Matthew 8.16-17 & SUFFERING
Biblically there’s more than one face of suffering and
loss. Over the years one of my failures as a student of scripture and
life is that I’ve responded to complex realities with answers and
proposals that are too simple. In addition to my sheer ignorance I’m
sure one of the reasons I did that was because I was impatient. I’d like
to have these matters all squared away so the sooner I can set them
aside thinking, “That’s another one taken care of” the better I like it.
It’s important that I don’t do that. I need to work patiently through
the ins and outs because when I make it too simple somebody suffers,
some poor soul falls through the cracks and is left comfortless.
Besides, if I leave the job half done I haven’t heard all God is saying
to us and that’s always a loss. I recognise the task is unending and in
some ways always beyond me but that doesn’t excuse me if I don’t make
the attempt.
Take for example the work of Stanley Hauerwas, a
brilliant and provocative theological ethicist, and his remarks about
suffering in general and the suffering of children in particular. In Naming the Silences (1990) and The Suffering Presence
(1986) he thought that suffering that came as a result of one’s
devotion to God made sense but that suffering that is part of what we
might call “the human condition” is beyond explanation. In particular,
the suffering of a child, he thought, is “a blackness before which we
can only stand mute.” (NS, page 86) Quoting Brueggemann with approval he
rightly wants us to avoid a sort of masochism that’s “too
understanding” about suffering so that we won’t take it like whipped
dogs. On the other hand he rightly urges us not to trivialize the cross
by identifying our own losses with Christ’s cross and so reduce his
death to one more example of suffering to be borne. I think Hauerwas’
work here leaves a profound gap that begs to be filled. The bulk of the
world’s pain involves disease and loss that is not the immediate result
of one’s devotion to God and Hauerwas thinks we have nothing worth
saying in the face of it all. I think that’s untrue and maybe we don’t
have to stand utterly mute before a little child’s suffering.
Scholars
urge us to take suffering seriously and not to gloss over it but
perhaps we aren’t taking the general suffering of the world seriously
enough when we sever it from the cross. And maybe we’re robbing sufferers of something they can ill do without.
It
might be that we aren’t wrong in recognizing secondary and intermediate
causes but that we’re wrong to exclude the ultimate Cause of pain and
loss—God himself who uses secondary causes as instruments. We’re urged
to hold God accountable by having an authentic faith that will protest.
It might be that laying the entire world’s suffering at the feet of God
is the most serious way to “hold him accountable” and to give our
suffering the dignity it deserves. Screaming at him in our pain even
while we think “the blame” should be laid at the feet of free will
abuse, bad luck or demonic thugs—maybe that’s not really holding God
accountable. At least when Job did his raging and insulting, he knew it
was God he was mad at (“If it isn’t him, who is it?” he asks). Some say,
"Hold God accountable and show authentic faith" and then they go on to
"explain" everything in every conceivable way while keeping God out of
it. The bold call to authentic faith melts to mush.
To stand mute
before Auschwitz makes sense in many ways and to be speechless in the
presence of the suffering of little children is a measure of its awful
nature. But maybe that is to make too little of it.
Maybe its true measure is seen only when we link it to the cross and a
cosmic catastrophe. You understand, Christians aren’t interested in
making less of these awful realities especially if the biblical witness
makes them part of a vast divine/human Story. If the world’s suffering
is God’s strange but redemptive work in response to human sin it is
taken more seriously and given an aura and dimensions that poor hurting
hearts can’t give it and for which they beg.
Suffering’s many faces
The
scriptures speak a lot about suffering that results from faithfulness
to God. In fact, this is almost exclusively what the New Testament talks
about. I say “almost” because there are a few (important) texts that
speak more broadly. Then we hear that suffering transforms and enriches
us and brings Christians more into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Then
again there are the sufferings of a particular class of people who have a
peculiar place in God’s service (apostles, for example, see this
developed in 2 Corinthians). We read of suffering that is punishment for
wrong done and we read of suffering that is chosen for the sake of
others. There is suffering that is remedial chastisement and there is
some that is “terminal” punishment. These are spelled out in various
texts but it’s easy to see that there is also a kind of suffering, an
inner suffering, that’s experienced because of love for others. Anxiety
and sleeplessness, the kind of thing Paul felt because he loved the
little congregations that he established and that were undergoing great
trials. This is real suffering but it isn’t exactly “inflicted” (though
it exists because redemptive love has come into conflict with a
dangerous and sinful world).
