Open Letter to Max Lucado #1.008
Chapter 1: Why are We Afraid?
Page 8
? “Christ-followers contract malaria, bury children, and battle addictions, and, as a result, face fears. It’s not the absence of storms that sets us apart. It’s whom we discover in the storm: an unstirred Christ.”
You’re eight pages in, and you now get around to defining who “Christ-followers” are. Are you sure that you’ve done all that you can to clearly state who your intended reading audience? “Christ-followers” (better known simply as “Christians”) not only discover “an unstirred Christ” in the storm. We understand Him to be King and Savior, the One to whom we owe everything. (Had to mention that…because you hadn’t yet.)
+ “Mark’s gospel adds two curious details: “[ Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on a pillow” (Mark 4:38). In the stern, on a pillow. Why the first? From whence came the second?”
You go on to add precise explanation regarding first-century fishermen, the physical make-up of the boat’s stern and more. This is very helpful.
+ / - “This was a premeditated slumber. He didn’t accidentally nod off. In full knowledge of the coming storm, Jesus decided it was siesta time, so he crawled into the corner, put his head on the pillow, and drifted into dreamland.”
This isn’t bad, but it’s not great, either. You’d have done better to mention how it was that, before they ever left the shore, before Jesus was even born on Planet Earth, before all of the physical universe was even created, God the Son knew that He’d be sleeping in the stern that day during the storm. As Bible-believing Christians, we’ve got to make it crystal-clear to our readers that God is sovereign, and that He clearly knows the end from the beginning in every situation.
