Reformed Pulpit's Generation

The transcript below is from "Translating the Gospels: A Discussion Between Dr. E.V. Rieu and the Rev. J.B. Phillips." The Bible Translator 6/4 (October 1955), pp. 150-159.

펭귄문고판 사복음서를 그리이스어에서 영어로 번역해 달라는 출판사의 의뢰로 저명한 고언어학자인 Dr. Rieu가 번역을 맡았습니다. 그런데 그는 당시 무신론자였습니다.



그는 출판 후, 어느 인터뷰에서 다음과 같은 고백을 합니다.

Phillips(목사, 토론 상대): Did you get the effect (I think I mentioned it in the Preface to Letters to Young Churches) that the whole material is extraordinarily alive? I think I used there the illustration that it was like trying to rewire an ancient house without being able to switch off the mains, which was quite a vivid and modern metaphor, I hope. I got that feeling, the whole thing was alive, even while I was translating. Even though one did a dozen versions of a particular passage, it was still living. Did you get that feeling?
* 제가 그러했듯이 귀하는 번역을 하면서 뭔가 생생한 느낌이 있지 않았습니까?

Rieu: I won't say I got a deeper feeling ...
* 그렇게 깊은 느낌은 아니었습니다.

Phillips: Yes?
* 예? (실망스러운 듯)

Rieu: ... But I got the deepest that I possibly could have expected.
* 제 말은, 제가 상상할 수 있는 최고의 감동을 받았다는 말입니다.

Phillips: Yes?
* 예? (놀라서)

Rieu: It — changed me. My work changed me. And I came to the conclusion, as I said, I think, in my Introduction, that these works bear the seal of the Son of Man and God. And they are the Magna Carta of the human spirit.
* 저를 변화시켰습니다. 그 번역이 저를 변화시켰습니다. 제 결론은, 서론에서 언급했듯이 사람이면서 하나님의 아들의 봉인이 사복음서 속에 감추어져 있습니다. 그 말씀은 인간 영혼의 마그나 카르타(대헌장)입니다.

Phillips: Yes.
* 예.

8월 5일, SBS TV 프로그램 '기적의 오디션'에서 연기자를 뽑는 '미라클 클래스'의 이미숙 클래스 학생 6명의 수업과정과 그중 2명의 탈락자를 발표하는 장면을 방송했다.

이미숙은 고통 끝에 발표한 두 명의 탈락자에게는 특별히 직접 정성들여 쓴 이별편지를 남겼다. 그 중의 일부 내용은 배우 이미숙이 진정 연기가 무엇인지 아는 사람인 것을 보여주고 있다. 

"연기는 너의 괴로움과 고통을 피해 도망가는 도피처가 아니야. 다른 사람과 소통하고 캐릭터의 인생 속에서 그 사람의 인생을 사는 거야. 다른 사람의 마음을 이해하지 못하면 연기는 고통이 된다. 더 가슴을 열고 난 뒤의 ○○가 되길…"

'설교자에게 있어서 설교와 목회도 그런 것이 아닌가'라는 생각이 든다. 청중의 고통과 마주서는(소통) 설교자, 그들의 눈과 영혼을 직시하는 목사가 아니라면 그에게 설교와 목회는 고통이 아니겠는가?

PREACHER BURNED HIS SERMONS
THEN CAUGHT FIRE HIMSELF!

Revival Fires!
Jesus Life Series on Revivals and pioneers of revival
No. 35 Samuel Chadwick, England, 1860-1932

Samuel Chadwick was zealous for Jesus, but God had more in store for him: the power of the Holy Spirit’s fire!

Samuel Chadwick was born in the industrial north of England in 1860. His father worked long hours in the cotton mill and, when he was only eight, Samuel went to work there, too, as a means of supporting the impoverished family.
Devout Methodists, they attended chapel three times on Sunday, and as a young boy, Chadwick gave his heart to Christ. Listening to God’s word week by week, he often felt the inner call to serve Christ. It seemed impossible, as he was poor and uneducated, but in faith he made preparations. After a twelve-hour factory shift he would rush home for five hours of prayers and study.
At the age of 21 he was appointed lay pastor of a chapel at Stacksteads, Lancashire. It was no dream appointment! The congregation was self-satisfied.
Yet Chadwick threw himself in with great optimism. He had been trained to prepare well-researched and interesting sermons as the sure way to bring in the crowds. He recalled after:
“This led unconsciously to a false aim in my work. I lived and laboured for my sermons, and was unfortunately more concerned about their excellence and reputation than the repentance of the people.”
Soon, however, his sermons were exhausted and nothing had changed. Starting defeat in the face and sensing his lack of real power, an intense hunger was kindled within him for more of God. At this point he heard the testimony of someone who had been revitalised by an experience of the Holy Spirit. So, with a few friends he covenanted to pray and search the scriptures until God sent revival.
One evening he was praying over his next sermon, when a powerful sense of conviction settled on him. His pride, blindness and reliance on human methods paraded before his eyes as God humbled him to the dust.
Well into the night he wrestled and repented, then he got out his pile of precious sermons and set fire to them! The result was immediate: the Holy Spirit fell upon him. In his own words:
“I could not explain what had happened, but it was a bigger thing than I had ever known. There came into my soul a deep peace, a thrilling joy, and a new sense of power. My mind was quickened. I felt I had received a new faculty of understanding. Every power was vitalised. My body was quickened. There was a new sense of spring and vitality, a new power of endurance and a strong man’s exhilaration in big thing.”
The tide turned. At his next sermon seven souls were converted (“one for each of my barren years”), and he called the whole congregation to a week of prayer. The following weekend most of the church was baptised in the Holy Spirit and revival began to spread through the valleys. In the space of a few months, hundreds were converted to Jesus, among them some of the most notorious sinners in the area.
The pattern was repeated over the next few years as Chadwick moved to various places. 1890 saw him in Leeds, where the power of God was so strongly upon him that the chapel was full half an hour before the service began, and police had to control the crowds. The river of God moved strongly, and Chadwick records:
“We were always praying and fighting [the devil], singing and rejoicing, doing the impossible and planning still bigger things. The newspapers never left us alone, and people came from far and wide.”
Opposition was swept away and within a few years the chapel had to be demolished and a substantial Mission Hall built.
Always a man of the people, Chadwick would spend his Saturdays mixing with local workers. Once, when his wife was away, he teasingly invited anyone who was lonely to come for Saturday tea. He expected about a dozen. Six hundred turned up! Yet God had catered: one church member was a baker and had been awoken by the Lord with the order to bake for all he was worth!
The final phase of Chadwick’s life was spent as Principal of Cliff College, a Methodist training school for preacher, and it was here that he wrote his famous book, The Way to Pentecost, which was being printed when he died in 1932. In it we read:
“I owe everything to the gift of Pentecost. For fifty days the facts of the Gospel were complete, but no conversions were recorded. Pentecost registered three thousand souls. It is by fire that a holy passion is kindled in the soul whereby we live the life of God. The soul’s safety is in its heat. Truths without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power.
“Destitute of the Fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters.”

Jesus Life No. 43, First Quarter 1998, page 25