So many people collect so many different things. Stamp and coin collecting are well known hobbies, but just about anything has become the object of a collection. My mother collected paperweights (we still have a box full!), and one of our sons collected banana stickers. Whatever it is that interests you, maybe you’ve thought of collecting that.
Aaron Bartholmey of Colfax, Iowa has been collecting wooden pencils for years, focusing on pencils with advertisements. His collection doesn’t have duplicates; each pencil is unique. The Guinness Book of Records is now considering whether he holds the world title for having the most. Two separate counters from the American Pencil Collecting Society (!) have verified that Bartholmey has over 70,000 pencils. The current record is about 24,000.
Advertising pencils don’t seem to be as popular now as ink pens. The church I serve keeps on hand a large supply of pens that we make available in our lobby. They seem to vanish regularly, and we hope some of these end up in hands that might be searching for a new church home.
What does a massive collection of pencils have to do with the Bible? This passage came to my mind, the last verse in the Gospel of John: “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).
A lot has been said about Jesus. On the website answers.com, one person asked: “What is the total number books that have ever been written about Jesus Christ?” The featured answer replied, “As for modern biographies and biographies that have been written throughout history (ie the last 2000 years) these are far too many to be listed. They run into tens of thousands.” That sounds about right to me. I have many books in my library that feature Jesus, His works, and His teachings.
The one who wrote that statement in John, however, had first-hand knowledge. John was one of the twelve apostles who shadowed Jesus for about three years. Peter noted the qualifications for the one who would replace Judas as an apostle: “… beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us” (Acts 1:22). Whom have you followed that closely for three years?
Millions of us love the accounts of Jesus’ miracles, His parables, His teachings, etc. If asked to name some of the miracles of Jesus, I could easily list a couple dozen without slowing down. But here’s the amazing part – there are more. Many more! We could easily say about Jesus what the Queen of Sheba said of King Solomon: “Indeed, the half was not told me” (1 Kings 10:7).
There are many reasons I want to go to heaven. One of those is to hear some of the other amazing things Jesus did during His ministry on earth. When that day comes we’ll need a larger collection of pencils than Aaron Bartholmey’s to write them down. For now, we’ll have to resort to the description Peter gave to Cornelius: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38). What a storytelling festival that will be!
Come to the light God offers! Study His word, the Bible. Worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). Get in touch with us if you’d like to discuss these ideas further.
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Copyright, 2023, Timothy D. Hall
