Welcome to "Tuesday Mornings," a source of encouragement and inspiration for Christians everywhere.

 

Abraham Lincoln was once quoted as saying, "Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all." And if they were new, they would not be original. Human originality is a myth. It doesn't exist.

 

The topic of this week's "TM" is not new, and it is not original. But it is about originality. It continues below. Read on whenever you are ready. Then be prepared to think someone else's thoughts after them, only in a new way. And if that doesn't interest you, follow Lincoln's observation and read a good book.

 

Have an outstanding week.

 

Tom Barnard

A Senior Encourager

 

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Originality

Tom Barnard

 

ave you ever heard someone complain, “I’ve never had an original thought!” They were telling the truth. No human being has ever had an original thought. Only God is original. Only God’s thoughts are original. What about your favorite theologian? Sorry about that. No theologian has had an original thought either, for the definition of theology is the process of “thinking God’s thoughts after him.” Not before him; not even in the same moment with him. After him. Nothing existed before God thought it into being.

 

Do you remember the words from James Weldon Johnson’s classic poem, Creation? They were culturally framed, but their meaning is universally true even today. Here is a cutting from one of the verses:

 

Then God walked around,

And God looked around

On all that He had made.

He looked at His sun,

And he looked at His moon,

And He looked at His little stars;

He looked on His world

With all its living things,

And God said, “I’m lonely still.”

 

Then God sat down—

On the side of a hill where He could think;

By a deep, wide river He sat down;

With His head in His hands,

God thought and thought,

Till He thought, “I’ll make me a man!”

 

King Solomon was no dummy. He knew where he was coming from when he uttered the words, “There is nothing new under the sun.” The writers of sacred script weren’t original either. The words they wrote are called “revealed truth.” We say the writers received those thoughts through “inspiration.” That’s the way it was meant to be. It all began in the mind of God.

 

To say that no two snowflakes are alike does not mean that either of them is original. It just means that the Creator is infinite—so infinite that he could create billions of snowflakes that look alike but are not. What about human beings? None of us is original. Twins may look alike and talk alike and even think alike, but they are not original. Why? Because God willed it to be that way. “No two alike” is correct, but “We are original” is not. We know Eve was not original—she was created from Adam. How about Adam. Was he original? Not if God created him out of the dust of the earth.

 

What about Jesus? He was original. He was the only human being born of a virgin. To argue that because he was born of Mary he couldn’t have been original is flawed thinking. “Someone” began the process of conception in Mary. That Someone was the Spirit of God. That’s why we call Mary’s conception “immaculate.” None other like it. Ever.

 

If we cannot be “original,” perhaps we can be “unique.” One of a kind. Like snowflakes.