| July 11, 1999 |
Vol. II, No. 11
|
Someone has said, “Originality is the art of forgetting where you heard it,” -- or something like that. Preachers and other speech-makers frequently use the same basic speech in different locations and on different circumstances. They sometimes even use the same basic illustrations to illustrate quite different ideas. Even Jesus, the Master-Teacher did this. His “sermon on the mount” recorded in Matthew, chapters 5-7 is very similar to the lesson recorded by Luke in his chapter 6. His parable of the talents (Matthew 25) has much similarity to the parable recorded in Luke 19. He used the proverbial statements “The first shall be last and the last shall be first” and “Wherever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together” on different occasions to illustrate different principles. Much of his sermon material was quoted directly or paraphrased from the sayings of Moses, David, Isaiah, etc.
Each of us is the product of a combination of untold numbers of influences. And each of us, in turn, influences other people. Over the years, we refine the lessons and speeches we have learned from others and make them “our own.” There are several expressions I use with some degree of frequency that at least one of my friends (Randy Frame) calls “clarence-isms.” I doubt that any of them are original with me, but I guess maybe they could be. (1) “The red letters in our red-letter New Testaments are the words Christ spoke while He was on earth. The black letters are the words He has revealed since He went to heaven.” (2) “The Bible is the most interesting book in the world. Those of us who preach it and teach it don’t have a right to make it boring.” (3) “Your child’s first concepts of his heavenly Father are almost certain to be based on what he has seen, heard, and experienced at the hand of his physical father. May God help us strike that delicate balance between strictness and mercy, and provide a loving, secure atmosphere where our children may properly grow ‘in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.’”
I have been strongly influenced by various preachers I’ve heard and studied with and read after, over the years. Some of them do not know how much they have influenced me. Men like Robert Turner, J.W. Hicks, Jesse Jenkins, W.L. Wharton, Elmer Moore, Robert Jackson. And many others. (By the way, this doesn’t mean I agree with everything I’ve ever heard them say. And I’m sure each of them would want to go on record as not necessarily agreeing with everything I say and do.) But they have been a strong influence on me.
For example, years ago I heard Robert Turner preach on “Three Answers to One Question” (“What must I do to be saved?”). I had, since that time, read his briefer article on the same subject, though I don’t consciously remember reading it. Based on what I could remember from the sermon I’d listened to, I decided to write an article. I wrote it, got it ready for this bulletin, and was about ready to send it out when I stumbled across the article brother Turner himself had written. My article was so much like his that anyone who had seen them both would have no doubt that my whole article was unmixed plagiarism, yet it was not intentionally so. Of course, I scrapped “my” article and used his.
With this background, I think you’ll see why I appreciate the following article by Bill Hall.
--CRJ
IT’S ORIGINAL!
“It’s original,” you say. Oh yeah? It may be no more original than an article I wrote recently for Perspectives. I thought it was original, but then ran across a similar article by Ralph Williams that had been written long before my article, which had no doubt influenced my thinking and had become such a part of me that I was sure that those thoughts were mine. My original thoughts!
Or it may be no more original than some of those original (?) thoughts that Sewell and I come up with for sermons only to learn that our dad had presented those thoughts in sermons since we were boys. In fact, I’m wondering now who has written an article on the subject of “It’s Original.”
We are blessed with a rich heritage. We have heard great men preach great sermons, bringing out just about every thought imaginable from the greatest book that has ever been written. Most of the sermons we have forgotten. Nor are we able to relate specific thoughts to the men whom we first heard preach them. But those thoughts became a part of us, and those sermons, little by little, changed our lives and our thinking to bring us to our present convictions and status before God. We are indebted to so many, but especially to God, from whom all truth originates, John 17:17.
But a warning is in order at this point. For, whereas we are grateful for the truths that have been taught through the years, we must never accept any teaching as truth just because brethren have “always” believe and taught it. Humility would demand that we be slow to reject such, but truth is determined only by an examination of Bible teaching. “Your word is truth” (John 17:17). “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11). The old, accepted teaching must be examined, not only by each generation, but by every individual within that generation, with the same care with which any new teaching is examined.
Independence of thought does not demand a rejection of old, accepted teaching, but it does demand a careful examination of that teaching in the light of the Scriptures.
--Bill Hall
The fruit of the righteous
is a tree of life,
And he who wins souls is
wise.
In Matt. 10, Jesus sent His 12 apostles out on what is often called “the limited commission.” He limited them, “preach only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (verses 5-6). Of course, we know that at a later time, He sent them into all the world with the gospel message for all mankind, Mark 16:15-16.
As He sent the apostles on that limited commission, He forewarned them that they would be persecuted and tested and “a man’s foes will be those of his own household” (verse 36). But He promised to be with them and their message, saying to them, “He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward” (verses 40-42).
Jesus was sending them to prophesy to the lost sheep of Israel. A prophet was a person who spoke for God what had not been previously revealed. Not every Christian was a prophet. Not every preacher was a prophet. But all the apostles had the gift of prophecy and they were being sent out to preach what no man could preach except by the power of the Holy Spirit who was in them and revealed to them the truths previously unknown by men. Many individuals would reject them and their message, but to all who received them, Jesus promised the same reward as the prophets themselves would receive -- eternal life. The translation known as the Twentieth Century New Testament, instead of the phrase “in the name of a prophet” or “in the name of a righteous man” renders the Greek words, “because he is a prophet,” and “because he is a righteous man.” This is the basic significance. He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive the same reward the prophet receives. Not everyone can prophesy, but everyone can receive the prophet and his message. He who receives the prophet receives the One who sent him, and he who receives Christ receives the Father who sent Him.
Verse 42 tells us the reward is sure to him who receives the prophets, the righteous servants of God. That reward extends even to the seemingly insignificant disciple of Christ. Perhaps many of us cannot do great things for the cause of Christ, but we can do SOMETHING to further that cause. To do what we can, even if it may seem small compared to what others may be able to do, is to do God’s will and share in the same reward as the greatest of God’s prophets and apostles. Such faithfulness will not go unrewarded.
--CRJ