“The chief of those Geatish men had accomplished all his proud vaunt before the East Danes, and had healed, moreover, all the woe and the tormenting sorrow that they had erewhile suffered and must of necessity endure, no little bitterness. Of this a clear token it was when that warrior bold had set the hand, the arm and shoulder, beneath the widespread roof — there was Grendel’s clutching limb entire” (J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, 36).
Monthly Archives: May 2015
Samson
Vivid excerpt from John Milton’s Samson Agonistes.
My self, my Sepulcher, a moving Grave,
Buried, yet not exempt
By privilege of death and burial
From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs,
But made hereby obnoxious more
To all the miseries of life,
Life in captivity
Among inhuman foes.
But who are these? for with joint pace I hear
The tread of many feet stearing this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult,
Thir daily practice to afflict me more.
“Seriously grounded in the historic, doctrinal, and elaborate Christian faith.”
Carl Trueman, over at First Things, reflects on how then shall the Church protest. Trueman’s concluding thoughts.
Churches which are doctrine-lite, or which define themselves with a ten or twelve point doctrinal statement, or which portray themselves as a nice, fun supplement to the more important things of life, are rather like the little pig who built his house of straw. When the wolf blows, the house will simply vanish in the wind. For Christians to continue to protest the world in the public square, they need first to be deeply and seriously grounded in the historic, doctrinal, and elaborate Christian faith. A faith built on Wikipedia articles or reducible to 140 characters points to no lasting city.
Negative Imagery
“From Genesis to Jesus, from prophets to Paul, Bible writers sprinkle thorn imagery throughout Scripture to emphasize their message of punishment, worthlessness, and nonproductivity” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 865).