The Greatest of These

I wrote this in 2010 as a guest blogger on a fellow-writer's website. I decided to share it with my blog readers today.

The Greatest of These

Enjoying a day with my husband of 26 years is something I don’t get enough of during this stage of life our raising teens, but yesterday I enjoying a small two day away trip with him. We drove for about five hours, and as usual I read almost the entire trip. When we arrived at the hotel poked fun at me being the only person in the world that would be as excited about reading a 1917 book I found in an antique store.

Original Documents

I unofficially call myself a historian, because I love to read real life accounts of people. I call them original documents. While they are not an escape or creatively written as fiction, they are true impressions of life as seen through the eyes of the person who lived it. Several of the books of the Bible are eye-witness accounts of life. The Bible is a very historical book.

To truly understand history, I know of no better way to experience history in its purest form. In turn, by reading these little gems I find, I gain a deeper understanding of what the world must have been like through an eye-witness account. While I know I am viewing through the interpretation of the writer, at least this writer was there. This is why I give them higher credibility than current day historians writing what they think happen in the past.

God Teaches Us In Words

Original Gems

Every now and then, a collector of antique books will find a gem. Well, to be honest, for someone like me I am very delighted by all the treasures I have found and plan to preserve in my home library. But the particular gem I was enthusiastically trying to share with my husband was a little book titled The Pentecost of Calamity by author, Owen Wister. The topic of his book was Germany before and right after World War I. The insight: hatred was the motivation.

 Let me jump right in and tell you about the creed of the German people. This was their declaration of faith, of decades to be only ratified by actions of destruction of human life…

            “The German claim must be: Educate to hate…. Organization of hatred…. Education to the desire for hatred. Let us abolish unripe and false shame…. To us is given faith, hope and hatred; but hatred is the greatest among them.”

          And it was there, at those last few words, that I paused, recognizing the words and hand of Satan, the destroyer of old, twisting what was pure, lovely, holy to a religion of destruction …. yes, a “religion” and a claim of “God” but not The GOD of the Bible… another “God” altogether different, that likes to masquerade about as Him, always wanting to be superior to Him.

Did you hear it, as you read those words? Faith, hope and … hatred. Could the Germans really have repeated this creed and not flinched, not wondered, not questioned the words they spoke.

           God – Jehovah God – the One True God of Jesus Christ our Lord, says in Scripture, 1 Corinthians 13:13 – “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

 Original Words

How often do we get duped because we don’t know God’s Word? How many times do we accept the creed of others, even unbiblical creeds, because we don’t identify it is contrary to Scripture? Germany was the very location the Bible was translated into the language of the people by Martin Luther and published in print in 1534. Tyndall followed Luther’s lead and so have all Bible Translators. Is it not ironic that from the birthplace of the Bible being translated, one of the wicked twists to Scripture was incorporated into a government sponsored national creed that led to Nazism?

Hatred was replaced with Love, and it was gone unnoticed by generations of people ignorant to essential truths of God’s Word. Does this make you want to be certain you read and rightly divide God’s Word for yourself. My husband is slowly learning to appreciate original documents and gems I find hidden among piles of discarded books in antique shops and thrift stores. The Word of God is a true gem to seek and hide in your heart.