Friday, March 29, AD 2024 9:11am

PopeWatch: Scripture

PopeWatch has been reading a chapter from the Old Testament and a chapter from the New since December 25, 1970.  Another fan of the Bible (language advisory):

 

The spiritual benefits of reading the Bible are obvious.  The intellectual feast of reading these texts composed over a thousand years is remarkable.  No one can consider themselves educated without becoming familiar with the Book of Books.

Joshua Speed thought he knew Abraham Lincoln as well as anyone did. The two became friends when Lincoln set out to make his fortune as a lawyer in Spring – field, Ill., in 1836 and rented a room above Speed’s general store. Speed counseled the shy and awkward young Lincoln when he was courting Mary Todd and remained his close confidant in the decades that followed. But he was mystified by his old friend’s demeanor when they spent an evening together at Lincoln’s Soldiers’ Home cottage outside Washington in the summer of 1864.

“As I entered the room, near night, he was sitting near a window intently reading his Bible,” Speed recalled. Even though Lincoln often mined the scriptures for literary references in his speeches and writing, he never officially joined a church and Speed had never known him to be particularly devout. “He was a skeptic,” Speed wrote. “He had tried hard to be a believer, but his reason could not grasp and solve the great problem of redemption as taught.” On this occasion, however, Lincoln turned the pages of the Bible slowly, as if to wring the last drop of wisdom and solace out of each passage.

Speed was uncertain what to make of Lincoln’s reverie, and so he said half-flippantly: “I am glad to see you so profitably engaged.” There was nothing at all flippant in Lincoln’s reply. “Yes,” he told his old friend. “I am profitably engaged.”

“Well,” said Speed, “if you have recovered from your skepticism, I am sorry to say that I have not.” Lincoln’s response was resolute. “Looking me earnestly in the face, and placing his hand on my shoulder, he said, ‘You are wrong, Speed. Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man.”

 

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Dale Price
Dale Price
Tuesday, September 7, AD 2021 7:25am

Great story about Lincoln.

Speaking which, I just acquired an affordable version of Burlingame’s Lincoln in hardcover. Your thoughts?

So far, I like the rich amount of data, but he leans harder on psychology than I generally prefer, even of some of the insights are helpful.

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