Jaus' Notebook

Steel is iron plus fire. Soil is rock, plus heat, or glacier crushing. Linen is flax plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds, and the shuttle that weaves. Human character must have a plus attached to it. The world does not forget great characters. But great characters are not made of luxuries, they are made by suffering. "Perfect through suffering" (Heb. 2:10). A story is told of a mother who brought into her home as a companion to her own son, a crippled boy who was also a hunchback. She had warned her boy to be very careful in his relations to him, and not to touch the sensitive part of his life but go right on playing with him as if he were an ordinary boy. She listened to her son as they were playing; and after a few minutes he said to his companion: "Do you know what you have got on your back?" The little hunchback was embarrassed, and he hesitated a moment. The boy said: "It is the box in which your wi...

Have you ever felt frustrated because some people misunderstand you, and say things about you that you know are not true? They misrepresent you, and it seems that nothing you can do or say in your self-defense makes any difference--does that bring pain to you? That precisely is the problem that God has. A wise writer has said that the world is dark with misapprehension of God, which is in fact false "religion." Such falsehood has been the source of almost incredible injustice for millennia. Think of the millions who were persecuted by false concepts of religion in the Dark Ages. Think of the current state of terrorism in the world, including "September 11" and its aftermath. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict itself is the direct result of religious falsehood, no matter which side you stand on politically. Even the atheists resent leadership by any group that claims to believe in any kind of "God"! Suppose you were a non-Christian reading the Bib...