Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Study Method

  • Isaiah 26: Praise and Lament in Trouble

    Update: I forgot to tag the places the New Testament quotes (none in this case) or alludes to this passage.

    In my series on Biblical criticism I discussed the division of Isaiah 24-27 into various segments and discussing their form. In that article I suggested taking Isaiah 26 as a unity even though it would be the longest single segment in Isaiah 24-27.

    Other commentators suggest dividing the chapter after verse 6 into a song of praise while verses 7-21 are a community lament. I see the two parts of the chapter as inextricably tangled together. Isaiah 24-27 appears to be a confused portrayal of the end times, but it is intentionally confused–what appears confused to us is intentional.

    Our desire as Christians is to get a roadmap, to find out how to avoid trouble, and how to come out fine in the end without too much fuss and bother. But “fuss and bother” is a characteristic of final events. You have a time of conflict in which there will be moments of triumph and joy, and moments when one needs to hide.

    18Woe to those who are anxious for the day of YHWH,
    Why do you want the day of YHWH?
    It’s a day of darkness and not light!
    19It’s as though someone flees from a lion,
    but a bear meets him,
    so he goes into his house,
    leans his hand on the wall,
    and a snake bites him!
    20Is the day of YHWH not darkness rather than light?
    Is it not gloom without any gleam of light?

    –Amos 5:18-20

    This rather negative view contrasts with the joy that is expected on the day of the Lord, the day when God comes to redeem, but also to avenge. There are two reasons for this mixed description. First, the day of the Lord is joy for those who are ready and waiting, but not so joyful for those who are not. Second, the end does not come in any scriptural description without some conflict and trouble. This is not the place to go into any detail on pre-trib vs. post-trib arguments, but I think this passage hints at a situation in which the good spent some tense times along with the bad. It is certainly not a “proof passage” on this point; it simply hints on a less precisely laid out final time of conflict.

    Translation and Notes

    1In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah.
    We have a strong city,
    Salvation set in walls and outworks!
    2Open the gates!
    So a righteous nation may enter,
    One that keeps justice.
    3The mind that depends,
    You will keep totally peaceful,
    Because he trusts in you.[Philippians 4:7]
    4Trust in YHWH forever,
    For in YH YHWH is an eternal rock.
    5For he has humbled the inhabitants of a lofty place,
    An inaccessible city.
    He will overthrow it,
    He will cast it down to the ground.
    He will make it reach the dust.
    6Feet will trample it,
    The feet of the humble,
    The steps of the poor.

    This is the song of praise, but in leads into the destruction of evil, which in turn leads into the lament of the following verses. The lament in turn ends on what, from God’s people’s point of view at least, is another high point.

    Some commentators have been concerned that the great city has already been destroyed in chapter 25, but that is part of the lack of clear chronological sense of Isaiah 24-27. The intent is to portray the time of conflict, and the feelings of God’s people, both positive and negative during that time.

    7The way of the righteous is level.
    You prepare for them a straight path.
    8Indeed in the path of your justice
    We wait for you YHWH,
    Your name and for your reputation,
    is our deepest desire.
    9My soul longs for you in the night,
    My spirit within me keeps watch for you,
    Because just as your judgments hold sway in the land,
    So do the inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness.

    Here again is the key to the day of the Lord. God asserts his rule and his justice. For some people that’s a good thing, for others, it is not so good. God’s true people wait anxiously for God’s justice, even though there may be great trouble along the way.

    10When the wicked receive grace,
    The don’t learn righteousness.
    In a land of upright people he acts unjustly,
    And has no fear of YHWH’s majesty.
    11YHWH, though your had is lifted up,
    They don’t see it.
    Let them see your zeal for your people,
    And be ashamed.
    Let the fire of your anger consume them. [Hebrews 10:27]

    There is a certain emotional conflict about the end times in that while many are being saved, God’s people know that others will be destroyed. God’s people have cried out for justice throughout history. There is the essential tension between God not wanting anyone to perish, and God’s unwillingness to allow sin to persist.

    The apparent absence of God’s judgment gives sinners permission to carry on whatever they’re doing.

    12YHWH will accomplish deliverance for us,
    Indeed all our accomplishments are things you have done!

    This is a tremendous statement of the gospel message. We really have done nothing. Even what we appear to have done is God’s activity in us.

