As we continue our series this month on Fatherhood, we bring you this excerpt from Elisabeth’s father, Philip E. Howard, Jr., and his love for the Word of God.
Today I had lunch in my mother’s kitchen, and as usual she had placed a few papers at my place, things she wanted to share with me. This time it was a copy of a commencement address given by my father, Philip E. Howard, Jr., editor of the Sunday School Times, a weekly magazine published in Philadelphia for more than a hundred years). This was his closing paragraph, a challenge to the men graduating from Faith Theological Seminary in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1941:
“The Bible is the bread of life that always satisfies; the staff that never breaks; the sword that finds the joints in the Enemy’s armor and drives him off; the chart in which there is no error; the compass that never deviates and always points to Christ; the telescope that gives a view of the whole course of human history; the microscope that explains the mysteries of life; the balm that soothes our pain; the medicine that cures our ills; the cordial that cheers our fainting spirits; the light that shines undimmed amid the darkness of this world and points the way to our Father’s house.”
**Excerpt originally from The Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter November/December 1983