Norbie, Donald: A Call For Christian Writers ~ Jeremiah 36

This seminar is a seminar on Christian writing. My name is Don Norby. I think I should tell you a little about myself. Uh, my wife and I live in Colorado. Um, one of the brothers here was asking me, where's Colorado? Because some Canadians don't know more about American geography than maybe Americans do about Canadian geography. I kind of amazed him in that I could tell him some of the provinces going east in order, but we lived in Canada for a year. I, uh, went into the Lord's work in nineteen forty nine and, uh, was commended by an assembly in Wheaton, Illinois, and, uh, taught for several years at Emmaus, and since that time we've been involved in, uh, evangelism and in, uh, Bible teaching and church planting, and in writing. Uh, I started writing fairly early, I guess, and the first book that I had published was, uh, my master's thesis. It was called- entitled New Testament Church Organization, and it was, uh, the culmination of some years of real study. I, uh, as a younger man, was concerned about the direction I should go, the kind of groups with which I should work. At the time when I really got interested in this, I was doing some preaching of the Baptists while I was in college, licensed to preach by them, and, uh, uh, fairly active with the church. But then I began thinking and evaluating and wondering, eh, is this really where I want to be? Because I had touch earlier with assemblies, uh, and then I'd been in the service for some years and, uh, out of touch with them, and the town where we were, there was no assembly, and so I, uh, was really thinking through these things in my own mind and coming to some convictions. I like to encourage young people to do that. My wife and I worked through the scripture, studied the passages that we thought were relevant, and came to some convictions which were very stabilizing for us. And we've not changed those convictions over the years because we felt that we had, uh, scriptural basis for what we were doing. And, uh, we've lived now in Colorado for some years, uh, uh, we helped start an assembly, which the devil destroyed through the feminist movement. Then we didn't feel led especially to move, so we hung in there and restarted again with nothing. And, uh, the assembly is going along. It's not real big, but it's healthy and growing, and we're seeing people saved, and and the Lord is blessing. So we had kind of a varied experience. I've done some Bible teaching in foreign countries and different parts of the United States, taught several years at Emmaus, and so forth. Writing, uh, we're going to, in your notes there, you notice I don't have detailed outline, because oftentimes I think people, if it's all written down, they, they read it kind of superficially. If you have to listen and then write it yourself, maybe it helps clinch it a little better. Uh, the motivation. Why should we bother to write at all as Christians? Well, part of it certainly should be you're consumed with a desire to express the truth of God to others. And I want to read a couple, few verses in Jeremiah thirty six. Jeremiah thirty six. And incidentally, this is informal. You have a question, feel free. This is not a church meeting as such. You women have any questions, anything like this, feel free to ask or contribute. Jeremiah thirty six verse one. It came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Take a scroll of a book and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah, even to this day. May be that the house of Judah will hear all the adversities which I purpose to bring upon them, that everyone may turn from his evil ways, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. Jeremiah called Baruch, the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll of a book at the instruction of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which had spoken to him. Now, oral ministry has its place. There's a power in oral ministry. There's a vital function for oral ministry. But the unfortunate thing is, unless you live in this, uh, present modern world, oral ministry is not preserved, has not been preserved. Uh, so we have the prophets. There were preaching prophets like Elijah and Elisha, who were men of God, who preached, who fulfilled the word of the purpose of God in their lives, but who left us nothing of their ministry, basically their, uh, preaching, their teaching, and so forth. Then you have writing prophets, uh, and those are the ones we read today. We read Isaiah, we read Jeremiah, we read Lamentations, Ezekiel, and so forth. These were prophets who wrote. They wrote that their messages were written down. And you have that, uh, given here, uh, the Lord speaks to Jeremiah, and he says, take a scroll of a book and write on it all the words that I've spoken to you. Write the message down. And so it's been preserved. Jeremiah there was serving, uh, the Lord during that period of time when the southern kingdom was taken. Uh, his ministry begins in the reign of Josiah, and it runs over to past the, uh, destruction of Jerusalem until the people actually, a remnant went down into Egypt. And so he had a long ministry, and, uh, we read today, uh, some of that ministry, not all of it necessarily, but the Lord told him, write down some of this. So the motivation is, of course, that, uh, to express God's truth, and this is what he's doing. He's expressing the truth of God. In this case, it was a message largely of judgment, but, uh, he was speaking now as a messenger for God, and, uh, so this is, uh, uh, the motivation, especially the Christian has, to seek to bring people to know God. Uh, and