Changing with the Times

When I was a youngster, it was common for the person setting up for the communion service to place a collection box, bag or plate side by side with the cup and loaf on the table. At the appropriate time near the end of the hour, an usher or other member of the congregation would circulate first the broken bread, then the cup, and finally the designated mode of offering collection to the congregation, after which we would have a few announcements, close in prayer and head downstairs for coffee.

With minor variations, such was the norm in all the local churches in Ontario that I visited with my father as a boy. It struck me the other day that I don’t see this arrangement anymore, and I don’t miss it one bit.

The Problem with Progress

The thesis of Glen Scrivener’s most recent book The Air We Breathe is that Western societies have absorbed Christian values by osmosis. He suggests that even if we haven’t noticed it yet, our collective convictions about the importance of equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom and progress all come originally from the Bible and are a radical departure from both pre-first century views and those of most non-Westerners today.

Few of us Westerners are Christians, yet the faith of our fathers has subversively Christianized society in some respects at least. Even those who object fervently to the Christian faith often object for reasons only the Christian faith itself could ever supply.

Time and Chance (3)

The book of Ecclesiastes is often referred to as poetry. In a general sense I suppose this is true: there are numerous poetic passages within Ecclesiastes.

But if the inclusion of Ecclesiastes in the “poetic books” of scripture leads us to expect another Psalms, we will probably be disappointed. The majority of the book is made up of prose (usually arguments and observations of one sort or another) and proverbial sayings of various lengths that do not conform to any standard poetic structure even in the original Hebrew.

Modern English versions distinguish the obviously poetic passages for us by indenting them. We are going to look at one today.