    13YHWH our God,
    Other lords besides you have ruled us,
    Still we praise your name.

    I like this little note of repentance. “We’ve run away Lord, but we’re back. You’re the only one who matters.”

    14Being dead, they cannot live;
    Being shades, they cannot rise;
    Therefore you punished them,
         destroyed them,
         eliminated all memory of them.

    My translation is a bit different from what you will find in most versions based on Waltke-O’Connor’s grammar. It seemed strange to be talking about the dead in this verse and how they cannot rise when we have an affirmation of resurrection at the end of the chapter. What this verse actually refers to is those “other lords” who have ruled Israel. They are actually dead, unable to do anything. God has wiped them out.

    15You have added to the nation, YHWH.
    You have added to the nation.
    You have been glorified.
    You have expanded the borders of the land.

    Note the turn to a description of God’s blessing.

    16In trouble they called to you, YHWH.
    They poured out their prayer as you corrected them.
    17Like a pregnant woman who comes near to giving birth,
    She writhes, she cries out in her pains, [John 16:21]
    Thus were we from before you, YHWH.
    18We were pregnant, we writhed,
    But we gave birth to wind.
    We have not brought forth salvation on earth,
    Nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

    And here is another statement of God’s grace. Every human effort has failed, has accomplished nothing. They are like giving birth to wind. Yet when God steps in there is salvation.

    19Your dead will live,
    My corpses will rise.
    Wake up and sing!
    Those who dwell in the dust.
    Like drops of light is your dew,
    And the earth will bring forth the shades. [Ephesians 5:14]
    20Come my people! Enter your chambers!
    Close your doors after you.
    Hide for just a moment,
    until wrath passes over.
    21For look! YHWH is going out from his place,
    To repay the iniquity of the land’s inhabitants on it.
    The land will reveal its blood,
    And will no longer conceal its slain.

    We end with two affirmations: 1) God will bring new life, an early affirmation of the resurrection, and 2) The land is going to reveal the iniquity that has been done in it, allowing final justice.

    On the first point there has been some debate about whether this resurrection refers merely to the restoration of the nation or whether there is a resurrection of the dead involved. I believe the latter, largely because of the contrast to the dead gods/lords who will never rise again.

    On the second, note that the sacrificial system had many cases in which a sacrifice was to be offered when someone realized their guilt. The things that are concealed must be revealed so that justice can be done, whether for atonement or for punishment.

  • Lingamish on “Seed-Pickers”

    Lingamish has a post on a preaching peeve of his–seed pickers. You’ll have to go to his post to see all the details, but he defines a seed-picker as:

    A seed-picker is a preacher who grabs verses from all over the Bible and slaps them together in a puking pastiche of public preaching. A seed-picking sermon is marked by wide jumps in topic and involves so much thumbing through the Bible that even the most ardent Berean finally loses heart and has to just take the preacher’s word for it when he says Ezekiel 44 says such and such and Revelation 12 says so and so.

    We’ve all heard such sermons, I’m sure, though in many Methodist sermons these days the scriptures are more likely to be few and far between. Nonetheless, Lingamish makes a good point, to which I’d like to add a couple of comments.

    The key isn’t how many scriptures you use, it’s how appropriate they are and how well chosen. As Lingamish notes, many people like to remind us that “. . . they all [Bible books] ultimately have the same Author (notice the big A).” At the same time, it is worthwhile for us to remember that the Bible is presented to us the way it is, in many portions and at various times (Hebrews 1:1), precisely because that uppercase ‘A’ Author chose to provide it to us in that fashion. When we randomly connect pieces from one scripture with another, we deny the very providence of God which provided the Bible to us as it is.

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  • Finally Some Cover on Multiple Reading!

    Joe Carter at the evangelical outpost has written a post titled How to Change Your Mind. I’m not going to steal the thunder of his post, other than to say that it deals with reading passages multiple times.

    I have long been recommending reading a book of the Bible, or any passage you are about to study (to include a decent amount of context, and a logical selection) twelve times before going on to detailed study. I tell classes and study groups, normally over the shocked looks and nervous laughter that if they will follow this advice they will get an incredible blessing.

    The method Joe Carter is recommending is not precisely the same as mine. He’s talking about a slightly different number of times, though I’ll note that I tell people that they will get some significant blessing from increasing the number of times. I learned my method from my mother and have added to it.

