Saturday Song: Nilsson, "Good Old Desk"

Harry Nilsson was one of rock music's genius talents. His voice ranged over five octaves and his lyrics were inventive. Though he never became overly famous, he influenced many artists during the years of his life.

One song I relate to is "Good Old Desk." Being a writer, I spend most of my days sitting at one of a trio of desks in my home.

Listen to the song here:

As far as I could find out, there are no desks mentioned in Holy Scripture. Even so, writing is something done by both people and God. Exodus 31:18 (BBE) tells us, "And when his talk with Moses on Mount Sinai was ended, he gave him the two stones of the law, two stones on which was the writing made by the finger of God."

The books which were written by people used to be in scroll form. Solomon himself mentioned them in Ecclesiastes 12:12 (BBE), saying, "And further, my son, take note of this: of the making of books there is no end, and much learning is a weariness to the flesh."

Various men became the Lord's writing team, putting into print the Word of God. As Daniel 9:1 and 2 (BBE) informs us, "In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldaeans; In the first year of his rule, I, Daniel, saw clearly from the books the number of years given by the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, in which the making waste of Jerusalem was to be complete, that is, seventy years."

The heavenly Father has his own set of books, as Revelation 20:12 (BBE) tells us. "And I saw the dead, great and small, taking their places before the high seat; and the books were open, and another book was open, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by the things which were in the books, even by their works."

Writing preserves the truth, as I've written before. Therefore we can test and trust the Bible. Oral tradition becomes distorted as folks add to it or omit things they don't like from it. But the written word stands firm.

On Monday, I hope to post about why Adam and Eve didn't die immediately when they ate the forbidden fruit.