Dane Ortlund asked a number of theologians what the message of the Bible would like in one sentence. Reading through the articles it becomes pretty clear who’s reading who and who’s relying on a Biblical verse or a bit of modern theology to pull them through. Without a doubt, the most expressive one listed was (of course) written by Douglas Wilson.
Scripture tells us the story of how a Garden is transformed into a Garden City, but only after a dragon had turned that Garden into a howling wilderness, a haunt of owls and jackals, which lasted until an appointed warrior came to slay the dragon, giving up his life in the process, but with his blood effecting the transformation of the wilderness into the Garden City.
Note: Ok, to be fair, there were other good ones too. Seifrid‘s ‘Verbum caro factum est.’ gets closer to what needs to be said than perhaps all of the rest, but is shrouded within the language of theology and, unfortunately, is rarely unpacked in any meaningful way.
Thanks for posting this, Nick. This is really interesting. I think stuff like this is really effective in getting us to sharpen what we believe and explain it more effectively.
I completely agree, Mark. These kinds of exercises are terribly helpful in trying to focus our minds, our thoughts, and even our writing. It reminds me of a link I posted some time ago when Hemingway received a challenge from some literary magazine to write a story in six words.
http://nicksteffen.com/2005/10/28/first-things-on-the-square/