some of the, the ministry, of course, will be, uh, to edify, and, uh, as we think of the, the ministry of edification, uh, I'd like to read Isaiah forty two verses one and two, where certainly the Lord uh speaks to the prophet. And it's a message of comfort and um encouragement. Earlier in chapter forty, in verse one, he says, Comfort ye, comfort my people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem. Cry out to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received from the Lord's hand double for her sins. And then he goes on to speak of the servant to whom he upholds, the elect one, and so forth. And so the latter part here of Isaiah is full of comfort, encouragement. And there's that ministry too, as we think of writing. Many of the Lord's people need encouragement and comfort. Now, one of the things that I think should mark us if we're going to write as Christians is a sense that, uh, um, we're being led by the Lord. And I want to read in Revelation chapter one where John here is, um, isolated on this island, uh, because of the word of the Lord. Uh, in his old age, he's a, a prisoner for the gospel's sake. And it says this in verse nine of Jo- Revelation one: I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet. So he speaks of being, uh, in the spirit on the Lord's day, and the God begins to speak to him, and he writes down the things that God has spoken to him about. And so, as we think of of writing as Christians, uh, there should be, I think, this sense that, that God is, uh, inspiring me, that this is a message from the Lord that he wants communicated to others. In a sense, you don't just, uh, uh, have to sit down and, and write as a, uh, uh, as just a duty. Sit down and think, well, I've got to write something, you know? You need to have, uh, I think a sense that, uh, here's something that has gripped you, some truth, and the Spirit of God is laying it on your heart, you want to share it. Sometimes it may be, sometimes I may wake up early in the morning, and I'll think, you know, this is something that the Lord's laying on my heart, and I ought to write it down, make some notes, and later on I'll amplify those notes, but, uh, a sense that, uh, God is leading you and burdening you and, uh, inspiring you, in a sense, to write, so that your work, your writing is not just something, in a sense, you pump up and you work up. There's a working of the Spirit of God in your life, and you're communicating that to others, a motivation. Now, I don't think that, in a way, speaking to us as a group here, that we're going to enter into this ministry for profit. And we'll talk a little more about that later. There is some Christian writing, so-called at least, that is very profitable. People make a lot of money at it. But most of the writing probably you will do is not, you won't be entering into it, thinking of it in terms of this, I'll make a living doing this. Uh... Most who write for assembly publications, for example, aren't paid anything. I've been writing for quite a few years, and I've never received anything or wanted anything. It's a ministry. You do it for the Lord, and uh, it's it's a very different motivation from, say, a secular writer, from a lot of religious writers. For them, it's a a work, it's a a a livelihood. Uh, most writing by people who are in assemblies is viewed as a ministry. It's not something that you're expecting to get rich doing. Now, maybe the people that read something you've written will be concerned to send you some fellowship, but as far as the publisher is concerned, many assembly publications don't give the people who send in articles anything. They're just trying to get enough money in oftentimes to keep publishing their magazine. That's true of Uplift and uh, Precious Seed and these various things like this. So as you go into writing, uh, for, if you're writing for publications like this, you don't want to think, well, I'm going to make a living off this. They're going to be generous to me, and I'll make big bucks here because I'm sending in an article. Most of these publications in connection with assemblies, uh, are, uh, really just a very low key kind of operation, in a sense. They're not making a lot of money. They're trying to survive and just get the word out to the Lord's people. So this kind of writing you need to view as a ministry and not a profession. It's, uh, a different outlook completely. Now, as we think of the gift and calling, uh, I think we want to realize you should feel a, a compulsion, I think, uh, to write this deep, uh, concern, uh, that you can't, in a sense, contain it. And I want to give a, a verse here in Jeremiah, Jeremiah's experience, Jeremiah chapter twenty and verse nine. Uh, he's been preaching, he's been writing, and then he gets discouraged, and the, in verse nine, he says, I said I will not make mention of him nor speak anymore in his name. Jeremiah says, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the resistance. I'm tired of the indifference. Maybe in some of your writing and that you'll feel people don't appreciate it, and maybe people will criticize things you've said. But here, Jeremiah's experience was this. His word was in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones. I was weary of holding it back. I could not... I couldn't hold back anymore. And, uh, so that he, the prophets had this experience time and again, where they were reluctant even, tired of writing or speaking the word, and yet they were driven by this compulsion of the Spirit of God. This is a message God wants to get out. And, uh, when there's that drive, why, uh, the Lord is going to, uh, keep you from getting