In preparation for Easter, I am reading Richard Holloway’s The Killing. At the beginning of my copy is Edwin Muir’s poem “The Killing.” I offer it here for your meditation. I would also encourage you to consider reading it on a Maundy THursday service:

The Killing

by: Edwin Muir

Miraculous by Kevin Belmonte. Thomas Nelson Publishers. 330pp.

Kevin Belmonte is a visiting author at Gordon College and has written on William Wilberforce (being the lead historical consultant for the movie Amazing Grace), G.K. Chesterton, D.L. Moody, and John Bunyan.

In this work, Belmonte offers the church a service by way of the back door. By the title of the book I thought I was going to be reading an encyclopedia of miracles throughout history (after all, look at the subtitle!). You know someone receiving his sight in New Delhi, a limb regrown in Buenos Aires, a bumper crop of vegetables in rural Africa in the midst of a two-year drought. But he threw me for a loop when he started with the Bible. Imagine that. Of all places, he starts with the Bible. Not only this, but he begins by the fiat lux in the opening of Genesis. He pauses to make his reader consider the amazing miracle that Creation is. It is easy to breeze through the day and want something that is extra-ordinary and be blind to the fact that leaves are amazing. Belmonte starts with that wonder and lets it sink in. He moves on through the biblical narrative, highlighting the varied accounts of miracles in it: Noah & the Flood, Abraham & the friendship of God, Moses & the Exodus, Elisha’s stupendous feats, the Incarnation, Jesus’ Miracles, the Resurrection, Paul’s Conversion.

Okay, that was only cursory right? Unfortunately, we still have not let the miraculous amaze us. Instead of being blind to General Revelation in the world, we have been blind to Special Revelation in Scripture. Too often have these accounts been taken for granted. Belmonte does all of us a service by hitting the slow motion button and making us deal with the miracle of Scripture itself.

The next stage of Belmonte’s work takes us into the lives of men and women who experienced the miraculous. Yet what is astounding about these accounts is how ordinary they seem. He tells us of Perpetua who gave testimony to Christ in the midst of the bloodthirsty coliseum. Why not tell us about the hagiographies of Thecla or Polycarp or Ignatius? It seems that Belmonte wants us to be astounded by the sheer fact that it is a miracle that someone does not deny Christ in the face of certain death. This is reiterated in his account of Augustine. Sure, the Bishop of Hippo heard the children’s voices telling him to pick up the Bible and read, but Belmonte seems to highlight to utterly ordinary occurrences in Augustine’s life–namely, that his conversion came through a book and not from a great, penetrating light.

Martin Luther’s chapter brings the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper into the realm of the miraculous (p.146). Gilbert Burnet’s life highlights the immensity of God making his dwelling with us through the power of his Spirit. While Jonathan Edwards’ chapter speaks of the strange happenings in New England, it was Edwards’ parsing of the strange by the clarity of Scripture that helps us think rightly about the extraordinary. That is, people are constantly looking for verification of God’s involvement in the world–expecting cats to talk or dogs to drive a car or babies to feed themselves. Fact of the matter is that you and I are swimming in the miraculous. We just haven’t trained our eyes to see.

In light of that, Belmonte aptly has a chapter dedicated to Dr. Clyde Kilby. This chapter alone will make you have new eyes. Going through Kilby’s ten resolutions made my heart swell with joy and a desire to commune with God through the ordinarily miraculous world I live in.

I enjoyed and marked up my copy of Belmonte’s work. At times he can be a little tedious with details that don’t move the thesis along. However, these excursions are just as enjoyable as the main point of the book. They humanize and help give a holistic picture to the models he gives. The author’s sheer breadth of reading is admirable and encourages me to read widely and voraciously.

RECOMMENDATION: I would recommend this as an after dinner reading with the family. The chapters are easily digestible and give food for thought and discussion. I give the book a 4/5 stars due to the excursions that (although enjoyable at times) made the book a little laborious.

This continues the series I started here and are reflections on J. Oswald Sanders’ book, Spiritual Leadership. 

Sanders defines “tact” and “diplomacy” as:

The ability to deal with people sensitively, to avoid giving offense, to have a “feel” for the proper words or responses to a delicate situation. Diplomacy is the ability to manage delicate situations, especially involving people from different cultures, and certainly from differing opinions (p.71).

He goes on to write, “Leaders need to be able to reconcile opposing viewpoints without giving offense or compromising principle” (p.71).

One of the lessons I’ve learned in the short amount of leading I have done is that tact and diplomacy are formal ways to say “love.” That is, if I truly love my neighbor as myself, then I will desire to listen (as I want to be listened to). Too often a leader has a direction he is moving. Rightly so. . .after all he is leading! However, a confident leader is able to listen and assimilate others’ opinions into his direction. For example, I am driving a car to my parents house for the grands to get hugs from my kids. I have a destination. Thirty minutes into the 10-hour trip, my second child exclaims, “I need to go to the potty!” I can respond three ways: (1) Keep going; (2) Stop the car begrudgingly; or (3) Stop the car joyfully because a) I got to practically love by serving my daughter and b) I don’t have to clean up the mess as a result of my unwieldiness. 

Nowhere, other than in our close relationships in life, are we able to gauge better our successes and failings in tact and diplomacy. Consider that car ride a leadership moment. Because it is.

I wish that all leaders would first love people. In fact, all good leaders love people first. They want to lead them to a goal because it will serve the ones they lead. After all, is this not the model given to us at the Last Supper where Jesus loved the disciples to the uttermost and washed their feet. He washed their feet before he walked alone to Calvary. He demonstrated love for his disciples and then showed them the path the road they too had to walk.

Tact and diplomacy only have effect if you first love (and not as a tool for manipulating). Tact and diplomacy only have effect if you have first laid down your own life and put to death your own longings for power. Tact and diplomacy only have effect if you love to the uttermost and wash feet.