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    The Little Book of Big Frontiers: Rediscovering the Lost Realms of Christianity
    The Little Book of Big Frontiers: Rediscovering the Lost Realms of Christianity
    The Little Book of Big Frontiers: Rediscovering the Lost Realms of Christianity
    Ebook76 pages1 hour

    The Little Book of Big Frontiers: Rediscovering the Lost Realms of Christianity

    By John E. Worgul

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    About this ebook

    Most Christians are unaware that there is such a thing as a biblical cosmology. That is, we do not have a clear idea of the whole of creation, both visible and invisible, its parts and realms, and how they fit together. We live by bits and pieces of conflicting notions supplied by the Bible and the secular world, and there is little comprehension of the overall design of reality and the all-embracing vision of creation that the Bible provides and the Church has taught for centuries. The matter seems too complex for the typical contemporary Christian and so the matter is dropped as irrelevant. The consequences are deadly; ignorance breeds arrogance, indifference, and finally spiritual death.

    The Little Book of Big Frontiers intends to make the complex issue of cosmology understandable. Vivid and ordinary stories and images are used to illustrate extremely difficult concepts that will open up new frontiers for the reader. Readers will come away with a whole new understanding of the cosmos and how it works, integrating the interior realties of the soul with the world around them, rediscovering realms that were once known to the early Christians but, alas, are now lost within the secularization of our culture.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWipf and Stock
    Release dateSep 6, 2012
    ISBN9781621899839
    The Little Book of Big Frontiers: Rediscovering the Lost Realms of Christianity
    Author

    John E. Worgul

    John E. Worgul has taught biblical studies at Bethel Seminary of the East since 1987. He is an Anglican Priest serving at Christ the King Church in Towson, Maryland, and is director of Holy Trinity Lay Institute of Scriptural Studies and Spirituality.

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      Book preview

      The Little Book of Big Frontiers - John E. Worgul

      9781620321607.kindle.jpg

      The Little Book of Big Frontiers

      Rediscovering the Lost Realms of Christianity

      John E. Worgul

      6707.jpg

      THE LITTLE BOOK OF BIG FRONTIERS

      Rediscovering the Lost Realms of Christianity

      Copyright © 2012 John E. Worgul. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Wipf & Stock

      An imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      isbn 13: 978-1-62032-160-7

      eisbn 13: 978-1-62189-983-9

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: The Map Room

      Chapter 2: The Telescope, the Microscope, and the Hourglass

      Chapter 3: The Cathedral

      Chapter 4: The Pie

      Chapter 5: The Cave and the Dragon

      Chapter 6: The Knight and the Journey into the Interior

      Chapter 7: The Super Bowl

      Chapter 8: The Leper Colony

      Chapter 9: The Big Splash

      Conclusion

      Postscript

      Bibliography

      To my wife, Kathy Anne,a true disciple of Jesus

      Acknowledgments

      I would not have written this book were it not for the persistent encouragement of my friend and student, Dr. David Waters, to put into writing the ideas on cosmology I had formulated in class over the years. David also directed me to Peter Kreeft’s book Love is Stronger than Death, which was very helpful in formulating the last chapter. I am thankful for my friends Paula Niederberger, Rev. Jason Poling, Diane Steenburg, and Fr. Lawrence Weinholt, for reading and correcting the manuscript. The imperfections, of course, are all mine.

      Introduction

      The Water Bugs

      On a chilly December evening in 1977, I first noticed the water bugs. While sitting on a low bridge over a small stream, there was just enough light in the starry sky to make out small objects bobbing and skipping upon the surface against the slow current. Curious, I bent over for a closer look. They were bugs with long legs whose feet made what looked to be little indentations on the cold winter water. It boggled my mind that bugs could be out on a December evening, let alone on the stream’s frigid surface.

      To this day I know nothing about them, not even what they are called. However, the bugs got me to thinking. For all appearances, these insects had no conception of what was underneath them. They lived on the surface. There was, at least in proportion to their tiny size, a whole watery world beneath them, to which they were connected but were unable to comprehend. The bugs seemed oblivious to this reality. Who knows what dangers lurked for them, or what delights to enjoy, just below the surface?

      As I pondered this, it dawned on me that I was not altogether unlike the water bug. I too lived on the surface. At that time I was in seminary and had given my life over to the study of the deep things of God. Moreover, vivid life-changing encounters with God deeply moved and motivated me. However for all my study and experience of God, I was haunted with a growing realization that I was still a surface dweller. I could not get to where my soul longed to go. I was a tiny little water bug bobbing upon the surface; beneath and above and all around there was a far greater reality I intuitively knew was there but could not grasp.

      This thought has followed me ever since. I think there will always be the water bug in me, because there will always be a sense of living on the surface before the sheer vastness of the regions surrounding me and, indeed, within me. Water bugs are humble creatures, and so should we be. Yet, we are more than a bug. The water bug goes about its short life with neither hopes nor dreams nor remorse. It lives purely by instinct. It is programmed to do some marvelous things like bobbing upon the water, surviving in the cold, hunting for whatever it is that it eats, and procreating in a hostile environment. It knows no moral failure, has no expectations, and does not have choices to make. It is locked in its own little world, and to this the bug is absolutely suited. By merely existing, it performs what is expected of it.

      Such bliss is not ours. Even the most complacent souls have at least some vague sense of the frontiers beyond their front doors. We can lock these vistas out but not without great loss to our humanity. We may look through our windows from time to time and notice distant horizons, but most of us are overcome by the sheer magnitude of these frontiers and recede back into our comfortable habits of being. We might even get excited about the fact that there are unexplored regions beyond our boredom and mediocrity, but in the end we never set out to explore for one reason or another, usually fear.

      The frontiers that are before us are both near and far, within and without, and they are all interconnected. As the word frontiers suggests, they are wild and fraught with the unexpected, yes, even danger. Each one is vast; there is no clear end to them nor boundaries, like, for instance, the Pacific Ocean was for the early American pioneers. To begin with, there is the frontier within each of us, a vast expanse of spiritual space, and a universe in miniature. It is a dimension that very much mirrors the world about us, full of beauty yet permeated with corruption. Dangers lurk within, but there is also life, power, and potential. To most of us, this frontier remains largely unexplored. Yet we are bidden to take the journey within. Why should

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