discouraged and quitting. Now, I mentioned gift. What would you say is the difference between natural talent and, uh, spiritual gift? And I want to turn to First Peter chapter four. I want you just to think about that. Is there any difference? Uh, we speak of a person who's a very gifted, uh, musician, and we'll say, my, how talented this person is. And so we use that, that, uh, that term talent, speaking of natural ability. Mozart was a very talented musician, uh, a musical genius. Uh, a person who gets saved may be very musical, very gifted in certain areas. Uh, but how would you say, is there any difference here? Is- does one exclude the other? How does natural talent, we'll say, and ability and spiritual gift, how do these work together? Okay? Okay. Okay. All right. Do unbelievers have natural ability? Yes, we say they do. Uh, the amazing things that people are able to do because they're made in the image of God and there's tremendous potential. Even the lost sinner carries that image, even though it's marred. Uh, and so we listen to music that is beautiful music, written, composed by unbelievers. And, uh, we say, well, it isn't really spiritual gift there, but, uh, uh, beautiful. So there's a difference between natural talent and spiritual gift. But let me suggest that oftentimes, uh, natural talent is like, sort of like the setting for a ring, and the spiritual gift is like the gem that is put in it, and the two go together, so you don't separate the two. Uh, teachers are usually people with, uh, minds that are inquisitive and that are logical, and they love to study and so forth, and they have a natural bent for that. Naturally sort of students. But then the spiritual gift, of course, is that which, uh, edifies spiritually, because natural ability in itself will not produce spiritual edification. So that, uh, I want to read First Peter four and verse ten. First Peter four and verse ten. He says, as each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak, and so forth. As the oracles of God, or you could say, if anyone writes, let him write as the oracles of God. So that, uh... the two go together. Uh, natural talent is, uh, so to speak, fired and inspired by the Spirit of God and by that spiritual gift that he gives. Now, C. S. Lewis was a gifted man. He was a gifted writer and, uh, teacher, of course, uh, gifted thinker before he was saved, but that was not edifying. There was a time when he was basically an atheist. But then, when you have this background and this knowledge and this, uh, mind that he had and this ability to express himself, then he gets saved. Now that, that talent will now can be directed to spiritual goals and spiritual ends. And of course, uh, because of that, he, uh, wrote many books that were very useful and very helpful. Think of the Apostle Paul. Now he had certain natural gifts before. He was, uh, somewhat of a leader. He was a good teacher. He'd been schooled in the, uh, school of the rabbis, and, uh, so you would say here is a man with a trained mind, a gifted person, naturally speaking. Then when he gets saved, now God's able to use that to produce spiritual blessing and edification. So you can't really divorce, in my thinking, completely, uh, natural talent and spiritual gift? That's the missing the evidence of the natural. Y- yeah, uh... We all have certain natural abilities. And, uh, when we get saved, you get a, a spiritual gift. Now, there can, there's a union of that natural ability. Uh, you don't cease to be the person you once were. If you're a student, you don't stop being a student because you get saved. Uh, if the you're good at expressing yourself, if you have some gift in writing, when you get saved, uh, that isn't something, something you watched out, and God starts all over. He uses, uh, what you have, what you've been using, and then, of course, here's now the Holy Spirit indwelling us, who's able to use those talents and also add that spiritual gift. Each one has been given, it says, a manifestation of the Spirit. So everyone is spiritually gifted. Everyone has the Holy Spirit. In everyone, the Holy Spirit wants to work and to reveal himself, and uh, so that uh, uh, gifts, though, can be neglected, and gifts can be sharpened and increased through gift, uh, through uh, use and uh, through encouragement and training and, uh, uh, discipline in various ways. Now, when it comes to to writing, you can say, well, uh, your gift or any ability to write is something that can be improved, that can be helped. If you go, for example, to high school, to college, you take courses in composition, you may take courses in literature, you may take, uh, writing courses, you're learning grammar, composition, the whole thing. God is able to use those things then when it comes to the time when you feel God wants me to write something of a spiritual nature, and, uh, he can use the, uh, uh, knowledge, the gifts that we have already. So we, we don't want to discount that, but you don't want to equate this natural, uh, ability or this training, this discipline with spiritual gifts. Uh, without this gift of the Holy Spirit and without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it's simply going to be human effort. That's true in preaching or speaking. The man is simply, uh, doing this with his, uh, own training. For example, you may go to seminary, you may take courses in homiletics. They're going to teach you how to prepare a sermon, how to deliver a sermon, how to use the right techniques, uh, so that you can, and there are many men in the pulpit today who are preaching, who are going through all the motions. People may say, well, that was nice, that