It’s important that we allow a
biblical text to speak its own message rather than generalise it beyond
recognition. Not to see that Paul in 2 Corinthians is dealing
immediately with his own apostolic sufferings is to miss the edge of
Paul’s message and that helps nobody. But maybe there’s a way to view
Paul’s suffering that keeps faith with what he had in mind and still
allows it to speak to a wider situation. I believe that all the various
faces of suffering can be brought together under one head without losing
their own particular place in a multifaceted truth.
I think one
biblical aspect of suffering that is insufficiently noticed is that it
is the redemptive work of God expressing itself in curse in response to
humanity’s rebellion (as recorded in Genesis 3:11). If all suffering is
connected with the curse then all suffering has a moral and redemptive
context to it. And if this is true it should come as no surprise to us
that it is embraced in the Christ and his cross. I would like to develop
this line by taking a look at a passage in Matthew.
Christ and kingdom authority in Matthew
Scholars
are still coming up with new ways to look at Matthew and what he meant
to achieve by his gospel narrative. It isn’t really surprising that they
can come up with different emphases that usually add to rather than
contradict earlier proposals. On anybody’s view, Matthew’s gospel is as
rich as cream.
It’s clear that there’s a lot in Matthew about
“authority” and power and it’s also clear that that authority and power
is related to the kingdom (reign) of God which was showing itself in the
person and work of Jesus. It’s just as clear that that kingdom
authority and power is intimately related to the love and mercy of God
toward a nation that’s under his judgment. Those two truths don’t seem
to sit together easily in our minds. If the nation was under judgment
and needed to be called to a national repentance we might have expected
the wrath of God against sin to show itself in Christ instead of love
and mercy which brought forgiveness and healing. (That last sentence is
risky speech because it seems to suggest that wrath and mercy are
conflicting responses when in truth God’s wrath is a face of his mercy.
But there’s biblical precedent for such risky speech as Exodus 20:4-5
illustrates. More on this later.)
The religious leaders thought
this a strange “Christ” who in their eyes belittled the law (torah) and
was “soft on sin”. While they stressed commandment-keeping (and
especially their own commands), which resulted in isolating sinners,
Jesus stressed love and mercy which drove him into the fellowship of
sinners. It wasn’t that Christ didn’t speak of judgment and wrath
because he certainly did but he saw wrath and judgment as servants of
love and mercy; more, he saw them as expressions of love and
mercy. He also insisted that rightly understood the central call of the
law (torah) was that Israel should respond to God and one another out of
love and mercy; God-imaging love and mercy.
The teaching of Christ in Matthew
He
came as an authoritative teacher of the true understanding of the law.
It wasn’t that he was abolishing the law; the reverse was true (see this
with special clarity in Matthew 5:17-20). In his own life, and the life
to which he called people, the fulfilment of the law was of paramount
importance. He hadn’t come to make it easier for men to sin. Nor did he
think that he was the only one who was able to see the truth he taught,
though clearly, and for many reasons, his grasp of things was far beyond
anyone else. He held people responsible for not seeing the true thrust
of the law and he makes that clear in places like Matthew 23:23. There
he held Pharisees responsible for leaving undone the more important
matters of the law as the result of an undue emphasis on the less
important (not unimportant) matters. And in Matthew 12:7 he clearly
expected his critics to understand passages like Hosea 6:6 and held them
responsible for not doing so. So, far from claiming executive privilege
to pick and choose what suited him in the law, the Christ lived by the
true meaning and nature of the law and expected others to recognize that
truth. His grasp of biblical truth gave him authority that made jaws go
slack (see, for example, Matthew 7:28-29 and Matthew 13:53-54).
