They asked, "Why Four?" Do You Know?

by Larry Winebrenner Writer It is indicative of the desire simply "to know" that an eighty-odd aged woman and my five-year-old great-granddaughter each asked me the same question on the same day: "Why four?"

I was helping in our church's homeless ministry at First United Methodist Church in downtown Miami FL on a recent Saturday. The church feeds homeless folk thrice weekly on a regular schedule, but that day we had received a gift of 1000 pairs of flip-flops [shower shoes, zoris, rubber sandals, et al.] and were distributing them to folks on the street.

As I handed a ladies's size 11 to one elderly woman, she asked, "Can I ask you a Bible question?"

"Go ahead," I told her. "Ask all you want, but I can't guarantee I can answer it."

She asked, "Why four?"

It was the same question my visiting great-grandchild asked after I read a Bible story, told her a fact about the Bible.

She asked, "Why four?"

I had just told my descendant---Byrana Lee---that there were four books in the New Testament that told the story of Jesus's life. They were called Gospels. But when she asked the same question I'd heard earlier in Bryana Lee's absence, I didn't want togive her the one sentence answer I had give the elderly woman. The child could draw that answer into an interminable string of additional questions. She was an expert at doin so, especially when she didn't want to go to sleep.

I reached for my Bible, hoping I'd think of something I could use as a stopper to plug the promised flood of questions. God had mercy. I thought of John's closing statement in John 21.25:

               Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them
               were written down, I suppose that even the whole world
               would not have room for the books that would be written.

I explained, "So you see, even four can't do it all. But four are enough to show us that God loves everyone of us."

"Even me?" asked sleepy-eyed Bryana Lee.

"Even you," I told my sleeping darling as I kissed her and left her to her dreams.

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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