was good, my, he spoke well. And it can all be done without the energy and power of the Holy Spirit at all. And there may be no spiritual result at all, although at times God in his sovereignty uses the word of God, even when it's given out by an unbeliever. But, uh, we don't want to, in a sense, discount any ways that we may use to improve in that which the Lord is laying on our hearts to do. But you don't want to equate just training or education, uh, with, uh, spiritual gift. Um, it can be a big mistake if we think we're going to produce a man of God if we send him to a certain school, and he goes through a certain procedure, and he, he studies homiletics, he does this and so forth. He's going to come out a, a gifted, useful preacher. He may come out polished speaker, but it's a different thing, uh, for one to be energized by the Spirit of God and to speak as the oracles of God, so that when you're through listening to him, you have the sense that God has spoken to me. This is not simply a polished sermon, but God has spoken. And that should be, of course, the goal that we have. I want to talk some, do you have any further questions on what we've talked about thus far? Uh, comes to writing. Well, what about, um, you don't know they have that gift. You can send a guy to school or a person to get educated and find out that that is their gift, that is a possibility too, is it not? You go into training even? Uh. You never had the chance to use it maybe? Somewhere? Uh, what are we talking about? Writing now? Writing, speaking. Writing, speaking. Whatever gift it is. Well, God's able to use, uh, whatever you have. But, uh, I, I, the point I'm just trying to make is that, uh, human ability is not adequate in itself. Human training isn't adequate. Uh, there has to be this working and this power of the Spirit of God himself. I'm just thinking of First Corinthians two. Paul says, and I, brethren, that I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. So that Paul here, who had been trained as a rabbi, and you can say was a probably a Pali speaker and a teacher, uh, as he was taught of the Spirit of God, and as he went out into the Lord's work and was involved in evangelism, was very conscious of his own weakness, and he realized, I, I can't do the work of God simply with my training and simply with, uh, uh, my natural ability. I want this to be God working through me so that when people are saved, it's genuine and it's lasting. Um, this is his desire, and I think it should be our desire even when we write. That it's not going to be just a display of our, our knowledge, of our ability, but a, a just a sense of, uh, weakness and adequacy and dependence upon God. God, I want you to use what I write. I want this to be a blessing to your people, and, uh, to have that kind of attitude rather than a self-confident attitude, trusting in our own ability and training. Anything else on that area? Let's talk about types of writing. The first ti- type I want to mention is fiction. Uh, and I am not really qualified to speak in this area. I- I'm, I'm not basically a fiction writer, uh, but there is, uh, fiction, and I'd just like to mention that this is an area of so-called Christian writing that is very profitable. This is the area where you can make money, and some are making big bucks. The left behind series is making those writers millionaires. They are wealthy. Uh, and if you write prophetic fiction, it sells. People want to know what does the future hold? What's going to happen? What's Russia going to do in the future? What's going to happen in Asia? And they are interested in knowing, and it'll sell. Left Behind series, uh, I don't know what the latest figures are, but they've sold millions of copies, and they say the men who have written those are wealthy as a result of it. Now, what they do with the money, I don't know, but they've had lots of money come in. So it, it's very financially, uh, profitable. I have a problem with some fiction, because the problem is people sometimes read fiction and they think it's fact. So you have people, for example, go to a Hollywood movie, maybe Samson and Delilah, which I have not seen, I... and they think, well, this is what happened. Uh, this is the way it is. And I've had people say to me, oh, I don't know much about the Bible, but I saw the movie. And uh, of course, the movie is Hollywood's version, uh, with a little sex and uh, violence and whatever thrown in to make it exciting, and uh, to me, uh, that is dangerous. Because if I would communicate to people a false concept, a false idea, and they believe it, I'm responsible. That's why the scripture says, be not many teachers, knowing you'll receive greater judge. And so as we, if you write fiction, um, and I think there is some fiction, you know, that, uh, like the Narnia tales, uh, C. S. Lewis wrote, it's fiction, but it- it isn't fictionizing scripture. It's you're just off here in this land of fantasy where you go in through the wardrobe and you enter into this, and it's a world of fantasy, and there are spiritual messages and lessons in connection with it, but you don't go away from it saying, well, that's what the Bible teaches. Uh, it was a fun story, and they enjoyed it, and there were some moral lessons and so forth, but you're not going to have your concept of what the Bible teaches about Moses confused if you read the Narnia tales. So that this kind of fiction, and Patricia Sindron has written some books, uh, great books for children. Uh, she was a missionary, and her father was Harold Sindron. Uh, and she, these are, but uh, uh, very good, with good moral, good plot, and so forth. Uh, so fiction is one area that uh, you do see a lot of today. Question? Daniel Ellis. Uh, are still in tea on Daniel Ellis. Oh, wow, that, that affected their life. All right, all right. Good Christian fiction really Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I think what bothers me a little more is when they get into using, uh, scriptural characters or something and taking off then. They better leave the scriptures to itself, and you write fiction about, you may use scriptural principles and morals and so forth, but, uh, leave the Bible out of it as far as you trying to reinterpret or, or, uh, redesign what the scripture had to say about something. