LITERALLY AND SERIOUSLY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 95, 8 May 1937, Page 12

LITERALLY AND SERIOUSLY

Miss Maude Eoyden otice said tkai there is a great difi'erenee between taking Christ literally and taking Him se liously. There i. . indeed, ta>. ng Him literally is often a convenient way of side-traeking the call to take Him se riously. Taiang Him seriously means thinktng out the implications of His sayings, interpreting them in the ligkt of con temporary circumstanees, appiymg them to the condi tions of -onp's owu day. Hard work this. Brain-taxing, heart-searching work. Much easier to declare, "Oh, He meaut exaetly what He said." Which, of course, no great teacher or prophet or poet ever does. Oeitamly Jesus did not. When a man thinks and speaks in pictures, as He did, freely uses parudox and reeks nothing Of consistency — a statement of to-day apparently cancelling one of yestei'day — and all with the object of makiug men think for themselves, and so to , anive at truth in the only way iu which it can be reached, to take Him literally i"abfeUTd: -Christ 'e- words are not a • codi of rules, but, as He- Himself said', i ' 'spirit and life." They are germinal principles, not rigid precedonts. Yes, the Christian call is to- take Ghiist - seriously, and the whol.e trouble of tO-day is that we don't, But this will pften . mean the . very opposite of taking Him literally. — A.G.C, j