Arachnotheologica

I was reading from Romans 1 the other day, pouring over the words, meditating, studying, researching, memorizing, etc. I was blown away by the density of Paul's words. Every sentence - every word - was alive with fire. Electricity must have coursed through that man's veins.

I turned from the printed page to my computer notes to type something profound - a note that would unlock some hidden meaning in the text, an insight I could preach some day. I don't know. I wanted to type something to remember the experience of Scriptural (Spiritual) awe. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement... on the page of my Bible.

Now, call it excessive emotion, call it craziness, heck, call it sabbatical syndrome, but whatever you want to call it, I saw something on that biblical page move.

My head swiveled from the laptop to the literature. I anticipated the miraculous - the finger of the Spirit, a dancing tongue of flame, even a disembodied hand writing a message from God. But what I saw wasn't exactly angel's wings.

It was a spider.

Now is the time to insert some exaggerated language to describe the spider. You know, make it sound bigger than Godzilla. Now is the time to chronicle my heroic struggle to overcome the Giganto-spider. But alas, this blog is to be nonfiction.

The spider was small, black, and sneaking across the page of Romans 1.

I did what any courageous, creation-sensitive pastor would do in the throws of biblical illumination. I slammed my hand down on it. I slapped my hand down with enough force to crush an aluminum can. That spider never had a chance.

My hand rescinded. The spider curled into the fetal position. Then I did something that would please my wife to no end. I flicked that spider across the dining room toward the sliding glass door. There it lay. Post-mortem.

Needless to say, the mood in the room changed. I tried to resume my laptop note. Nothing came. I looked to my commentaries. They, who speak relentlessly with academic rigor, shut up. Finally, as a last ditch effort to re-enter the spiritual dream I had experienced pre-spider, I turned back to the Bible.

There, mirrored on the page, was the evidence of my crime - spider guts covering the page of Romans 1. You wouldn't believe me if I told you what word was the epicenter of spider goo. It was the word "dead."

Now, forevermore, my study Bible will hammer the point home all the harder, Jesus is the one, "who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead... (Romans 1:4)."

Just another day of Bible study...