Christ’s
teaching about the reality and awfulness of God’s wrath is seen clearly
in Matthew (a few examples, 3:7-12; 7:13-19; 8:12; 10:15,28; 11:20-24
and chapter 23 and 25). But for Matthew’s Christ God’s wrath wasn’t
vengeful or a divine lashing out, it was set within his character as
part of his holy love and faithfulness; a holy love that came to redeem
his people. In Matthew Jesus Christ raged most against people and views
that estranged children from their Holy Father and shut up the kingdom
of heaven against God’s wayward children (23:13). Even his scathing
Matthew 23 ends with sadness and not a foaming at the mouth. The single
thrust of the whole of Matthew 18 is to say that every single individual
is precious and that we’re to go the distance to regain them because
this is the heart of the Holy Father (Matthew 18:35).
This kind
of teaching underscores the nature of the reign of God and it adds a
moral and spiritual dimension to Christ’s miracles even while the
miracles give confirmation to the teaching.
The miracles of Christ in Matthew
But
his authority wasn’t confined to teaching since Matthew’s record is
filled not only with large teaching blocks but also with scores of
healing sessions. Chapters 8 and 9 illustrate this point where he heals
“all” and casts out demons “with a word”. Because Christ’s miraculous
power almost invariably eased suffering and restored great losses we
have again the stress on love and mercy. And since he did all this
because God was with him (see Acts 10:38) we’re reminded again that the
reign of God focussed in on love and mercy and restoration. His life,
teaching and miraculous power all served one grand stress: the kingdom
of God had finally shown itself and it was loving and merciful even
while it acknowledged sin and brought judgement. More, the reign of God
showed itself merciful and loving by exposing sin and judging it.
The
leadership saw the masses as under condemnation and fit only to be
isolated and to experience wrath (Matthew 9:11 illustrates). Then comes
the Christ, proclaiming the reign of God and bringing love, mercy and
consequent fellowship to the diseased and the sinful. But he doesn’t do
this without authority and he makes it clear that the same power that
guides and empowers him to heal the sick leads him to fellowship sinners
because he regards them as sick also (Matthew 9:11-12). In Matthew
9:1-8 he links his capacity to deal with sins and diseases as though
they were two sides of one coin.
The nature of Christ’s teaching/acting authority in Matthew
Yes.
But why is he the one to whom this authority is given? It’s because he
embodies the heart and mind of God toward his people. It’s because like
his Holy Father Jesus announced the call for holy behavior but still
desires mercy and not sacrifice, fellowship rather than isolation.
Kingdom authority could not have been given to the current leadership
precisely because this was not their way of thinking or behaving. They
laid burdens on people rather than easing them (see Matthew 11:28-30
with Matthew 23:4). And it was precisely because Jesus knew as his own
experience that the will of his Holy Father was mercy (“hesed,” love
that expresses itself, for example, in covenants) rather than sacrifice
that he could embody the reign of God. Jesus exegetes the meaning and
nature of the reign of God precisely because he is God reigning.
In
a very real way Christ’s character and devotion to his Father and his
people is his authority. He is identified with both. He possessed and
shared the holy passion of his Father with its steadfast love and
kindness. He shared God’s judgement along with his sinful family and
bore with them their sicknesses and diseases that were part of that
judgement (see Matthew 8:16-17).
It was this identification with
both God and man that made Jesus the agent of the reign of God, which,
when it would manifest itself, was to rescue people from their sins that
life with God might be restored in its fullness. It was because of sins
that the curse was on Israel (and mankind) so that in dealing with sin
the Christ would deal with the curse and in undoing the curse he was
demonstrating that sin was being dealt with. (The complete removal of
the curse would coincide with the complete restoration of all things and
the final dealing with sin. See 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 54-56 and Acts
3:21.)
This weaving between sin and sickness, between repentance
and health in the book of Matthew is one movement in Christ’s ushering
in of the kingdom of God. The life and ministry of Christ undermines
isolation or restriction of fellowship as a mark of sin and judgement by
drawing near sinners. He touches isolated lepers, answers the prayers
of a hated Canaanite woman, visits outsiders like the Gentile centurion
and calls to him a hemorrhaging woman who has touched him. He touches
the dead, has table-fellowship with the notorious all the while he
offers forgiveness and full fellowship with God to those who are astray
from God and outside the circle of the self-proclaimed elite.
But,
again, why is he the one who embodies kingdom authority to forgive sins
and heal the sick and oppressed? Because contrary to the leaders who
isolated the sinners and the diseased he made himself one with them and
bore their sins and diseases (Matthew 8:16-17; 20:28; 26:28). Kingdom
authority, Matthew would teach us, is the authority of identification
and bearing.
