I had a whole different idea for the bulletin in mind until I sat down here and my grandfathers clock happened to chime. I don't mean my “Grandfather Clock,” the type once more commonly called a floor clock or hall clock that stands about 6 feet high. I mean the clock my grandfather used to own. The one he and grandma got on, I think, their 35th anniversary from my parents. A loooong time ago. When he died. I happened to be the lucky one to inherit it and now it is prominently sitting on my desk at home.

My grandfather owned a couple clocks actually. I also have a coo-coo clock that used to amuse him, but anyone who ever visited the home of my grandfather knew this particular clock. It was the one that sat on his mantle over the fireplace. and bonged it's soil tones on the hour loud enough to fill most of the house if you listened for it. Funny how even now when I hear it I become nostalgic for the larger than life fellow who once owned it. He loved that clock, and he trusted it.

It happens to be a Seth-Thomas clock from nearby Connecticut. How funny that it traveled all the way to Ohio where my grandfather owned it, then all the way to Colorado when I inherited it, and now I have brought it back near it's place of origin. The case is solid wood, no chip board or wax board fillers with simple real wood trim. Someone took great care in milling the parts and assembling it. But in its day it was a moderately "cheap" item!

It's an electric clock. When this clock was made, the truly expensive and whiz-bang clocks were the ones that were key wound. Great care had to be taken to keep them working, but they were known for being (for the most part) high quality precision time pieces. But they weren't! A cheaper clock, an electric one, did a better job.

Just like today, you might buy some $2 plastic jobber that tells time digitally to the hundredth of a second. If it chimes at all, it's some electronic squeal that does a lousy emulation of real tones. Well, right next to the grand clock on my desk I have a Seth-Thomas clock that the electric motor burned out on. Dave brought it home from the dump. This box is also solid wood and has a curved bubble glass front, worthy of it's manufacturer! I put one of these plastic replacement 'innards inside. The functionality is great. but it's not elegant or classy. My grandfather's is not nearly as accurate but it's soothing and well made (and a fond memory). Both tell time: it's all in the delivery.

So what does this have to do with anything? Well. I was thinking it was a lot like handling the word. My grandfather was not an overly-educated man, but he memorized the bible like no one I have ever met before or since, and I'm a little (ok, a lot) ashamed I am not as knowledgeable as he was with it. He always seemed to know the right things to tell you and when you needed to hear them, be it encouragement or a word of comfort (or given reproof and correction!). All he had to work with was a book. Now-a-days. just about everyone is much more educated and know a lot more about everything else but it seems a lot less about scripture. We have all these computers and electronic gadgets to help us like never before, the precision is there, and it's cheap and readily available. See what l mean? Anyone can do an internet topic search and find out probably more detail on whatever biblical subject they care to research than my grandfather ever would have told me. But without personal encouragement, why would anyone do that? In other words, both tell me the truth: it's all in the delivery.

When we proclaim the gospel, are we harsh, cold, impersonal, fact repeaters? Or is it bundled with compassion and actual Godly living experience?