It is one of those movie lines that seems to express so much. The ingenue Renee Zellweger is so impressed by the dashing hero Tom Cruise that she completely ignores all of his wordy speech and informs him he doesn’t really need to say anything else. She is already smitten.
“You had me at hello” is one of the two great quotes from that movie, Jerry Maguire. The other one is “Show me the money.” The latter was more popular early on, but it has not endured. However, “You had me at hello,” has, in a way of speaking, stood the test of time. Here’s looking at you kid. But as time goes by, we’ve all realized, I hope, just how bad a movie Jerry Maguire really was.
By the way, it is hard to believe that Jerry Maguire came out in 1996. Man I’m getting old, but I still haven’t forgiven Zellweger for Bridget Jones, and I never will.
Now to the point. Yesterday, the preacher had me at the preaching equivalent of “hello.”
Let me set the context. It was our second visit to this church in our ongoing journey to find a church home after our relocation. The pastor preached essentially a doctrinal sermon about the Scriptures and their importance. His homiletical hello was to open with a quote from the Baptist Faith and Message–1963! That’s right, 1963 baby!
The 1963 Baptist Faith and Message is the older statement of faith used by Southern Baptists to outline our essentials. It matters to people like me that he quoted from the 1963 because in the year of our Lord 2000 a newer, and in my view, less meaningful, less accurate, and less tolerant version was adopted. It was nowhere near as dignified as the 1963 version which was put together by the last great Southern Baptist statesman, Herschel Hobbs.
The best line in it is the description of the Bible as a perfect treasure. I love that. The citation below is the 1963 article on the Scriptures and it comes from sbcnet. It is part of a comparison of the original 1925 version, the blessed 1963, and the troublesome 2000 versions.
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. It reveals the principles by which God judges us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.
Ex. 24:4; Deut. 4:1-2; 17:19; Josh. 8:34; Psalms 19:7-10; 119:11,89,105,140; Isa. 34:16; 40:8; Jer. 15:16; 36; Matt. 5:17-18; 22:29; Luke 21:33; 24:44-46; John 5:39; 16:13-15; 17:17; Acts 2:16ff.; 17:11; Rom. 15:4; 16:25-26; 2 Tim. 3:15-17; Heb. 1:1-2; 4:12; 1 Peter 1:25; 2 Peter 1:19-21.
It brings a tear to my eye.
**special note**
Allow me to take a moment to pat myself on the back. This is my 300th WordPress blog. Back in the dark ages I blogged on Myspace, but those are lost to archaeology now. I’ve been at this on WordPress since the fall of 2010, so I am averaging about 2 posts a week. I intend to keep it up, even as most of my thoughts move toward my short stories and (he crosses his fingers) my upcoming novel release. Thanks to all of you for reading and participating in the comments. It really does add a great deal to my life. Peace be upon us all.