{"id":1179,"date":"2010-08-27T11:12:37","date_gmt":"2010-08-27T11:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/08\/honest-to-god.html"},"modified":"2010-08-27T11:12:37","modified_gmt":"2010-08-27T11:12:37","slug":"honest-to-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/08\/honest-to-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Honest to God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bble<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no unmoved Mover<\/p>\n

Who set the stars a-spin<\/p>\n

And crawled back into heaven<\/p>\n

Never seen again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no old Watchmaker<\/p>\n

Who wound all things up tight<\/p>\n

And then retreated quietly<\/p>\n

Removed from thought or sight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no Ground of Being<\/p>\n

Unearthed by abstract thought<\/p>\n

No universal solvent,<\/p>\n

We conjured, made or bought.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no Passive Parent<\/p>\n

Who idly stands aside<\/p>\n

And watches all our mayhem<\/p>\n

And never smiled or cried.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no God of the gaps,<\/p>\n

Who only intervenes<\/p>\n

When nature is overwhelmed<\/p>\n

Or humans are too mean. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead there’s God the Passionate<\/p>\n

Who works all things for good,<\/p>\n

For those who ever love Him<\/p>\n

And trusted that he would. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There’s God the ever present<\/p>\n

The One who’s ever there<\/p>\n

The One who’s most pro-active<\/p>\n

The One who always cares. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There’s God the awesome artist<\/p>\n

Whose rainbows grace the skies<\/p>\n

And all creation mirrors<\/p>\n

The twinkle in his eyes. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There’s God the Suffering Servant<\/p>\n

Who hung upon the Tree<\/p>\n

And when his people suffered, asked,<\/p>\n

‘Why’d you persecute me?’<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There’s God who is the mourner<\/p>\n

Sits shiva for the dead,<\/p>\n

There’s God the intervener<\/p>\n

‘Tween me and things I dread.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There’s God who is the lover,<\/p>\n

And will not give us up,<\/p>\n

He will not give up on us,<\/p>\n

For us he drank that cup. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There’s God the recreator<\/p>\n

Recycling all our trash<\/p>\n

And making new creation,<\/p>\n

From piles of dust and ash. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There’s God the marriage broker<\/p>\n

His Son and earthly bride<\/p>\n

The church his long intended one<\/p>\n

Standing by his side. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We never were<\/i> left
\nbereft<\/p>\n

To fend for just ourselves,<\/p>\n

God never was A.W.O.L.<\/p>\n

Sitting idly on some shelf.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No absentee Landlord<\/p>\n

Not M.I.A. at all<\/p>\n

He wipes the tears from every eye<\/p>\n

And catches us when we fall. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some day we’ll see him face to face<\/p>\n

We’ll know as we are known,<\/p>\n

Someday we’ll learn what we now trust,<\/p>\n

We never were alone. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Aug. 27, 2010<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  There is no unmoved Mover Who set the stars a-spin And crawled back into heaven Never seen again.   There is no old Watchmaker Who wound all things up tight And then retreated quietly Removed from thought or sight.   There is no Ground of Being Unearthed by abstract thought No universal solvent, We…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nHonest to God - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/08\/honest-to-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Honest to God - 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}