Thursday, January 14, 2016

Is it Scripture or is it Shakespeare?

     Christian, know thy Bible well. We ought not to be quoting Shakespeare when we mean to quote Scripture. Use the following poem written by Mr. Shakespeare to find the sayings often attributed to our Bible. Compare these to the actual Scripture. Then, find the Scriptural principles expressed and list them with a good Scripture reference teaching the principle.

Summer, 2015
This Above All
Shakespeare

And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel,
but do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't, that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

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