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  • Baseball Rules and Bible Study

    Over the last few years I’ve tried to learn a great deal about baseball, because I have a stepson who is a professional pitcher. It has taken me some time to learn, because I didn’t grow up with baseball, and there are quite a number of subtleties. When I first started watching, for example, I thought that the one big thing about pitching was strikeouts, and I assumed that all pitches would be aimed for the strike zone. Over time I’ve learned about many other options. The rules seem simple, but they give rise to a huge number of options.

    A while back I found a quiz on difficult calls an umpire might face. I recall being quite pleased with myself as a relative nephyte, to be able to get 50% of those calls right. You see there are the basic rules, then there are more detailed rules, and then you have to deal with all of the various options that players have while playing within the rules. The rules tell me that if a ball passes over any part of the plate at the appropriate height range, it’s a strike. It’s also a strike if the batter swings and misses, or for the first two strikes if it’s a foul ball. That doesn’t tell the pitcher what kind of a pitch to throw on a full count, however. For that one needs to know one’s own abilities, the batter, the abilities of the catcher, and the current state of the game.

    What does all of this have to do with the Bible?

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  • Just What the Bible Says

    More than a year ago I wrote a post titled Just Your Interpretation. In it I challenge the idea that just any interpretation will do, and suggested that there are right and wrong interpretations, and we should aim for right interpretations. I know this goes contrary to the post-modern trend.

    But I also mentioned another side to the issue. There are those who regularly claim that they are not presenting an interpretation, but rather are presenting “just what the Bible says.” They despise and reject any appeal to resources other than the scriptures, and urge all correspondents to support everything with specific texts.

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  • Junia in Romans 16:7

    Suzanne McCarthy has a series of posts on the Better Bibles Blog about the name “Junia” in Romans 16:7. I’ve discuss this before on the Compuserve Religion Forum, but Suzanne covers all the major points. Here posts are, in order:

    List updated to include parts 7-10, written after I posted this.

    I’m writing this for two reasons: First, I want to commend the entire series to you for your reading pleasure and its educational value. This is some good blogging. Second, I want to comment indirectly on this verse and the way we make theology and practice out of Bible passages. I really have nothing to add directly.

    The handling of this text illustrates to me two elements of the way in which we make theology from scripture that are problematic. (Yes, I guess I’m on a 2’s kick today!) I believe that we tend to take the propositional statements of scripture over its narrative, and secondly, we tend to avoid the implications of the cultural context. (For further notes on context, see my essay Understanding Context.)

    Dealing first with the issue of narrative and propositional statements, I do not mean simply that we take passages that present propositions over those that are narrative in nature, for example, taking Galatians over Acts. I mean to say that we take the theological propositions over the narrative background. There is considerable narrative background even in non-narrative passages. For example, in Galatians we have both the theological heart, of the book, and we have some application toward the end. In the first part, Paul is presenting theology, in the last, he is talking behavior. In my seminary class in Galatians, a quarter long study, we never got out of chapter 4. Now I understand that when doing in-depth study, you can’t always cover all the ground you’d like, but is one’s view of the book balanced when you read the heart of the argument but not the conclusion?

    Similarly, you might compare the heart of Galatians to 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians you can get a good deal of narrative by looking just below the surface. What is actually happening in the church in Corinth. Gordon Fee uses the narrative in chapter 11 to note that obviously women were prophesying and praying in church, otherwise why comment on their headgear? He follows this up with his textual arguments that chapter 14:34-35 is an interpolation. (See The First Epistle to the Corinthians in the New International Commentary on the New Testament, pages 699-708. I regard Fee’s comments here as definitive.)

    Romans 16:7 falls into the narrative. It tells us what the church was actually doing, and here we have that exception to the rule that intrudes on one’s comfortable assumptions. The easy thing is to explain this quick reference away so that we can keep our interpretation of other passages about women intact. I must note here that I do see as the only strong reason for rejecting the idea that Junia was an apostle is a preconceived notion that a woman cannot possibly be an apostle. The most probable reading of the text, in my opinion, is that she was.