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there are, uh, you know, good books along that line that are, are, uh, real helpful, uh, for children, especially growing up, and, uh, adults too. Mm-hmm. The first books for children, the sisters that wrote them, the first story books for children were wrote by sisters. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. So fiction is one area of, uh, writing, and if the Lord calls you to that, may the Lord give you help, and, uh, I wish you great success. Uh, biography is another area. Now, biographies can be very powerful in their influence. If you read a biography of a man who has lived for God and his life has been much used of God, uh, it can have a tremendous impact. We need to encourage our young people to read good biographies. We need heroes today. You know, the tendency is in our Western culture to debunk heroes. So in the United States, there are books written with a goal to, uh, pull George Washington down and make him seem like just another sinner, or Abraham Lincoln, or whatever. It's a very fashionable thing. So that many young people, they don't have any heroes unless it's a rock and roll star or some Hollywood character, and those are not the kind of heroes they need to have. But to read the story of a man who is, uh, really lived for God, read the life of George Mueller and the, uh, the account there of how he trusted the Lord and developed these orphanages and how the Lord provided day by day. That's a real challenge, you know, to say that God is alive and well, and he's able to provide. And if he calls me to serve him in a full-time way, surely he can provide for me. So good biographies can be very, uh, much used of God. I haven't done a lot. I've just written a couple of biographies myself, but, uh, one that I wrote on the life of T. B. Gilbert. Some people have said to me it was great encouragement to me, uh, and, uh, stimulated me to follow the Lord too. So the bi- the biography can be very helpful. You feel a person by his background and a Christian writer Mm. aspiring to be a writer, by his background and his abilities, uh, mm, what else? By various factors, could stay to themselves in one of these areas, say fiction or geography, would he not, uh, could it be their job to prepare for one of these areas and not try to write perhaps all of them? Oh, that's true. I think the Lord lays one type of writing maybe on your heart, depending on your gift, your interest, and so forth. Uh, some that write fiction, that's all they do. They write Christian fiction, um, some, for some it sells, some it doesn't, and so forth, but uh, yeah, I think you're right. Uh, just because there are these different fields, we're going to cover several, doesn't mean we'll have to do all of them. You may just feel the concern to do one area. And uh, so that that is, uh, that's a good point to bring up. Good, uh, biographies. Uh, George Mueller, Robert Chapman. Uh, now these were men, you know, that were in the early days of the so-called Brethren Movement in England. And Mueller was the one who caught the vision of this from Anthony Norris Groves, uh, of really trusting God. And uh, that's a message we need today. Now, I've been in situations where George Mueller was debunked, and it was said, well, he, he was just a kind of a, you know, just an extreme person. And God, the thing that God wants most of us to do is beg for money, send out letters, solicit funds, so forth. And there are some of those tendencies even in assemblies today to belittle the life of faith. But it's very strengthening to your faith to look at, to read a life like that, and not only Mueller, these other missionaries that have gone out and so forth, who are trusting the Lord and not soliciting and looking to him and are, in a unique way, the Lord's servant. So good biographies are tremendously helpful. Uh, most of us wouldn't know anything probably about Jim Elliot if his wife had not written this biography. And I knew Jim Elliot. He was a little younger than I am, but we were both at Wheaton College. I was in graduate school, and he was in the undergraduate school, and so we were friends, and I communicated with him, corresponded to him until he was killed. Now, uh, uh, Jim was a, a great guy, and tremendous zeal and tremendous drive to get the gospel out. Most of the world wouldn't know Jim Elliot from anyone else if she hadn't written a book. So the book's had a tremendous impact and challenged a lot of young people to be serious about God and give their lives to him. So good biographies can be, uh, tremendously useful to the Lord, and it may be that there'll be some person that, uh, God lays on your heart and you think, I'd like to write a biography of his life. Every life that's lived for God, in a way, is exciting to read. I just finished reading a biography, autobiography, uh, uh, written by this, uh, uh, a brother in North Carolina who had the, uh, Pittsburgh home. And, uh, exciting to read about how the Lord led them in the