beautiful words...

I'm a big fan of the whole aesthetic package. Wonderful, terrible words put in a truly beautiful manner. Leave it to Lewis to extract and form my aesthetic philosophy [though i like mine a little wider than his eliot-exclusive views] I think this is why I love my new ESV Bible. After struggling through three semesters of Greek, I have a bigger appreciation for the language that God put into the hearts and pens of His children.

Something sparked Hebrews 12 today, and I read it like I was reading it for the first and ten thousandth time [but it was more like somewhere in between]. These are words to absorb, to dive into. Build your whole life on terrible beauty and good translations.

Paul talks about heritage, discipline, and the pain which perfects us, then he jumps into this: Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. [12-14]

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” [18-21]

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. [22-24]

At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. [26-29]

you never let go
you never let go
you never let go