May 22, 2008
Got an Angel on My Shoulder
Years ago my family visited an old, well established Presbyterian Church in a neighboring community. The pastor opened his sermon by telling the small congregation what Scriptures he’d be using for the message. The sound, as we thumbed through our Bibles to find the text, was deafening. No one else in the sanctuary even cracked a Bible. If it hadn’t been for the four of us flipping the pages you could’ve heard a pin drop. I felt like every eye was on me as my Bible hummed, ‘I’m a visitor. I’m a visitor.’ Peter tells us that the angels long to look into the gospel (1 Pet 1:12). Can’t you just imagine an angel peering over some guy’s shoulder while he sits in church with a closed Bible and thinking, “Ah man…Come on.”
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3 comments:
Okay, I have to say something here. I normally just read your posts without posting any replies - mainly because I can just about always find something to say about something someone else says, but it's not always beneficial... Therefore, to save me wasting my own and other's time (and embarrassing myself), I'm better off reading, not writing. But I just have to respond to this post.
I was blessed to attend the very first service of Christ's Church of the Valley. When the preacher began to speak, he opened his Bible and held it in his hand to read from it. Then he suggested we all turn in our own Bibles to the place he was reading from. And the room filled with the sound of turning pages. It was beautiful. It was like music to my ears. I lifted my head from finding the place in my Bible and looked around. Most every head was bowed over an open Bible on most every lap. It was beautiful.
Yep, I must admit, I'm very old fashioned about this. I had not realized how much I missed the sound of those turning pages as nearly every person in the room turns together in their Bibles to read the passage together from their Bibles. It was beautiful.
When we first began attending what you've been calling the 'mother church', I almost felt out of place because we carried our Bibles into church with us, and actually opened and read from them. I felt like we were being weird or something. There were others that did it, too; but it just wasn't done by the majority.
Is there anything more spiritual or Godly about those who carry and read from their own Bibles, over those who read from the projection screen? I doubt it.
But have I mentioned it was beautiful...like the rustling of angel wings?
For Him,
Arlene
Arlene,
I love your analogy to the rustling of angel wings!
Gail
Gail;
-----I am the kind who generally sits and listens to the speaker read the Word. It isn’t that I have no heart for the Word, but rather, I have only one, or possibly two, trains of thought that are able to run at the same time. By the time I get to the passage, the speaker usually is half finished reading it, and by the time I find where he is in it, he is usually on the last phrase. If I then try to read it for myself, I miss some of what he says. Char is fast with her Sword, so I kind of sit and hope maybe the Lord will recon a bit her presence in the Word to me, maybe just by proximity. I could keep my classmates seated in algebra races, but I have always been slow with dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the Bible. Consequently, I’ve given up on trying to keep up.
-----However, there are those times when the context of the scripture is particularly interesting or controversial. When I recognize a Scripture as coming from one of these, I am willing to kick the speaker off one of my trains long enough to find and read through the entire context. And especially when I hear a speaker misusing or abusing Scripture, my Bible leaves sound like angel wings on steroids.
-----I have no idea why other people do not rustle through their Bibles during a Scripture reading. I suspect there are many different reasons, including disinterest in the Word, personal aversion to the Word, and physical blindness. But when church leaders send out negative vibes about the presence and use of Bibles in the gathering, then I agree entirely with the sentiments you and Arlene have expressed.
-----But now, not to contradict what you and Arlene have so brilliantly illustrated, but only to add another dimension of truth to it, I wonder if these angels have not had a chance over the centuries to peer into the pages of opened Bibles? These angels long to look into the, “…things which have now been announced…” to us by those who preach the good news. Those things, of course, are the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the faith of His apostles, the mercy of their Father, and the effects it works upon the life of those who accept it. Those effects are, in short, the fruit of the Spirit, the love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the goodness, the faithfulness, the gentleness, the self-control which bring about the doing of good to all men, especially to those of His. If ever the angel upon the shoulder got a glance into the Word, I think next her eyes would turn to the reader, in search of an example.
Love,
Steve Corey
P.S. I really enjoy reading Arlene’s stuff. I wonder if there is a way to inspire her to bless us with more?
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