He comes to save “his” people from their sins
(Matthew 1:21). His own life recapitulates the career of his people
(Matthew 2:15,17,18; 3:13 4:11; 12:15-21 and elsewhere). He comes to be
God “with” them (Matthew 1:23) and this is seen in how he socializes
with them and in his “compassion” for them (Matthew 9:36; 14:14) and in
the way he views them as “sick” and in need of a doctor though they are
sinful (Matthew 9:10-13).
In all this Matthew teaches us that
kingdom “authority” and “power” has nothing to do with naked force and
that it is only related to divine “muscles” rather than that being the
sum total of it. The authority and power is moral through and through
and is motivated by love and mercy even when it shows itself in
judgement. The miracles are not mere prodigies or wonders; they are
God’s faithful, holy and loving response to his commitment to his people
(and to humanity at large). Given the God the Old Testament bore
witness to, there was an inevitability about the manifestation of his
reign and it was inevitable that it would be loving and merciful as well
as holy. Therefore it was holy love coming into close contact with sin
and God’s grand provision coming into contact with human need. And this
faithfulness on God’s part, Matthew teaches us right from the beginning,
is not to be shown from the “outside”. In Christ, God had identified
himself with his people and was bearing their sin and disease in order
to fully heal and restore.
And when Christ shared this authority
and power with his followers it is for no other reason than to heal and
deliver and proclaim the good news that God’s reign was breaking in
(Matthew 10:1-9).
We need not deny that Christ’s miracles had
credential value but it’s important that we don’t empty them of their
full biblical content. They are a sign of God’s gracious return to a
people that had begged for judgement. Deuteronomy 32 is a long
declaration of God’s coming judgement against a people that would
apostatize. God says he will bring his four sore judgements against the
nation. He might have utterly obliterated them he says, had it not been
that he feared their enemies might misunderstand. The enemies might
think that Israel’s pain and loss was their doing when it fact it was
the Lord’s (Deuteronomy 32:26-27). “I said I would scatter them and blot
out their memory from mankind, but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy,
lest their adversary misunderstand and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed; the
Lord has not done all this.’” But the Lord that insisted that he is the
one who brought them under judgement also assured them that he would
return to them through and beyond judgement (Deuteronomy 32:36-43).
And
the authority of Christ is not that of a demagogue or rabble-rouser. He
didn’t overtly seek public acclamation. He forbids people to tell of
his powers and deeds (Matthew 8:4; 9:30) and is described in terms that
contradict the description of someone anxious to make a name for himself
(12:14-21). In fact he insisted that true power and leadership was the
way of the servant and the renouncing of pagan power (Matthew 20:20-28).
Like Moses and David before him he took pains to make it clear he
wasn’t seizing authority. If he was to be exalted it would be by the
hand of God.
Matthew 8:16-17 in particular
Matthew
9:1-8 insists on linking sin and disease. In it Christ insists on
linking his authority to dismiss disease with his authority to dismiss
sin. In Matthew 9:10-13 he defends his being with sinners on the grounds
that they are sick and need a doctor (and he is that doctor).
Chapters
8 and 9 of Matthew are bracketed by the amazement of the crowds in
Matthew 7:28-29 and the amazement of Matthew 9:33. In 7:28-29 it’s
astonishment about his teaching and in 9:33 it’s amazement about his
deeds. In between these we have the disciples amazed at his power over
the elements (Matthew 8:27) and the crowds at both his teaching and
healing powers in Matthew 9:8. It’s in that kind of a context that we
find this in Matthew 8:16-17.
"That evening they brought to him
many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a
word, and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfil what was spoken
by the prophet Isaiah, 'He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.' "
The
fact that this section is clearly stressing the authority and power of
the Christ and that Matthew connects Christ’s power with his “taking”
and “bearing” of their diseases suggests the nature of and grounds for
kingdom authority. He has identified with them and taken their
sicknesses on his heart, to be his own, and so is empowered to remove
them. Kingdom authority and power is “bearing” and “carrying” power.
