Strait Gate
Narrow Door-way
They both silently wondered, hoped perhaps, that this might someday be them, married, with family in tow. Thor reflected, however, that unlike the ducks, she would wear the prettiest feathers in the family.
"Sarah?" The admiral broke the silence. "This Christian stuff is important to you, isn't it?" He knew the answer. The question was a doorway to something else.
"Yes. Why do you ask?"
"You know I don't share your faith."
"Yes."
"Does that bother you?"
"Yes."
"We obviously like each other. I mean, I know I like you, and I think you like me, right?"
"Yes. I like you a lot." She knew where he was going now.
"Our relationship: is it dependent upon me agreeing with you?"
"Believing yes, agreeing no. We can disagree on many things without it being a problem. See, my faith is a relationship, not a religion. Actually, I don't like religion very much. As a matter of fact, neither did Jesus. He wasn't the least bit religious."
Adams cocked his head. He was puzzled.
"For me it all boils down to one thing. Is Jesus God? If he is, my life has meaning. If he isn't, I'm a fool, and I don't have a clue how we got here or where we're going."
"I don't believe in miracles, and I've never been able to stomach anybody's religious mumbo jumbo. But you're nobody's fool, of that I'm certain. And there's something good going on inside you."
"Thank you, Thurston." She smiled, wrapping her arms around him. "You say the sweetest things."
"So how do I get from where I am to where you are?"
"Faith." Sarah could see that her answer deflated him. "Don't worry. Ultimately it takes more faith to believe there's no God than to acknowledge that he lives. It's not a leap in the dark, just a step into the light."
His smile returned. He was embarking on a grand adventure. "So how are you gonna convince me?"
"Oh, I'm not. God is."
--Craig Winn & Ken Power, Tea With
Terrorists661
There are doorways and there are doorways, just as there are Bibles
and there are bibles. The preacher reads from one (NIV) telling us to: (Luke 13:24)
"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many,
I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to," while I compared
it to--KJV--(Luke 13:24)
"Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you,
will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." According to the
conversation above "It's not a leap in the dark, just a step into
the light." That he would have to "make every effort to enter" seemed
to deflate him, while "striv[ing] to enter" was but "embarking on
a grand adventure."
Let's look at an application of the parable of the laborers.
Work began in earnest on Monday, December 25th, which was Christmas, of course, but that made no difference to the Pilgrims--or at least not to the Saints, for they scorned Christmas as a "human invention," another Roman "corruption," a survival from heathen days, as indeed it was. John Robinson had dealt with the matter at some length in his Just and Necessarie Apologie, in which he took the Dutch to task for many things. They were not "true" Christians, he informed them, and never would be until they ceased celebrating Christmas--and Easter, too, for that matter. There was no warrant for either in Scripture. Christ had not celebrated Easter, for obvious reasons. As for Christmas, Robinson admitted that he did not know just when Christ had been born, but of one thing he was certain--"December 25th cannot be the time." ...
It was a herculean undertaking for so few hands, but it was prosecuted with great vigor and "very cheerfully," for the most part, although there was some difficulty when the company was called to work on Christmas morning. Most of those who had come on the Fortune and a few of the Mayflower group "excused themselves and said it wente against their consciences to work on that day." Very well, said Bradford, if they made it a matter of conscience, he would excuse them "till they were better informed."
But at noon, when he and his work gang came in for dinner, he found the Strangers "in ye streete at play, openly; some pitching ye barr, & some at stoole-ball, and shuch like sports. So he wente to them and tooke away their implements, and tould them it was against his conscience that they should play & others worke. If they made ye keeping of it a matter of devotion, let them keepe their houses, but there should be no gameing or revelling in ye streets, since which time," observed Bradford some years later, "nothing hath been attempted that way, at least openly."--George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers662
bibles.n7nz.org