- Written by: John Rae
- Category: Blog
In Luke 11:23, Jesus says, “Whoever does not gather with me scatters.” What is Jesus talking about? A journey into linguistics might help. When we use the word ‘symbol’ in English, we usually mean that something just represents something else, as when we say that a flag symbolizes a nation. In practice, we tend to make an absolute distinction between the symbolic and the real, but this is not the case with linguistics! The opposite of the symbolic is not the real but the diabolic. Symbolic means to throw together (to gather) and diabolic means to throw apart (to scatter). Our word ‘devil’ comes from the Greek word diabolos. Proverbs 6:19 refers to the devil (or diabolos) as, “A lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.” The devil wants to make us scatterbrained, unable to function as true sons and daughters of God. In the story of the Gerasene demoniac in Luke 8, Jesus casts out the devils from a truly dysfunctional fellow. At the end of the story, we see him sitting at the feet of Jesus “in his right mind”. His scatterbrained days are behind him.
- Written by: John Rae
- Category: Blog
Given the current state of the world, bewilderment might be the next pandemic. Catholic scholar Luke Burgis makes an interesting comment about how people deal with disorder in their lives. Many people who aren’t spiritual eventually become numb. Just think of the confessional lyrics from the rock band Pink Floyd: “The dream is gone / I have become comfortably numb”.
- Written by: John Rae
- Category: Blog
1 Chronicles 21:1 states: “Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel.” This did not go over well with God, and he let David know this. So, in verse 8 David says, “I have sinned greatly by taking this census. Please forgive my guilt for doing this foolish thing.” Previously though, in the book of Exodus, God had commanded Moses to preform a count (census) of the people just before the building of the Tabernacle. What was the difference?
- Written by: John Rae
- Category: Blog
Catholic philosopher Remi Brague makes an interesting observation: “…in Spain, when a cab is for hire and looking for a customer, it has a flag of sorts on which is written “FREE”. For many of our contemporaries the model of what “being free” means is the way in which this cab is “free”. This means that it is empty, that it doesn’t go to any particular place.” In a sense you are indeed “free”, but you don’t have a life. A cab that does nothing more than flying its “FREE” flag will end up not servicing any customers and will go bankrupt. From his “Slow Train Coming” album, the songwriter Bob Dylan writes:
- Written by: John Rae
- Category: Blog
I’d like to look at the story of the Tower of Babel as told in the book of Genesis 11: 1-9 and see what take aways there might be for us in 2023.
“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:1–4)