establishing of that home. This is North Carolina. Started out as an orphanage, and then in time it, uh, was changed over into a retirement home. But telling there of God's provision, the way God worked. And yet he's a man who, his name's Hollingsworth, he- he's a man who's comparatively unknown. Just a humble man, but to read of how God used this man and honored his faith and blessed him, and it's encouraging. You may think, well, uh, you know, here's a man, he didn't even go through any further than the seventh grade, poor family, and uh, God used him. See? Maybe he can use me. If I read a book like that. So it it's a good biography is a stimulus there to, uh, trusting the Lord and living for him. Now, another area of writing is exposition. If you write an expository work, what are you doing? Breaking down the scripture. What? Breaking down the scripture. Breaking down the scripture, all right. Hmm? Explaining and explaining passages of the Bible. All right, okay. Now, one step that we often, uh, speak of in connection with that process is exegesis. In exegesis, what you do is you study the text very carefully. You're trying to draw out the meaning. As the writer wrote this, what did he mean? And then when you write ex- in an expository way, you yourself now are going to expound that, you're going to explain it, you're going to lay it out, you're going to make it more understandable and applicable to the person's life. And so, if you do expository work, now this is serious business, because when you write, there are people who are going to read that and believe it. And you're going to influence. And, uh, scripture says, don't be many teachers, knowing you'll receive greater judgment. Now, if you're speaking orally, a lot of times people forget half what you said anyway. They do remember it. They may come back to you and say, did you mean what you said? And then you can straighten them out. You may withdraw it. You may say, well, I overstated, you know, got carried away, and I, you know, I didn't really mean that. When you write it and it's published, you don't pull it back. So it means you better be careful. You better be careful. I wrote a book years ago on divorce. Now that's a touchy area, and people still come to me and they'll say, well, have your ideas changed, you know? You wrote that 30 years ago, or whatever it was. Have your ideas changed? And, uh, I know and say, no, they really haven't. I tried to do my work carefully, uh, because I knew people are going to read this, and people are going to be influenced, and I'm going to be responsible if I lead them astray. I don't want to do that. F. F. Bruce once said this. I studied with him one summer, a gifted, a very gifted Bible student and expositor and so forth. He said, my, I never had to unlearn anything my father taught me. Quite a statement. His father was a Scottish evangelist with assemblies, and F. F. Bruce said, I never had to unlearn anything my father taught me. And that is commendation. Yeah. Okay. Well, it, uh, when you write, though, if you're going to write something expository, you better be careful. Do your homework. Don't just write off the top of your head, because when it's written and if it's published, there it is. And you are claiming to give the mind of God to people, and that's a solemn responsibility. Do the Christian publishers check to make sure it's sound? I mean... Depends on the publisher. Depends on the publisher. Now, one of the things, you know, that I was talking with a brother at the noon meal about this, um, this matter. It's very difficult when you come to the scripture to come with a objective approach. It, so many people, this is the danger of going to seminary, they will often, you come under the influence of certain professors, and you get locked into a certain theological grid, and then your tendency is you read the scripture, you're going to fit the scripture into this framework. And really what we should do if we're going to expound scripture is come to it and say, Lord, I want to read this like the people to whom it was written, getting the meaning of the one who wrote by the power of the Spirit of God. And I'm not going to come with some preconceived ideas and then try to twist the scripture to fit. And there's so much error going on in the world by people who do this, this feminist movement, Christian feminist movement. Uh, InterVarsity put out a number of their books, uh, Women Writing, and they, uh, they reinterpret Paul. That's what they say. They say Paul didn't mean what you think he said. Paul knew what he wrote. He used words, and words have meaning, and, and uh, but they come with this grid that, uh, in Christ there's neither male nor female. So that means you're going to take an egalitarian approach to the whole thing. There should be no differences in the church, no differences in the home. It's submission to one another, this idea of any male leadership. It's wrong. So you come with that framework in your mind, now you've got to twist the scripture to fit. And that to me is wicked. That's absolutely wrong. But it's being done all the time. So that's just one example, and if you're going to do expository writing, you better study and search it out. If you can know Greek or Hebrew, or at least use aids and read what some others have said about it, pray about it, and then when you write, say, Lord, keep me from producing any error here. I don't want to lead your people astray. Do you feel, as you look at literature, Christian literature, to use the prayer that they speak of authority or use quotations for the day, or maybe to get themselves off of it a little bit, to quote