    And that’s were the other element comes into play–cultural context. We come to the text of scripture, not hearing the text speaking directly to us, but rather listening in on the divine conversation with someone else, in this case God to Paul to the church in Rome. This is true of all of these passages. In the background we have to realize there is a patriarchal society. Now certain people want to make that patriarchal society normative.

    But think of it this way. Supposing that today I write that we need more women active in church leadership. I believe that to be the case. I feel no need of qualifying my statement. Supposing that someone reads my statement 2,000 years from now. Women’s liberation has succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and extended itself into nightmare. We have a matriarchal society, and men are not permitted in positions of leadership. How will my statement be understood then? It should be understood as irrelevant to the existing situation. Women are in all the positions of leadership, but it could be understood as advocacy of an all female leadership.

    In a patriarchal society, I think we need to look for the exceptions to discover the answer to the question of whether other indications of all male leadership are simply an artefact of the particular culture, or whether they are a moral imperative. In fact, by looking at those exceptions, such as Romans 16:7, I believe we see the church willing to accept female leadership, but not yet ready to push for equality in the church when the church lived in a very unequal society.

    I believe a combination of observing the narrative of scripture and the cultural background will lead us to a more balanced view of church leadership roles.

  • Isaiah 25: Protection in the Midst of Trouble

    This is a long delayed continuation of my series on Isaiah 24-27, an early apocalypse. To get the background, look back at my entry on Isaiah 24 and possibly even follow the links there to my material on this topic on Threads from Henry’s Web.

    For those who may not want to follow the links back, let me summarize. Isaiah 24-27 is a section of Isaiah dealing with some variety of eschatological events. Its language is rooted in the judgment that Isaiah has proclaimed on Israel and Judah, but it looks beyond that. Many interpreters regard it as confused and disorderly, but it is actually similar to later apocalyptic literature in that regard. It gives word pictures of various places and attitudes as God’s judgment falls on the land, but also as God’s people are delivered.

    I like to apply the metaphor of the theme ride to this, such as I use in my study guide to Revelation. Think of yourself as riding on something like Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride. You will pass through various scenes of the pillaging of a town by pirates, but it is not a sequential presentation. You may find various elements portrayed simultaneously that might have happened sequentially. Isaiah 25 is much like that.

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  • Reading 12 Times

    One of the things that I recommend for Bible study is reading a passage 12 times before you start examining the details. This is, of course, intended for serious study of a passage. I discuss various types of reading here.

    This is easily my most ignored recommendation. In fact, I have yet to find anyone who actually carries it out. So why do I go on recommending it?

    As background, I learned this method from my mother. For her it was primarily for a text to be memorized. Before settling in to set the details to memory, she suggested reading the whole passage 12 times. When I was younger, we did a lot of memorizing, and I found this process very helpful. In fact, when memorizing a passage I will also stop after a period of time working on verses and phrases to read the whole passage several times. I’ve found that this helps avoid memorizing unevenly, e.g., knowing the earlier part of a chapter, but being unable to finish it.

    But the reason I continue to practice this procedure and to recommend it is simple: I believe anyone who does use this method for serious study of a passage will receive a significant blessing. Alternatively, never start digging into a passage without reading it through three times, but that’s not really as good. One of my classes once challenged me on this point. They said that a reader would quit getting anything new after a couple of times through a text. So I told them as an experiment that I would see how many times I could read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) through and still get something new from it. There is no way for you to check me on this, but I had read this passage over 30 times before I simply quit. I used the Greek text and multiple translations, reading from a different one each time, and then compared my underlining and marginal notes to make sure. The point here is not to tell you how much I get out of scripture reading, but to suggest to you how much God’s word and the Holy Spirit can accomplish if you’ll just let God have the time with your mind and spirit. There is nothing like seriously taking in the scripture to open your mind’s door to God. At least I’ve found it that way.

    So despite my lack of success in getting people to take on this challenge, I’m going to keep recommending it.

    Let me give some suggestions if you’re thinking of trying it.

