More from The Training of the Twelve

I’m still slogging my way through The Training of the Twelve. There are some good insights, but they are far between. Normally when I read a book, I mark interesting sections with a part of a yellow sticky note to read to Debbie later. On some books that results in something looking like a fruit tree bearing much (yellow) fruit. Well, this book has managed to garner 5 in over 400 pages. Not a good harvest.

But last night I ran across this on page 423:

“To be hated and evil entreated is one of the penalties of moral greatness and spiritual power; or, to put it differently, one of the privileges Christ confers on His ‘friends.’

“Hatred is very hard to bear, and the desire to escape it is one main cause of unfaithfulness and unfruitfulness. Good men shape their conduct so as to keep out of trouble, and through excess cowardly prudence degenerate into spiritual nonentities.”

<idle musing>
“degenerate into spiritual nonentities!” Wow, that hit me hard when I read it last night. Is that what happens to “good men?” The context of the statement is in a discussion of the upper room discourse in John. Jesus is talking about what will happen to the disciples once he is gone—they will suffer persecution. Either they endure it by the indwelling power of the Paracletos, or they will succumb and become “spiritual nonentities.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a spiritual nonentity. That sounds too boring and dull—quite apart from the eternal consequences. May we all become spiritual entities worthy of the name of Jesus!
</idle musing>