The
text quoted by Matthew (Isaiah 53:4, see Isaiah 52:13-53:12) was an
atonement text, received by the early church and used through the New
Testament as centering in Christ and his cross work. This would suggest
that for Matthew (as for Paul in Philippians 2:7-9) kingdom authority
and power is rooted in Christ’s identification with and bearing loss
with and for his people.
It could be that the passage isn't
connected with the atoning and reconciling cross-work of Christ at all.
It might be that Matthew is using those words to underscore Christ's
compassion for the people. The purposeful (if often puzzling) way
Matthew uses prophetic scriptures makes it unlikely that he just wants
to add depth and color to the occasion. He's more than capable of
telling us that Christ had compassion on the people without bringing in a
word of prophecy (see Matthew 9:36). Besides (and in light of his way
of using prophetic texts), it's a bit of a risk to bring in such a
theologically freighted passage simply as a rhetorical flourish. His
readers (or listeners) are more likely to think he's making a
theological point than a verbal exclamation point. I'm taking it that
that evening's events had a direct and profound connection with the
cross and atoning/reconciling work of Jesus Christ.
We shouldn’t
think that Matthew believed that only that evening’s healing work
fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy. He would have seen the Master’s entire
healing ministry as one piece so that any day that saw him healing and
delivering would have been another occasion when he was taking and
carrying in Isaiah 53 style.
Nor should we think that he was
bearing only the diseases and losses of those he healed. Precisely why
Jesus healed this one and not that one, or these and not them, may be
open for discussion but it would be a mistake to think he was only
working for the people he healed and had no concern for the people he
left sick. There would be something representative in the people he
healed. They would surely speak of his complete care for all the
diseased in the same way Hannah saw in her own blessing God’s care for
all the oppressed (1 Samuel 1:21, 2:11). This would mean that every time
Jesus conducted a healing session Isaiah 53 would be heard.
Again,
the events we witness here are deeds of great power but they’re
immediately linked with bearing and taking. Matthew hasn’t taken leave
of his purpose to stress kingdom authority as showing itself in Christ
but he does insist on linking it with carrying and sharing so we
shouldn’t ignore this. Evil spirits are dismissed with "a word" and
every sick one who came went away freed from disease. The text portrays
great power but Matthew says it was a "carrying" session.
In
Isaiah 53 the "suffering servant" shares in hurt and loss that is not of
his own making (note the “ours” and “theirs” throughout the chapter).
In addition, the healing and liberating that comes in and through the
servant is immediately connected in Isaiah with his vicarious "bearing"
and "carrying". The servant doesn't heal or liberate from the "outside".
At the very least he shares their conditions and in Isaiah’s text that
is one of the elements essentially linked to his power to liberate and
heal (compare Isaiah 53:11).
We need to note that the suffering
in texts like Matthew 8 has nothing to do with “persecution for
righteousness sake”. It isn’t something these people were bearing for
Christ, it is something Christ was bearing for them. It would be a
mistake to look at all their (and our) suffering (even the suffering
that is directly related to our sinning) and see it as “the cross I have
to bear.” But it would be a mistake not to see all their (and our)
suffering as focussed and embraced in the cross of Christ (even the
suffering that is the direct result of our sinning).
Matthew’s
use of an atonement text which, for the early church, is a text about
Christ’s cross-work, links Jesus’ work as Savior and kingdom-bringer
with his healing their diseases. How does that work?
It’s
difficult not to think that Matthew looks back on all this from a
post-cross perspective and sees that that healing work was part of the
whole Christ-event that came to its critical moment on the cross. But if
that’s how we should see it then Matthew makes a connection between
cancer or heart disease and the cross-work of the Messiah. These are the
very things that we see as merely part of the “human condition”.
They’re certainly part of the human condition but if Matthew links them
with the atoning work of Christ then the whole human condition can be
brought into contact with the cross. Universal suffering is embraced and
Christ bears it. Universal suffering is given another dimension; a
dimension that can’t be given to it by awed silence and deep human
grief.
How does that work?
The Isaiah
text focuses on the suffering of the servant. (The Isaiah text is too
rich to exclude from it Israel’s suffering that the nations might be
blessed. It’s too rich to exclude the suffering of the righteous remnant
that Israel might be blessed and it’s too rich not to see it come to
its fullness in the world’s Redeemer.) But the text doesn’t suggest that
the pain and loss of others fall on him so that no one else suffers.
