Walter Cronkite anchored the CBS Nightly News right through the heyday of network television. At the helm from 1962 to 1981, he narrated if not piloted a wide swath of the American public down the rough river of those 19 years. Civil rights, the Vietnam war, the arms race, assassinations (Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, among others) dominated this era. Not only was he capturing the minds of our nation in the tough times but by his enthusiasm for all things space took our country and the world to the moon and back.
Many other things could be said about the dance of America with her news anchors, but the thing which impressed me most about Cronkite was his doggedness for the facts. Before riding with network news through its coming of age Cronkite did so as a reporter, a “unipresser,” with the wire service United Press International (UPI). Stamped on his news psyche was their phrase, “Get it first, but FIRST, get it right.”
I am conflicted because I would like to get Ephesians taught, but to teach requires the uncovering of answers. The questions arise before me demanding answers. I cannot assemble the lesson from points of one plane and ignore the points which make up their foundation. Words that have eternal import must not be treated with any less care than UPI and Cronkite would treat world events. I think the shape or motto written in my mind is a little like the latter part of UPI’s phrase. Maybe it could go like this: “Teach it, but FIRST, get it right.”
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:3–ESV)
Heavenly places1 and spiritual blessings? Upon broaching this verse for this week’s lesson my first collision was, “What’s new here?” The second was personal, “How do I live with an awareness of these things?” Cronkite would have his pile of research behind his reporting. I have a pile of papers behind this teaching. I often take written notes as I work through what will become these lessons. This week the first four days of preparation produced probably twice my normal backgrounding. That, mind you, for the second half of verse 3. We may not be at Ephesians as long as Cronkite was at CBS, but it may seem like it.
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