Pratt: Life has meaning far beyond our best or worst imaginations
“The Bema: A Story about the Judgment Seat of Christ” by Tim Stevenson came to my attention recently via a son, who passed it on to me, knowing that even though it is a novel, it contains a message that should not be taken lightly.
After all, my childhood and adolescence was spent in a small country church where most people did not consider themselves too sophisticated to take the biblical message as a message describing reality.
And when World War II ended with the beginning of what was termed the frightful power of learning to split an atom and make a bomb of incredible destructive power, history took a step into the abyss of the “War to end all wars.” But of course, we are still dangling that possibility to subdue dictators who seek to rule the world.
Accountability for massive worldwide destruction is the only brake on what are today even more powerful weapons. So, the contest continues in a brinkmanship fashion that keeps money flowing, and tyrants – small and great – hoping to rule the world.
Biblically, these are the followers of Satan, the powerful, fallen angel who was thrown out of heaven and continues his war of evil against good on God's most beloved creation, mankind.
Symbolical myth, or allegory, is “figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another or a presentation of an abstract or spiritual meaning under concrete or material forms” says the definition from The New Century Dictionary.
Now that the primary slanguage of our era is such that even those of us from another time when words had meaning beyond making us king/queen of the latest insult, we can never be sure to be understood.
Stevenson has cleverly married the allegory along our current “how-to-be-rich-and-powerful” business climate to demonstrate how easily even the most devout Christian can be led into the temptation trap.
The purpose in this particular novel, is to do away with a man whose honest in the technological world was a threat to a wheeler-dealer agency bent on capturing new customers at the price of “whatever it takes” to make the big bucks.
To do that, he needed to co-opt the reputation for honesty and accuracy that the small start-up business represented.
This book falls in the category of “romance” novel that many like to read, but the real scheme looms much bigger than human love affairs and betrayals. It is a story about love, a heavenly story of something beyond human comprehension as it brings the main character and his sly adversary into conflict.
But Stevenson avoids the temptation of getting into specific religious teaching, even as he carefully places ultimate recognition by the main character of what the biblical story tells us is a visit to “The Judgment Seat of Christ,” says author and lecturer David Dolan.
I found the book a good read, keeping in mind that none of us fully comprehends the God of Eternity and the battle between unlimited powers beyond our wildest imaginations. Like my dad, whose life-long commitment was to honor God whatever circumstances we were in, I was fascinated by nature. He used to show us the planets through his small telescope.
This book, “The Bema,” reminds me of those childhood memories. My dad's last words to me were a hastily scribbled reference on a Spearmint gum paper, of prophetic scripture as he was wheeled off to surgery he wanted me to write.
He wanted me to write a book that gets it “right,” but that was to be my last conversation with him. With him, I believe the prophetic biblical story instructs and warns us that life has meaning far beyond our best or worst imaginations.
That is the message that comes through in “The Bema” about overcoming temptation.
Beth Pratt retired as religion editor from the Avalanche-Journal after 25 years. You can email her at beth.pratt@cheerful.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Pratt: Life has meaning far beyond our best or worst imaginations
