Author: Dave Dishman (Page 319 of 459)

Do you ever experience a sense of foreboding when you arrive at a new place?

I do sometimes. I don’t know if there’s anything to it, and I can’t say either biblically or scientifically if my feelings are accurate, but I feel a hitch in my spirit in certain places.

We left Amsterdam for the U.S. yesterday. Criss-crossed with picturesque canals, featuring narrow houses, wonderful museums and ever-present bicycles, there’s a lot to love about the city. I enjoyed a couple of days there.

But aspects of the city nagged at my soul. In one museum I learned the prosperity I viewed all around me was built upon centuries of world trade—including the buying and selling of human beings.

Another exhibit took me through a brief history of Dutch colonization efforts and the brutal wars fought to protect wealth wrung from far-flung domains.

We toured the Anne Frank House Museum, where Anne and her family hid from the Nazis for two years before their discovery and deportation to concentration camps. Many opposed the Nazis and helped hide their Jewish friends and neighbors. But others in Amsterdam collaborated and benefited from the “final solution”.

Today Amsterdam generates wealth from two fresh sources—recreational drugs and recreational sex. Boasting a large red-light district, legal and regulated, people travel to Amsterdam to indulge in sexual pleasures. Alongside, a thriving drug culture encourages imbibing under the watchful eye of the regulators.

And so I soured on the city the longer I walked the streets.

While in Amsterdam I read these prophetic words from Jeremiah:

Woe to him to builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice.

Later I walked among the tall, narrow houses, built with upper rooms to store goods and house servants. I imagined the Frank family, hiding from the Gestapo, afraid of both the Germans and their neighbors.

And I understood why my spirit grew unsettled. A place with a history of terror retains a film that’s hard to wash away. And a modern city seeking to grow by unrighteousness appears headed in the wrong direction.

Jeremiah 22:13 in week forty of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo is the front of the Anne Frank House Museum

Now that we finished the Camino de Santiago, my wife and I are spending a bit more time in Europe. We’re already here—why not?

As we visit different cites, we always check out churches. Surprisingly, even here in Germany, we find directions to Santiago de Compostela. I felt great about completing our pilgrimage of 110 kilometers, but to walk the Camino from Southern Germany involves over 2,000 kilometers of commitment.

This has long been one of the ancient pilgrimage routes, from Germany through France and across across Northern Spain to Santiago. Taking months or even years, committed pilgrims completed the trek.

Here’s a few evidences of the Camino we found. First, we came across this marker in a small town called Breisach:

Further up the river, and farther form Santiago, a church with the Camino symbol and this door:

Finally, the statue of the pilgrim (seen above) in Speyer, along with an inscription from Hebrews 13:14:

For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.

Appropriate for a pilgrim headed to Santiago, and truly appropriate for any of us on our pilgrimage through this world.

Camino de Santiago 2021

Today I visited a couple of towns in Germany with ties to the Reformation—Speyer, followed by Worms. In Speyer the term protest-ant first entered our religious lexicon. In Worms, Luther made his defense against charges of heresy from Rome.

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason…I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen (Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, 1521).

These now beautiful, picturesque cities mask the turmoil they endured several hundred years ago. Luther stood at the risk of his life, barely escaping under the protection of his benefactor, who hid him for several years. During this time of isolation Luther completed his German translation of the Bible.

As a student of the Scriptures, one particular comment by Luther draws me—my conscience is captive to the Word of God—and reminds me of Paul’s words to the young pastor, Timothy:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Outside the solid teaching of the Scriptures, upon what do I stand? Everything else shifts, everything else fades, everything else cracks. As Luther reminded us, it is neither safe, nor right, to go another way.

2 Timothy 3 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2021

Speyer Cathedral pictured above

Yesterday while visiting Basel Minster, a cathedral commissioned in 1019 and one of the main features of Basel, Switzerland, I laid my eyes on the final resting place of an old hero of mine.

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, or Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a scholar whose work synced with the Protestant Reformation. I remember him from a class on the topic, a theologian who tried to connect the various interests, but eventually both sides of the debate ran him over—road kill of the Reformation.

However, I think of him fondly for this one quote:

When I get a little money, I buy books; if any is left, I buy food and clothes.

Erasmus of Rotterdam

This reminds me of Paul’s instructions to Timothy—When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments (2 Timothy 4:13).

I also love books. Perhaps not to the level of Erasmus, but I buy books over many other worthy items. And like Paul, I drag a few good books around with me wherever I go.

So, while it was nice to see the final resting place of Erasmus, a few hours in his library would have been way better.

2 Timothy 4 in reading through the Bible in 2021