Index Cards

When I was a young girl my parents had a real-estate business in North Adams, MA. I really enjoyed functioning as the receptionist and errand girl and overall 'gal Friday.'  About once a week I was sent downtown (15 min walk) to the local stationery store to pick up miscellaneous supplies. This was the highlight of my week! I would purchase what was needed but then roam around the store looking at all the fancy papers and pens and gadgets, running my fingers over them as if they were mine. I'm sure this is the reason behind my love, to this day, of index cards and steno pads and sticky notes.  Because of this minor obsession of mine I have always been a list-maker and a note-taker. As I am typing this blogpost my desk is even now littered with remnants of reminders and notes and random ideas I have written down.

So it was with great delight yesterday that I found the old index cards I used while writing a book review in 2018. One night Steve and I had dinner with Rev. Greg Reynolds and his super-wife Robin (Hi, Robin! 😉).  I was expressing excitement for a book I had purchased entitled Prayers of the Bible by Gordon Keddie.  Much to my surprise, Greg knew Mr. Keddie personally but had not yet seen his book. He glanced at the volume and was favorably impressed. At that point I was only on page 27 or so when Greg asked if I would be willing to write a review for Ordained Servant of which he is the editor. BIG GULP: I had never written anything for a publication so I was very overwhelmed with the idea of doing so. But more than that, I also squirmed because the book itself was 764 pages long, including Endnotes. YIKES! 

As it turns out, Prayers of the Bible was very much worth spending 6 intense months of reading and taking notes on file cards. It truly is a remarkable book and I would recommend it to everyone. (Local friends can take a peek at my copy if interested.)  

Here is the link to the actual review in Ordained Servant.

And now back to the index cards that I recently found in a desk drawer. Here are some fascinating facts I had discovered:

1. Where in the Bible was the first prayer meeting noted?  Genesis 4:26

Keddie's answer: "Only after the birth of Adam's grandson Enosh do we have the first record in the Bible of a public meeting for worship and prayer. There were now two growing families serving the Lord - those of Adam and Seth. It appears that they were moved to meet together for praise and prayer, This was when "men began to call on the name of the Lord."  

2. Where in the Bible was the first recorded prayer mentioned?  Genesis 15:2

Keddie's answer: "Lord God, what will You give me, for I continue childless?"  "God promptly promises a child... God also promised life beyond measure. In the end, Abraham would have descendants as uncountable as the stars in the night sky. This takes the promise to a higher level because this obviously vastly transcends the natural descendants of Abraham.

3.  What is the shortest prayer in the Bible?  Matthew 14:30

Keddie's answer: "But when Peter saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, 'Lord, save me.'  It is surely no accident that the shortest prayer in Scripture is about the largest problem in human experience - that of life or death for both time and eternity. After all, people in desperate situations do not have much time to pray."

4. What is the first intercessory prayer?  Genesis 18:23

Keddie's answer: "Then Abraham drew near and said, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?""  This surely challenges us to pray for lost people - for even the most outwardly wicked lost people. If we have a love for souls, as did Abraham, than we will surely desire to see people saved by the free grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is the vital test of our own love for Jesus, because saving grace for the notoriously wicked cuts against the grain of human nature and the natural desires we have for justice and even sheer vengeance. Anyone can love his friends."

These are but four of the hundreds of index cards I used to research and review Prayers of the Bible. What I have listed above may seem like trivia points, but Keddie's book was full of theological insights that I found very worthy of study.