My wife and I went out today for a Middle Eastern lunch at a favorite spot....and then browsed a little bit at a store that sells home furnishings. It was nice to get out for we haven't done too much of this in the last two years.....something that was almost a weekly occurrence before that. One thing caught my eye....and we bought four of them....green table placemats....with the design of a tartan on them. After I placed them on the table the post below came to mind. It is self-explanatory. I first posted it in 2012. I have something else to add from our day out. I should have a bumper sticker that reads...'this car stops at all Barnes & Nobles'....for we did stop. Segue to a sermon that I heard within the past week from John Piper. In that sermon he highly recommended a obscure little book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer titled....Life Together....subtitled by the editor.....The Classic Exploration of Christian Community. Since Piper was so high on the book....I knew that I should read it.....and never thought for a moment that I would ever see it on a Barnes & Noble bookshelf....but lo-and-behold....there it was today.....and I am going to open it up just as soon as I post this....which should be in about thirty seconds. Hopefully I'll give a little review of it after I read it.
A Heavenly Genealogy
I was never much interested in genealogy. My surname is about as English as you can get, although I'm primarily Scotch-Irish, and there is a well known and much visited tower in London with the same name. My wife and I had an interesting experience almost two decades ago. (three decades ago now) A very popular and prolific Christian writer of historical fiction started a new series of books and a main character of the first book had my first and last name. Not only that but my wife thought that his physical description described me right down to the scar on the left cheek; the character's scar from dealing with the turmoil at the time of King Henry VIII and mine, not so heroic, from an infected spider bite while in the army. William Tyndale and John Bunyan even make appearances in this Reformation era book! She even wrote the author about this and received a very nice reply.
I 'm really interested in hearing about other people's genealogical history. I just have no interest in my own. It wouldn't matter in the slightest if my ancestors were princes or paupers. There's only one ancestor that I'm concerned with and that is Adam in the Garden of Eden. I inherited his sin just as much as I inherited my father's high forehead. There's only one inheritance that matters and that's the imputed righteousness of Christ. This topic of conversation came up between my son and me when he was about 13 years old. I sat down at a computer and drew up this tartan that you see at the top. Every color in it has a meaning. The green signifies the world, the yellow the church and the scarlet line in the middle is the precious blood of Jesus Christ shed for us on Calvary. So this is our tartan of a heavenly genealogy, an adoptive Father and a spiritual Brother who is also our Lord, Our Savior and our coming King!
Update on the Dietrich Bonhoeffer book. It will take me a while to finish this book of little over 100 pages....because I seem to be highlighting every third sentence....but I can say even while only on page 24....order this book!
