Reading and Writing (and Vice Versa)

A new article by Old Testament scholar Carolyn J. Sharp got me thinking about the importance of writing. The title of the piece is "Voiced in Paradox: Prophecy and the Contemporary Church" [published in Reflections (Winter 2006) pp. 10-13]. Here's a taste:

"Go now; write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, so that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever" (Isaiah 30:8).

"The Israelite prophets shouted God's Word from Temple gate and city square; they pleaded with kings and wrestled with priests. They performed the terror of God's Word using rotting figs, shattered pottery, barley cakes baked on camel dung, . . .

"Amos, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea offered all of themselves in their efforts to become transparent to God's purposes. They knew that trenchant tones and vivid tableaux could fire the spiritual imagination, could draw the believer irresistibly into an encounter with the will of God. But displays of brilliant oratory and dramatic technique were only the beginning. The prophets also wrote. They wrote poetry and stories and exhortations and prayers. They risked writing in order that the power of God's Word might reach peoples near and far, contemporary and yet unborn."

As Sharp points out, preaching--and, yes, with lots of potent visuals--can be vital and effective. But prophecy is maximized and extended, sometimes in unbelievable ways, only when the prophet writes.

The true prophetic voice comes from not only seeing that the world is terribly twisted. It also comes from catching a vision of what must change so that the kingship of God, His rightful rule in the world He created, will more completely have its way.

I'm glad for the true prophets I've met in the blogosophere. Like the prophets I read in the Bible, I like some blogging prophets better than others. Some of them seem clearer, more powerful to me. Still, for each one who speaks a true word for God, I'm thankful.

Brothers and sisters: Write on!

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For a couple of reasons that I won't go into, for the time being I've decided to keep my blog with Blogger. For now, "Frankly Speaking" is staying here.

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I'm planning to start a book club that will meet here in Amarillo. If it takes off like I hope it will, regular participants will have the opportunity to nominate and decide on what books we'll read and discuss going forward. To start, though, I have to make the decision. My choice is a book that I hope will establish the tone and expectation for the group.

I've selected Mark Noll's, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. It's a book I've wanted to digest for a long time now. From what I understand, it's central thesis is that the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there's not much of one; that Evanglicalism has lost a lot of the intellectual rigor that characterized the movement decades ago. I'd like to meet with a group dedicated to being a part of the solution.

I think I would like the pace of maybe five or six meetings in a year's time; a meeting once every other month, but none between, say, Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. During the first year, the group could read and discuss one book from certain categories like:

1. Bible/theology
2. Discipleship/spirituality
3. Fiction
4. Christian mission/world Christianity
5. History (religious or otherwise)

Anyway, if you're within striking distance of Amarillo and would like to receive notices about the club, please send me your email address. You can access "Email me" in the right column here at "Frankly Speaking."