    • Use multiple translations. When memorizing, of course, you use only one, and I suggest selecting a single version for memorization. But when reading for an overview and to fix the general ideas of a passage in your mind, using multiple translations will help you concentrate. It also prevents you from “seeing what you already know is there.”
    • In the early stages, choose a passage that interests you and for which you have the background. If you’ve never done this before, don’t start on Leviticus, for example. The Sermon on the Mount, one of Jesus’s sermons in the gospel of John, or even the whole epistle of 1 John are good examples.
    • Have a pen and/or marker handy. Don’t get too caught up in notes, but mark things each time and write marginal notes.
    • Follow up your reading by serious, line by line study of the passage without too much delay.
    • Allow yourself enough time. If you are reading a chapter, you probably need to do this over several days. (For memorizing, you want to do this as quickly as possible. For study, allow yourself time to think and meditate.) For a book, you might allow yourself weeks.
    • Always study prayerfully and with time for meditation and listening for the Holy Spirit to apply the passage to your own life.

    I know this whole “12 times” idea sounds way over-the-top to most, but for me it has been a great blessing.

  • God: Nice or Not?

    One of my Old Testament professors once told me that he thought survey courses might better be left to the end of one’s program, that one could greatly benefit by a survey course after one had studied more deeply into the various elements. I agree, though I would suggest a starting survey and then a finishing survey. I think this idea works in Bible study too, though I put less emphasis on the later survey or fast read. Sometimes we use too narrow of a context in interpreting a passage, which is a hazard of serious study of the particular text.

    So today I was read Hebrews 1-6 in Greek for my morning devotions, and some things started popping out at me as I read, just as though I had them highlighted. Some I did have marked in my text, and some not. Now I noticed this list of texts first, and then saw the question afterward, but I’m going to present you with the issue first, and then look at two questions that they help answer. (I added the second question in later!)

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  • Finding Good Role Models for Girls in the Bible

    A post by Peter Kirk over on Speaker of Truth, titled Deborah and a woman from Bethlehem, and some interesting comments made there suggests to me some more writing about my favorite topic: the SHARING stage of Bible study. (For an outline of my method, see The Participatory Study Method. Some of the foundation for this is contained in my essay Interpreting Stories.)

    The difficulty I address in my main essay on interpreting stories is the fact that the Bible writers do not present only heroes, and do not gloss over the weakness of their characters. In modern storytelling we tend to prefer clear villains and heroes, and I find that most of the time when Christians recommend a book or a movie, that is one of the characteristics. We like to have people in our stories that fit in well with either “I’d like to be just like him/her” or “I hope he/she gets it in the end!”

    But that’s precisely what the Bible doesn’t give us. Often we take our lead in retelling Bible stories from Hebrews 11, and make them all into heroes in retelling their stories. But we should consider the goal of the author of Hebrews before we decide that this is the one and only, or even the best, way of retelling these stories. His point here is to focus totally on faithfulness. No matter what has happend, no matter what the weaknesses, the one key is to remain faithful to God throughout. And in that characteristic, all of the heroes mentioned in Hebrews 11 are truly heroes. But if you look at their broader stories as told in scripture, they come out as very human, with weaknesses and failings. In fact, they make very suitable examples.

    This leads me to a key point: Heroes can be destructive as well as challenging. The Proverbs 31 woman is a good example. There are some women out there who are encouraged by the way in which their role is honored in that passage. Others live in misery because they can’t live up to what they see as the Biblical standard on a daily basis. Jesus is an excellent and challenging example to us, but I find myself relating to Peter a lot better sometimes. Jesus may have been tested in all ways as I have been, but it was “without sin.” Jesus walked on the water; Peter took a plunge; I’m more like Peter! Now don’t get me wrong here. I believe in asking “what would Jesus do?” on a regular basis. But I also believe that there’s a reason Peter is in the Bible. When I try to walk on water and find myself in an unplanned deep sea dive instead, I can look back and say, “Peter was a leader amongst the disciples, and he had bad days too!”

    So role models don’t always have to be heroes in the sense that we use that term in modern times. As far as I can see, the Bible never whitewashes its lead characters. We can learn both from their good decisions and from their bad. The most important thing to note is that just because a Bible character does something, even if that character is a good person, does not mean that we should do likewise.

    Now let’s connect this to the simple issue of role models for girls. Anyone who can count can tell that there are less overt examples of female role models in the Bible than there are male. Because of that we tend to look carefully for the few really good role models that there are, and this can lead us to whitewash certain people even more. Some would say that the scarcity of female role models in scripture simply indicates that women are to be less active. But I would simply ask if everything that was common behavior in Bible times should be regarded as normative. There are many things we do not follow as norms today, including the fairly common occurrence of plural marriage, arranged marriages, forbidding marriage between Jews and gentiles, absolute monarchy, and on and on. Just because it happened doesn’t mean it’s a model for now.

