Thought for the week: The world is only a bridge

‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’.
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That phrase is found in the New Testament book ‘The Acts of the Apostles’ (20:35), where the author attributed the remark to the Lord Jesus himself.

It has become known as ‘an unwritten saying of Jesus’, meaning one which is not actually found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Another ‘unwritten’ saying of Jesus was discovered in India, close to the famed Taj Mahal palace in Agra. On the wall of a vast gateway near the ruins of Sikri, the Scottish missionary Alexander Duff found this inscription in Arabic: ‘Jesus, on whom be peace, has said, ‘The world is merely a bridge; you are to pass over it, and not to build your dwellings upon it’.

This respect for Jesus, whom Muslims acknowledge as a prophet, is evident in other writings. One such honourable mention is this: ‘Jesus said, Who is it that builds upon the waves of the sea? Such is the world; take it not for your resting-place’.

Rev David ClarkeRev David Clarke
Rev David Clarke

One of Jesus most famous parables features a highly-successful farmer who tore down his barns and built larger ones to house the produce of his fields. Self-contentedly, he told himself that he had plenty of good laid by for many years, and that he was determined to take life easy.

He was unprepared for a rude awakening. ‘God said to him, ‘You fool. This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?

Jesus then pointed out the moral of the story: ‘This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself and is not rich towards God’ (Luke 12; 13-21).

When a successful man dies, there are those who tend to ask, ’How much did he leave?’ Whatever goods his executors may have to administer, the truth is ‘he left it all’.

As the apostle John wrote: ‘The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives for ever’ (1 John 2;17). Over such a person, death is powerless.

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