There is no sense of “transference” in the sense that all their hurt and
pain vanishes from them and lands on the servant. Those who are in the
know are aware that he is suffering not as a result of his own sins but
he has (in the immediate Isaiah setting of exile) borne exile with them
and for them. The sinners aren’t exempt from exile, he shares it with
them. He bears their sins in the same way (Isaiah 53:11-12). There is no
transference of sin and guilt to him and away from them. He bears the
judgement of God on the nation’s sin and does it for them though he
himself does not become a sinner nor does God view him as a sinner
(Isaiah 53:11).
The Isaiah passage immediately speaks to Israel’s
situation but Israel’s place in the purposes of God reflects his
purposes regarding the whole world. I would be taking Matthew’s
immediate concerns and expanding them bearing in mind that Jesus healed
not only Israelites (Matthew 8:3-13; 15:21-28 and compare 8:28).
What
seems clear is this: Matthew makes the healing of diseases a facet of
the atoning work of the Christ. Supposing that to be true how might we
understand it? How do we make the connection between cancer or heart
disease and the cross-work of the Messiah?
Perhaps the simplest
and best suggestion is that the biblical record would have us believe
that disease and death are in the world in response to our sin. That not
only are disease and death never neutral, they are not “natural”. They
always have theological significance. Paul, for example, however else he
saw death, saw it as the righteous judgement of God against sin (Romans
1:32). The Genesis narrative speaks of God bringing pain and loss to
earth and humans in response to their sin (note especially the death
sentence in 3:19).
If this is correct, then it was God who
introduced the curse at the point of our sinning. This curse which fell
on all humans—and not only those guilty of transgression—is part of the
judgement of God against sin. The curse isn’t something independent of
God. The curse isn’t written into the fabric of reality as if it were in
some way autonomous. No, the humans sinned and God acted. The curse was
as surely the work of God as was blessing (see Genesis 1—11 which is a
single narrative of the Fall).
It would mean that disease in a
specific individual is a specific outworking of the universal curse that
God brought on humanity as a single family. It would be a specific
application of a universal judgement.
What “authorized” Christ to
remove the curse in the experience of so many sick people during his
earthly ministry is that he had come to bear in himself, with and for
them, the judgement of God against sin—the curse. This is what
authorized him to forgive sins also.
His healing and nature
miracles should be seen in light of the Genesis fall and curse
narratives as well as Israel’s wilderness experience. The control of
seas, the undoing of death, the multiplying of fishes and bread, the
banishing of darkness by calling for light—these all were the prophecies
and promises of a complete obliteration of the curse when all sin and
all the woes that go with it are removed.
A newly born baby in
Amos’ day despite its innocence would suffer the agony of a famine (see
Amos 4) which was a divine judgment against Israel’s sin. This baby’s
agony would not be punishment for the baby’s guilt (it has none). Nor
would it be the case of a “legal transference” of guilt (the baby
doesn’t become sinful and the nation innocent). The agony is endured
because of the baby’s solidarity with the sinful nation.
Nevertheless,
the agony endured is the agony that is part of penal suffering. The
child is never regarded as an actual transgressor though it suffers
under God’s righteous judgment against sin—the famine is never less than
judgment against sin.
But the child's suffering is purposed of
God. It would be possible for God to miraculously sustain all the
innocents without food while punishing the transgressors with hunger.
The punishment on apostasy is redemptive wrath. Its purpose is to work
itself out of a job—that is, to obliterate that which provoked the wrath
in the first place.
The wrath is no sign of God’s absolute
abandonment of Israel. The reverse is true. So earnestly in love with
them is the Holy Father that he shows mercy in the form of wrath. And,
so earnest is he, that he will not spare his own infants but delivers
them up for Israel. So it is when Matthew presents the coming of the
kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. He shares (bears and carries) our
sicknesses and by doing it he acknowledges the righteousness of God's
wrath against sin. But by sharing and bearing our hurt he is removing it
(then in part as prophecy and promise and later in totality and
finally). In this he shows that the kingdom of God is not about
ceaseless chastisement but mercy and judgment that results in life that
is eternal. This is kingdom authority in Matthew. It is because Christ
alone acknowledges and bears that he is the one with kingdom authority.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.