It’s closer than you might think… Unless you take action you could see it come to pass.
My wife and I just got back from a nice vacation (holiday for those in Europe) in Ireland. Nine days of no work, lovely landscapes and super friendly people. I highly recommend it!
While in Dublin, we hit one of the big tourist stops: The Book of Kells.
Before I get off on that, it’s located on the campus of Trinity College, Dublin. For this American, it’s amazing to walk on the campus of an institution that was founded in 1592! In my neck of the woods, we don’t have anything that old. It boggles my mind to think of the number of people who have walked those paths and learned there…
But that’s a rabbit trail that I just had to go down. You may laugh at me, but I don’t care.
The Book of Kells. If you don’t know what it is, it’s an illustrated copy of the gospels that was created in about 800 AD. By illustrated, I don’t mean like flannel graph figures. I mean that the monks who hand wrote it, painted the pages in beautiful color.
https://www.tcd.ie/visitors/ne…
This link will take you to the page about the Temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4). It’s a wonderful color iconographic rendition of the biblical story. The link is just a sample of the beauty of the work that the monks put into the book.
It’s amazing that this book has survived for 1200 years.
This brings me to my point. One of Ireland’s great contributions to our lives today is that Christian monks lived in monasteries there and when the rest of the world lapsed back into the dark ages, they maintained some of the learning that came from the Late Roman Empire – including a lot of material about the Christian faith.
Tucked away in a corner far from where big events were happening, they kept on with their monastic and library traditions. And they provided influence to Northwestern Europe and beyond through the time when all learning had seemed to be gone. In fact, Ireland was considered a great center of learning that people traveled to in order to find knowledge.
So at a time when Christianity seemed to be on the ropes, a few people off in the corner of the world preserved it for future generations and a great resurgence decades and centuries later.
This leads to a question for you… Are you like Ireland? Are you preserving the faith? Are you writing it down? Are you passing it on to others?
It has been said that Christianity is only one generation away from extinction. And that’s true. If we all stopped moving forward, there could be at least a localized extinction event.
So let me give you some ways that you could be like the Irish monks (without all the 8th Century quality of life issues).
- Read your Bible (every day). It goes without saying that you can’t pass on what you don’t know yourself. I’ve been doing this for the last 11 months, and it has been a real blessing to me.
- Find a Study-Buddy and do a Bible Study together. It could be a Six Easy Steps study – or another study that you find at your church or local Christian Book Store. The important thing is that you get involved in God’s word with someone else.
- Buy someone a gift of a good book about the Bible (I could recommend a few by an author I know) and just give it to them. A number of years ago I had a book about knowing and understanding God’s will that I used to keep in bulk on my shelf. Any time someone brought that up as a question, I would give them a copy because I felt it presented such a powerful (and freeing) truth that would be of benefit. What is your go-to gift for a friend who needs spiritual help or encouragement?
I don’t want to overwhelm you with too many ideas. The goal is to see a list and pick one and do it. That’s how the faith moves on.
Interestingly, that’s how we grow – how we move from milk to meat Christians.
It’s a joy to spread the good news. You can’t imagine it until you experience it. Let me encourage you to take the next step.
Expectantly,
Dennis