    In addition, there are hints that more may be going on behind the scenes. For example, we have Huldah the prophetess who suddenly pops up in 2 Kings 22:14. Why would a group of leaders go to her with a question if she hadn’t already been exercising the prophetic office? So here we have an indication that women may have a public role, though in the patriarchal society their role was limited in scope.

    “But,” says some reader, “You still leave us with few role models for women!” And you are right. Now, I’m going to get to my point. The scriptural basis for this is found in Psalm 78, which I regard as an excellent charter document for religious education:

    1(A Wisdom Song by Asaph)
    Open your ears to my instruction
    Turn your ears toward the the words I speak.
    2I will open my mouth in a teaching song.
    I will speak hard sayings from ancient times.
    3Words which we have heard and known,
    and our ancestors have told us.
    4We will not hide them from their children,
    speaking YHWH’s praises to a later generation,
    His strength, and the wonderful things he has done.
    5And he raised a testimony in Jacob,
    and set instruction in Israel,
    Which he commanded our ancestors
    to teach to their children.
    6So that the later generation might know,
    The children to be born would rise up,
    and teach them to their children.
    7That they might set their hope in God,
    And might not forget his mighty deeds,
    But might observe his commands. — Psalm 78:1-7 (TFBV)

    Grab your favorite “easy reading” Bible version and read the whole chapter. The story of God’s activities has not stopped. We are responsible to pass that story from generation to generation and in turn, “put our trust in God” which itself will add to the story, just as the Psalmist is adding to the story through some of the incidents he relates.

    So my suggestion is to start your search for role models in the Biblical stories, but don’t stop there. My first set of sources is actually in the apocrypha. How about Susanna or Judith? Again, you need to read all stories with due consideration for the weaknesses of any human example. But even more than this, you need to continue through Christian history and into the present, telling the stories of faith.

    When I first returned to the church after my 12 years of “wilderness wandering” after graduate school, and started teaching, I was looking for this type of story. I found that the idea of telling our own stories about how God has worked in our lives was a bit foreign to the congregation of which I was a member. Stories of faith were about people in the Bible, and maybe on good days about people a few generations back, but never about today.

    So I got on the phone with my mother. Why? Because my mother told us stories of faith in her own life. Lots of stories of faith. When I wondered whether God could or would work in our lives, I wasn’t merely, pointed to the red sea or Elijah on Mt. Carmel or the resurrection, though my parents believed and taught those stories. I was referred to things in our own present life. So I asked my mother to write them down so I could use some as examples. She did, and the result was the booklet Directed Paths, stories of her life as a missionary nurse along with my father, who was a missionary doctor. As I write this my father is in intensive care after surgery, though the prognosis is good. He’s 85 years old, and as my mother and I talked before the surgery, all we could say was that if this was God’s time to take him, we knew that he had run a good race. I can say the same thing of my mother. But the key thing here is that she told me about God’s work in her life. Because she testified, she can serve as a role-model of faith.

    Now I publish the booklet I mentioned above, and I won’t deny that I’d love for you to buy and read it, but that isn’t the point of bringing it up. What you need to do is look at your own life, and the lives of your parents and other family members, discover those stories of God’s working, and tell them. Do what my mother did and make yourself a part of the ongoing story of God, in a sense part of the Bible story. You can find sources in the Bible, in the history of the church and communities of faith, and finally in the history of your own family. This is sharing and becoming a part of the story. If you don’t share it, you can’t be part of it. You’ll find that there are more and more stories of people that girls can use as role models as time moves forward.

    Of course, then there’s the hard part:

    11But they conquered him by means of the blood of the lamb,
    and by means of the testimony they spoke,
    And they did not love their lives even up to death. Revelation 12:11 (TFBV)

    We commonly quote the first two lines, but the last one is a bit harder. Getting to be a part of the story can involve hardship and can even involve death. My mother’s story includes a time of running for our lives in the middle of the night, and a time when I nearly died as a child due to circumstances involved in her ministry. I know of missionaries overseas and here at home who have lost more. But there are plenty of stories to work with.

    Become a part of the story!