others. It would be refreshing to you if they would, even if they might be a bit wrong, at least they're, they're using the, a big deal of their, what they believe. It would put a series of quotes, get me off the, the, the problem of Yeah, well, the Pharisees did this all the time. They'd say, Rabbi so and so said this, and then Rabbi so and so said this, and Rabbi so and so, this was his interpretation. When Jesus came, it says he spoke with authority. He says, this is what the word says. Now, uh, it may be helpful at times to quote an authority or, especially maybe, uh, some lexicon or something like this as giving a word definition. But if all you can hang your, uh, interpretation on is what this fella said or this po- person said, you can support almost any position because you can find people, you want to support the feminist position, you can find them out there, and you can quote all of these people, still doesn't change the scripture. And so, uh, exposition is you and God and the Holy Spirit getting down to the meaning of the words and the syntax and all the rest, and expounding the word of God. Now, you may at times quote someone else to give you a little, uh... Yeah, you, you know, this was a help to me when I did my graduate work. I thought I'm going to study out New Testament church, uh, organization, how they function, because I thought, am I out of step? Look at all the churches. Can all the churches be wrong? Roman Catholics would say, how can one billion Catholics be wrong? And the truth is, one billion Catholics are wrong, and the Pope is wrong. And, uh, the majority are not right. So that, um, uh, you, you, you don't want to just be intimidated, uh, by people who talk like that. As you, as you look at the field of writing, do you feel most people are not, or you quote others? Most people would- Do you feel that most writers see Christians write with authority, or they would quote others too? I think you have a lot of people just quoting others and finding those who will support their position and make them feel comfortable. We come to the scripture to support our position. I'm a divorced man, I want to be a preacher, let's see if I can find some people that will agree with that, and I'm going to quote them. And, uh, that's my support now, see? So that that's our tendency. Ways of a man are right in his own eyes. But, uh, if we're going to be true to the word of God, then we expound it, we teach what it says, what God wants, and it's not whether it makes us comfortable or uncomfortable. This is what the scripture says. Okay? Well, it depends on the nature. Most books, though, you can quote a short section if you acknowledge the authority, there's no problem. If you quote extensively, they, they may say, well, write to us and get permission. Now, uh, exposition, and the time's getting by. Exhortation. Now, this is different. Uh, the book of Galatians is exhortation largely. Uh, some exhortation of what we would call polemic. It's fighting. And the book of Galatians is like that. That was a fighting epistle. When he says, if anyone brings a different gospel than what I brought to you, let him be accursed. That's strong language. And there are times when writing may be like that, to confront error. Martin Luther, when he confronted the Roman Catholic Church, wrote very strongly, called the Pope the Antichrist, he called the Roman Catholic Church a whore. I mean, he spoke very strongly. It was exhortation. It was a, a fighting language. And there are times when, um, there needs to be exhortation in our writing. The Lord's people need to be ex- exhorted. He says, um, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. He says, exhorting one another daily. So, uh, this is a ministry, and some men feel especially called and gifted for that. Joe Reese told me, uh, last conference where we had him, and, uh, we were working together, he said, Don, he said, I'm not a teacher, I'm an exhorter. And if you listen to Joe, he exhorts, and we need exhorters. Now, exhorters are not designed to make you comfortable, and some people don't like them. They don't want to be exhorted. Don't tell me what I'm doing wrong. Don't tell me what the assembly's doing wrong. We want nice things said about us. Want to go away feeling good about ourselves. That isn't the message of the prophet. The prophet was not one who made people feel comfortable. That's why they were stoned to death, and that's why they were rejected, and that's why Jesus was rejected. He was a prophet. So the work of exhortation is needed. And then, of course, there's devotional. And, uh, we have different ones who are gifted devotional writers. Amy Carmichael is one, a writer that I've enjoyed in years past, still do. A missionary to India. She wrote devotionally. Uh, when you read her writings, your heart will be warmed, it'll be drawn to the Lord Jesus. Uh, many of our hymns are devotional, this sort of thing. Uh, devotional writing is very, uh, much, uh, a blessing to the Lord's people. Some people feel especially called to that. We need the different gifts and the different kinds of writing. Poetry, Christian poetry is oftentimes devotional. Uh, it will move you. It will give you a vision of certain things you maybe hadn't thought about before. Uh, Christian poetry. And Amy Carmichael's written some other poems too, uh, and there are others that are, are, uh, writers of poetry. I've written a few poems myself, and, uh, some have been published. Anything there about the types of writing, and we want to just move on? I think our time's about gone. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to quit. That's always dangerous when you have a class like this. What would you consider an autobiography? A what? Autobiography. Autobiography? Which ones would I... When would you consider, um, have you ever written your own autobiography? Well, it's interesting you ask. I've been just kind of, uh, going back over my life and writing some things that happen for my own interest and, uh, maybe my children's, um. But, uh, yeah, each of us has a story to tell. And in a sense, each of us has had tragedy in our life. How do we handle tragedy? I had lunch with a man, and uh, we've known the family for years. Uh, their oldest daughter took her life. Terrible tragedy. And so, uh, an autobiography, uh, writing a story of your own life or life of someone else, may help people realize, well, you can work through tragedy, you can work through heartache with the Lord's help. And so, yeah, there's a place for that. The writing, I just want to touch on this kind of quickly. First of all, you need a vision. Uh, some, the Lord lays something on your heart, you feel, I need to express that, I need to write that. Uh, then as you think about it, your plan will maybe come into form. You'll begin to outline it. You think, well, uh, if it's a subject of exhortation, I am going to think of it, first of all, dealing with the problem, and various here steps to remedy that problem, whatever it is, uh, some sort of outline. And then when you come to the writing itself, some of us, when we first started writing, we wrote with longhand. Then maybe you graduated to a typewriter, which was an improvement. But now we have the computer. What's the advantage of a word processor over a typewriter? You can erase, you can alter. Yeah, you can insert things. Uh, you- yeah, it's a time saver, it really is. And the publishers now, I used to, you know, send in a manuscript, and they say, we don't want the manuscript now, send us a disc, and we work off the disc. So a plant grown up in youth. It expedites things for us. So, uh, yeah, the computer. My wife, I've tried to get her to say, hey, get to me. No, I don't want to get near that thing. Her attitude is, I think she's afraid I'll put her to work. And she, she doesn't want to know anything. She is favor of typewriters. Uh, then the editing of it, and it may be a close friend, uh, someone you know, that you need to run by them to check it out. Maybe you say, I need to have some check on, checking on the composition of it and uh, my grammar and uh, uh, so forth. Uh, you have a computer, you got a spell check, but it doesn't do everything either. You, you still have to read pretty carefully, and uh, so you want some editing for the content. Um, you've written something, uh, maybe it's expository or some topic, and you think, well, maybe I need to have this older brother I know check it out, uh, to see if I'm way off base, is my thinking completely confused here? Maybe he can help me if I'm getting off, which can be helpful. And um, then you have to be very careful because you can't retract it. Uh, a few times people have written books that later on I'm sure they regretted deeply. Uh, Ernie Tatum wrote a book. Ernie was a friend of mine, but he wrote this book where he was advocating really kind of a charismatic approach thing. I think he called it Let the Tide Come In. And I'm sure before Ernie died, he regretted writing that, because you didn't put, couldn't pull it back, and you gave assemblies a bad name. And, uh, so you have to be careful. Be careful about what you say, and in your writing, you're not going to retract the written word. Then the publishing, and this gets kind of sticky. It may be a magazine you could submit your article to, or a book publisher, uh, depending on how you want to do it. One way I think you can get started doing some writing is maybe write some guest editorials for the newspaper. I do this from time to time for our newspaper, and you can write a guest editorial, and they they'll publish it, and if the newspaper has a pretty good circulation, uh, there are thousands of people going to read that. And so this is an avenue I think that Christians could utilize more, just, uh, getting stuff published in, uh, a newspaper. If you write for something like that, you don't write the, the same way you would writing for Outlook. Your concern is to get people, of course, to read it, um, but you can't just preach the whole time in the same way. You have to write in such a way that, that, uh, you interest them. You're dealing with a problem area, maybe, and, uh, yet it's going to be a, a way too that will appeal to them reasonably, and yet you've got scriptural basis for what you're doing. So that, uh, that may be something the Lord will exercise your heart to do. Then you have to be patient. You can't, uh, don't be discouraged. I have two books now I've finished, which are not published yet, I'm just waiting. But, um, you might pray about that. One of them is This I Believe. It's a doctrinal book, uh, on doctrine. It's, uh, like a systematic theology, only it's mu- it's simpler. It's more written for ordinary people, not theology students as such. And, uh, but it's not always easy to get things published. And, uh, so you have to be patient in this area. If you get some years ago, uh, they published a book of mine, and the man who did it put it in his own name, the copyright. And, uh, when he died, I didn't have any hold on it. Then I had to negotiate with his wife to get it transferred to me, so I could even have it reprinted. It's gone through several editions, but, uh, yeah, try to hang on to that copyright so that you have some control of it. Any que- any other questions? Our time is more than gone.