Our Bible knowledge often comes through compressed-for-comprehension stories. Reading for context and thinking about what’s not said matters.
The people in biblical stories had feelings, thoughts and reasons for their reactions. Talking out what was said and left unsaid communicates the resilience, grit and perseverance of these human characters.
Seeing these traits alongside their faithfulness (or lack thereof) in God, helps modern Bible readers like us to grasp the truth in these stories.
We may not have stories of Jesus as a little boy or in his teens. We know that as an adult, he wept at his friend’s death, raged against injustice, was moved by compassion and welcomed children to him for blessing and for their ministry.
Even without knowing what he was like before his public ministry, we can assume that in those years he learned a kind of resilience, grit and perseverance that helped him as his life was threatened and then taken.
This message is an excerpt from “Resilience: The Stickiness to Keep Going,” by Julia Seymour in the November 2016 issue of Gather magazine. Today we remember Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who died around 342.
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