{"id":995,"date":"2010-02-17T19:25:20","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T01:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2010\/02\/17\/ah-you-see\/"},"modified":"2010-02-17T19:25:20","modified_gmt":"2010-02-18T01:25:20","slug":"ah-you-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/17\/ah-you-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Ah! You See!"},"content":{"rendered":"

You probably are familiar with the story of Jim Elliot and the five missionaries who were killed by the Aucas in South America in the 1950s.  I recently read the story of their work<\/a> by Elisabeth Elliot and I thought that she made a valuable observation in the second epilogue (written in 1996).  She considers how we assess whether something was “worthwhile.”  With the death of these five remarkable young men, the world (and the cause of Christ) lost a lot.  But their deaths would be “worthwhile,” we think, if five, ten, twenty (pick your number) Aucas came to Christ.  Her thoughts on this reflect her contemplation of this question for decades.<\/p>\n

\n

The massacre was a hard fact, widely reported at the time, surprisingly well remembered by many even today.  It was interpreted according to the measure of one’s faith or faithlessness\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfull of meaning or empty.  A triumph or a tragedy.  An example of brave obedience or a case of fathomless foolishness.  The beginning of a great work, a demonstration of the power of God, a sorrowful first act that would lead to a beautifully predictable third act in which all puzzles would be solved, God would vindicate Himself, Waoranis [Aucas] would be converted, and we could all ‘feel good ‘ about our faith.  Bulletins about progress were hailed with joy and a certain amount of ‘Ah! you see! ‘  But the danger lies in seizing upon the immediate and hoped-for, as though God’s justice is thereby verified, and glossing over as neatly as possible certain other consequences, some of them inevitable, others simply the result of a botched job.  In short, in the Waorani story as in other stories, we are consoled as long as we do not examine too closely the unpalatable data.  By this evasion we are willing still to call the work ‘ours, ‘ to arrogate to ourselves whatever there is of success, and to deny all failure.<\/p>\n

A healthier faith seeks a reference point outside all human experience, the Polestar which marks the course of all human events, not forgetting that impenetrable mystery of the interplay of God’s will and man’s (1996 ed., 265-66).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For this alone the book was worth reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You probably are familiar with the story of Jim Elliot and the five missionaries who were killed by the Aucas in South America in the 1950s.  I recently read the story of their work by Elisabeth Elliot and I thought that she made a valuable observation in the second epilogue (written in 1996).  She considers\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}