2 Kings 6:5-7 But as one was felling a beam, the ax head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed.… Oh, how frightened some people are of these miracles! A young fellow-student and a preacher to-day, under the influence of modern criticism, told me that he could not swallow this miracle — he is very narrow in the swallow anyway! — he could not swallow this miracle about the axe-head that swam, "because, you know," he said, "it has a suspicious look about it. I'm all right, I trust," he said, "I'm all right upon the miracles of our Lord. But between you and me, M'Neill, that miracle, you know, is not ethical." That is the great word, "ethical"; if you are not ethical, you're not in it. "It is not ethical!" I said. "Well, now, that is very funny. It is very ethical, according to me. Do you mean to say," I said, "if you borrow an axe-head from me, that it is quite ethical to come back with a bit of stick, and the head... gone! Why," I said, "the miracle is bottomed upon ethics. God was so anxious that the axe should be given back by the fellow who borrowed it, as he borrowed it, that He worked miracles on behalf of the ethics that underlie borrowing and lending." And then he said, "I have no difficulty about the miracles of our Lord, because they are ethical." "Well now," I said, "there is one of our Lord's miracles, and if you are squeamish about the axe-head that swam, then logically you ought to be squeamish about it, too, although our Lord worked it, for it is this kind of 'grotesque miracle ' — making a display of Divine power. You remember," I said, "one day when our Lord had to pay His taxes and He did not seem to have enough loose money about Him — it is a kind of pathetic touch, you know — He did not have enough loose money about Him, but He evidently considered tax-paying ethical, and He wanted to pay them, and, of course, tie might have borrowed from somebody, or He might have got it in some way or another; but in spite of these critics He went away and made a display of the miraculous, and He said, 'Go to the sea and cast in a hook, and the first fish that comes up you will find my taxes in its mouth.'" The pride of intellect. Oh, if you are troubled, and if you boggle and stumble at the miraculous, Jesus will be the biggest stumbling-block and rock of offence of all the miracle-workers in the Bible. (John M'Neill.) Parallel Verses KJV: But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed. |
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