Clinch Valley News

NUMBING GRIP OF ANCIENT CREEDS.

Ask any ten people what Jesus meant by his "Father's business," and nine of them will answer "preaching." To interpret the words in this narrow sense is to lose the real significance of his life. It was not to preach that he came into the world; not to teach; nor to heal. These are all departments of his Father's business, but the business itself is far larger, more inclusive.

If human life has any significance it is this—that God has set going here an experiment to which all His resources are committed. He seeks to develop human beings, superior to circumstance, victorious over Fate. No single kind of human talent or effort can be spared if the experiment is to succeed. The race must be fed and clothed and housed and transported, as well as preached to, and taught and healed.

Thus all business is his Father's business. All work is worship; all useful service prayer. And whoever works wholeheartedly at any worthy calling is a co-worker with the Almighty in the great enterprise which He has initiated but which He can never finish without the help of men.

It is one thing to talk about success, and quite another thing to win it. Jesus spoke of crowns and died on a cross. He talked of his kingdom, and ended his days amid the jeers and taunts of his enemies. "He was in all points tempted like as we are," says the Epistle to the Hebrews. We have read it often, heard it read oftener, but we have never believed it, of course. The conception of his character which Theology has given us makes any such idea impossible. He was born differently from the rest of us, Theology insists. He did not belong among us at all, but came down from Heaven on a brief visit, spent a few years in reproving men for their mistakes, died and went back to Heaven again.

A hollow bit of stage-play. What chance for temptation in such a career? How can an actor go wrong when his whole part is written and learned in advance?

It is frightfully hard to free the mind from the numbing grip of ancient creeds. But let us make the effort. Let us touch once more the high spots in this finest, most exalted success story, considering now the perils and crises of success.

He was not at all sure where he was going when he laid down his tools and turned his back on the carpenter shop—unless we can believe this, his struggle ceases to be "in all points" like our own; for each of us has to venture on Life as on to an uncharted sea. Something inside him carried him forward—the something which has whispered to so many small town boys that there is a place for them in the world which lies beyond the hills.