant."
Saadi
"Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says, 'there is not only an art, but an eloquence in it.' A well bred woman may easily and effectually promote the most useful and elegant conversation without speaking a word. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence."
Tom Blair
"I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right."
Cato
"The unspoken word never does harm."
Kossuth
"It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few."
Pythagoras
"My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence."
Edith Sitwell
"Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary."
Peter Minard
Christina Rossetti
"There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub."
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Aldous Huxley
"True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment."
William Penn
"Silence is a text easy to misread."
A. A. Attanasio, "The Eagle and the Sword"
"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech."
Martin Fraquhar Tupper
"I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."
Kahlil Gibran
"Oppression can only survive through silence."
Carmen de Monteflores
"The cruelest lies are often told in silence."
Robert Louis Stevenson
"Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time."
Thomas Carlyle
"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth."
Mahatma Gandhi
"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
John, Lord Morley
"He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful."
Sydney Smith, referring to Macaulay
"Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence."
Robert Fripp
"Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant."
Saadi
"Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says, 'there is not only an art, but an eloquence in it.' A well bred woman may easily and effectually promote the most useful and elegant conversation without speaking a word. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence."
Tom Blair
"I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right."
Cato
"The unspoken word never does harm."
Kossuth
"It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few."
Pythagoras
"My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence."
Edith Sitwell
"Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary."
Peter Minard
Sunday, July 15, 2007
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