Blogging in Christ — Issue 3

The Storehouse

Every writer who stays at the work long discovers the same need. The text he read last month has slipped. The question he could not answer last year has returned, unchanged. He begins again from nothing, as though nothing had been given. The loss is not a failure of memory alone. It is a failure of keeping.

The Lord gives the scribe another picture. "Therefore every scribe who has been made a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a householder, who brings out of his treasure new and old things." (Matt 13:52) Mark the order. The treasure comes first, and the bringing out comes second. The scribe does not invent at the moment of speaking. He draws out what was already laid up. The new and the old stand together in one storehouse, because both have been kept.

Therefore the first work of the writer is not production. It is keeping. "Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul." (Deut 11:18) Laying up is deliberate work. A word heard and left lying where it fell is not laid up. A word written down, pondered, and set in its place is. Mary shows the manner of it. "But Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart." (Luke 2:19) Keeping without pondering is filing. Pondering without keeping is dreaming. The storehouse joins them: the saying is kept so that it can be pondered, and pondered so that it can be drawn out true when its hour comes.

That is why the storehouse governs the speech. "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings out that which is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings out that which is evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:45) A man brings out only what is in him. If the storehouse holds scraps and half-remembered phrases, the page will bring out scraps and half-remembered phrases. The writer's pen is not a tap that creates water. It is a door into a room already stocked. Attend to the room, and the door will not be empty when it opens.

So the writer must choose what treasure he lays up, for the treasure chooses the heart. "Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don’t break through and steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matt 6:19-21) A storehouse of clever lines and other men's applause is earthly treasure, and moth and rust are already at work in it. A storehouse of texts, kept in their own words and in their own order, does not decay when fashion changes, because it was never fashion's property.

What, then, goes into the storehouse? Everything the work hands him, kept in plain form. The text that struck him, copied whole, not summarized into a slogan. The question he cannot yet answer, written exactly as it stands, not softened into an answer he does not have. The correction he received, kept with the passage that corrected him. The passage that contradicts his draft, kept beside the draft rather than hidden from it. "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." (Ps 119:11) Hiding here is not concealment from others. It is safekeeping within. The word is put where the writer lives, so that it meets him before his pen moves.

Yet keeping is not hoarding, and the distinction matters. Israel in the wilderness was commanded to gather, and commanded not to stockpile. "Behold, I will rain bread from the sky for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not." (Ex 16:4) They gathered according to their eating, and Moses commanded them: "Let no one leave of it until the morning." (Ex 16:19) What was kept past its use bred worms and became foul. The storehouse, then, is not a vault for control. It is a pantry for use. The test is simple: does the keeping serve a future table, or does it serve the keeper's sense of possession?

Joseph's storehouses show the other side of the same truth. "Joseph laid up grain as the sand of the sea, very much, until he stopped counting, for it was without number." (Gen 41:49) He stored for a famine he did not yet see. But the grain was not stored to be admired. It was stored to be given out when the years of hunger came. A storehouse that never opens is not stewardship. It is a tomb. The writer keeps for the same reason: because a day will come when the household needs what was gathered in the years of plenty.

For the drawing out has its own time, and the steward does not set it. "Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his lord will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the right times?" (Luke 12:42) The portion, and the time, both belong to the lord of the house. The steward's part is to have the portion ready and to give it when the time comes. A writer who empties his whole storehouse into every piece has mistaken abundance for faithfulness. A writer who will not open the storehouse at all has mistaken caution for faithfulness. Some notes will wait years. Some will never be used. Their keeping was still faithful, because the steward does not decide worth by use alone.

That faithfulness is the whole requirement. "Here, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful." (1 Cor 4:2) Not brilliant, not prolific, not original. Faithful. Faithful in copying the text exactly, rather than improving it from memory. Faithful in keeping the question open, rather than closing it with an invention. "That good thing which was committed to you, guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us." (2 Tim 1:14) The good thing was committed, not created, and it is guarded, not owned. The writer is a steward of a deposit, and his task is to keep it unaltered until it is drawn out.

The Preacher shows what that keeping looks like as craft. "Further, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yes, he pondered, sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written blamelessly, words of truth." (Eccl 12:9-10) Pondered, sought out, set in order. Three verbs, and none of them is invented. He pondered what was given, sought out what was true, and set it in order so that another man could follow it. A heap is not a storehouse. A heap cannot be drawn from. Order is what turns keeping into readiness.

And readiness is always for service, never for display. "As each has received a gift, employ it in serving one another, as good managers of the grace of God in its various forms." (1 Pet 4:10) The storehouse is not a museum of the writer's reading. It is a pantry for the household. The text kept, the question kept, the correction kept — all of it is kept so that another man may be served from it in due season. That is why the writer writes his notes plainly. "Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he who runs may read it." (Hab 2:2) A note written plain can be handed over whole, years later, to a reader the writer never met.

Keep, then, as a steward keeps. Lay up the words in your heart and in your soul. Keep the sayings, and ponder them. Copy the text whole. Write the question exactly. Keep the correction beside the claim. Set the whole in order. Give the portion at the right time, and leave the rest kept for its hour. Do not hoard for possession, and do not scatter for display. The treasure was given before the bringing out began, and what the householder brings out, new and old, was never his to invent, only his to keep and to give.