This is a link to an article on what’s called miracle fruit. In effect it is a babblefish for the tongue, translating sour flavors to sweet ones for up to an hour. Lemon ice cream in Guinness tastes good on this flavor trip. Just thought I’d share…
A Bit on Exegesis and the Christian Life May 19, 2008
I presently work as a sermon researcher and in my morning reading, I came across this quote in chapter 11 of Athenagoras’ Plea for the Christians:
For who of those that reduce syllogisms, and clear up ambiguities, and explain etymologies, or of those who teach homonyms and synonyms, and predicaments and axioms, and what is the subject and predicate, and who promise their disciples by these and similar instructions to make them happy, who of them have so purged their souls as, instead of hating their enemies, to love them; and, instead of speaking ill of those who have reviled them (to abstain from which is of itself an evidence of no mean forbearance), to bless them; and to pray for those who plot against their lives? On the contrary, they never cease with evil intent to search out skillfully the secrets of their art, and are ever bent on working some ill, making the art of words and not the exhibition of deeds their business and profession. But among us you will find uneducated persons, and artisans, and old women, who, if they are unable in words to prove the benefit of our doctrine, yet by their deeds exhibit the benefit arising from their persuasion of its truth: they do not rehearse speeches, but exhibit good works; when struck, they do not strike again; when robbed, they do not go to law; they give to those that ask of them, and love their neighbors as themselves.
As someone who currently makes her living off of exegesis and presentation of subjects and predicates and who suggests helpful synonyms and explores etymologies and implements axioms (hermeneutical methods, perhaps fit this), this passage came as a shoulder-check in a crowd of other insights Athenagoras offers. I don’t think anything Athenagoras says here denigrates the work of careful exploration of a passage, but he insists that worthwhile theology is evidenced from one’s deeds as well as one’s words; and if someone is forced to choose between deeds and words as true demonstration of faith, it is better to draw conclusions about a person’s inward disposition towards Jesus from actions rather than from claims. It seems that this is the case because one’s actions encompass and represent more of one’s self than one’s words; words can draw us out of ourselves for a moment but allow us to immediately retreat, while actions extend redemption from the realm our hearts to the realm of our world even when we can’t articulate the intricate beauty of our motivation to love, serve, risk, or hope. While speech can be an action, it can never be our only action if we are to live as Christ has commanded and loved us to live.
