More Schaff

One thing I forgot to mention about VBS in Enid was a day when Andrew R. (there were a bunch of Andrews, now that I think of it, a tenth of the kids were Andrews) put his hat on me. I actually liked Andrew R. I thought he was good kid, just active and needed guidance. He was quite strong for a five year old and very athletic and cheerful. Katie said that he was disrespectful toward her but I didn't see that toward me. Anyway, I'm rambling again, one day, he stuck his black baseball cap on my head as we were sitting playing duck-duck-goose and since it was small, it was perched on top of my head. I brought it down after a little while and gave a gasp, it had the letters "O" and "U" on it in red. I told him
"I can't wear this cap!"
"Why?!"
"Because I'm going to OSU!"
"That's okay, you can still wear it!" he told me with a look of deep concern on his face, he really thought I was worried about wearing it ;)

As I have been reading through Schaff, I have been especially excited about the way he treats the Scriptures themselves, as he gives a brief overview of each book and the time it was written, who it was written to and the writer. The way he describes it, I can see something similar as what was said by RC Sproul, that he doesn't make the Bible come alive, it already is, rather, it makes him come alive. He describes the book of Romans and Paul's writings in glowing style, he talks about the lives of men and I have been greatly excited to see a desire in my own heart to look back over them. I would have loved to have met Paul, and yet I can partially through his writing. Paul was a real, live person. It's hard for me to grasp that sometimes. It's hard to explain but rather than simple knowledge about facts, I'm becoming more and more excited at seeing the "life" that is there in the Scripturesl and a greater desire to read them rather than merely read about them.

Here is another exerpt from Schaff that I especially enjoyed.

Schaff's History of the Christian Church pg 752-54

"The style is the man." This applies with peculiar force to Paul. His style has been called "the most personal that ever existed." It fitly represents the force and fire of his mind and the tender affections of his heart. He disclaims classical elegance and calls himself "rude in speech," though by no means "in knowledge." He carried the heavenly treasure in earthen vessels. But the defects are more than made up by excellences. In his very weakness the Strength of Christ was perfected. We are not lost in the admiration of the mere form, but are kept mindful of the paramount importance of the contents and the hidden depths of truth which he behind the words and defy the power of expression.
Paul’s style is manly, bold, heroic, aggressive, and warlike; yet at times tender, delicate, gentle, and winning. It is involved, irregular, and rugged, but always forcible and expressive, and not seldom rises to more than poetic beauty, as in the triumphant paean at the end of the eighth chapter of Romans, and in the ode on love (1Co_13:1-13). His intense earnestness and overflowing fulness of ideas break through the ordinary rules of grammar. His logic is set on fire. He abounds in skilful arguments, bold antitheses, impetuous assaults, abrupt transitions, sudden turns, zigzag flashes, startling questions and exclamations. He is dialectical and argumentative; he likes logical particles, paradoxical phrases, and plays on words. He reasons from Scripture, from premises, from conclusions; he drives the opponent to the wall without mercy and reduces him ad absurdum, but without ever indulging in personalities. He is familiar with the sharp weapons of ridicule, irony, and sarcasm, but holds them in check and uses them rarely. He varies the argument by touching appeals to the heart and bursts of seraphic eloquence. He is never dry or dull, and never wastes words; he is brief, terse, and hits the nail on the head. His terseness makes him at times obscure, as is the case with the somewhat similar style of Thucydides, Tacitus, and Tertullian. His words are as many warriors marching on to victory and peace; they are like a mountain torrent rushing in foaming rapids over precipices, and then calmly flowing over green meadows, or like a thunderstorm ending in a refreshing shower and bright sunshine.
Paul created the vocabulary of scientific theology and put a profounder meaning into religious and moral terms than they ever had before. We cannot speak of sin, flesh, grace, mercy, peace, redemption, atonement, justification, glorification, church, faith, love, without bearing testimony to the ineffaceable effect which that greatest of Jewish rabbis and Christian teachers has had upon the language of Christendom.