I know it has been ages since I have written a blog entry. The reason is simple, the school year has begun. I have been in the midst of both creating and teaching a computer mediated course in New Testament. The time requirements are huge (along with other on campus courses). However, in the midst of this semester, I am going to attempt occasional blog entries.
Because of a study I am scheduled to do, I have been reading in C.F.D. Moule’s The Holy Spirit a little book published in 1978 by A.R. Mowbray & Co. and then by Eerdmans. Since Moule’s relatively recent death, I have been going back and rereading some of his works. In The Holy Spirit, Moule ends with an “Epilogue.” It is a single paragraph, but this paragraph carries a perspective that all of us who write for a vocation would do well to remember. It is quoted in part below:
“Any serious investigation into a great and important subject is bound to land itself in a tangle of words. Words are feeble things–never adequate for the job; yet priceless things–seldom dispensable. They are dangerous things, for they are so fascinating that they tempt the user to linger with them and treat them as ends instead of means. But the Word became flesh; and a word that is not in some way implemented goes sour and becomes a liability instead of an asset.”
Moule ends the paragraph with what is a prayer for mercy for all writers and readers:
“But if it [the book] has only confused the reader, or tempted him to go on weaving words instead of entering more richly into the experience they serve to define–God forgive us both!” (p. 97).
NTStudies 