Digging in the Archives

Moravians never throw anything away.  This is sometimes said with a tone of mild frustration.  Do we really need to keep 67 frayed and tattered copies of an anthem that no one in the current choir can remember singing and which, if a director did decide to put it back into active repertoire, is now available in a much better edition?  Far more often, however, this habit of saving everything is noted with pride and delight when a dusty box or storage bin yields an unexpected treasure.

In recent years the archives at Lititz Moravian have been the source of a number of surprising finds.  The most recent one, featured in several news stories in the past few months, has been the identification of an 18^th century hand-written book as Volume I of the diary and church records maintained by Bishop Mattheaus Hehl while he served the Lititz congregation.  It, along with Volume II, which was located in the Provincial Archives in Bethlehem and is now undergoing restoration and preservation, will soon be digitized and translated.  Those who are fascinated by early Lititz history eagerly await the completion of this project, wondering what forgotten details of life in Revolutionary War era Lititz might be revealed.

What's in the Bible? - Part Three

In part two of this series, I focused on the first four books of the New Testament, the gospel accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ.  It is now time to turn attention to the remainder of the New Testament.  Following the four Gospels is The Book of the Acts of the Apostles, often referred to simply as Acts.  As I mentioned previously, Acts is a companion volume to the Gospel according to Luke.  Beginning with the ascension of Jesus, it continues with an account of events leading to the formation of the early church.  Pivotal to the story is the conversion of Saul, persecutor of early Christians, into the believer Paul, fervent preacher of the word.  Acts provides details of Paul’s three missionary journeys into Asia Minor and beyond, ending with his imprisonment in Rome.

One of my favorite passages in Acts occurs in Chapter 16.  The narrator tells how Paul chose Timothy to join him in the work, describing their travels.  Verses 7 through 10 read, “When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.  During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’  When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.”