Once I had my high school students read The Most Dangerous Game, a short story by Richard Connell. Rainsford, the main character, is a professional hunter traveling by ship to his next hunting area, accidentally ends up in an island called Ship- Trap island. When he goes into the island he finds there are two men living in a palace in the island. One of them is a Cossack general and the other, his brutish servant. The Cossack is called general Zaroff who is also a game hunter but has become bored of hunting regular game and now uses the island's unique position to capture sailors from shipwrecks. He lets them go first and next after some time he hunts them down. Rainford's arrival who is worldwide famous presents Zaroff with a rare opportunity to find excitement in hunting again by hunting another hunter. Little does Zaroff know that Rainsford is The Most Dangerous Game in the World and hunting him will not be easy at all. My students enjoyed themselves at reading...
Perhaps one of the most intelligent, and also fervent, apostles was Paul. Said to have been an enemy of the ancient Christians, he changed when the recently resurrected Jesus himself appeared before him, encounter that left him blind for three days and with a different mindset forever. He used to be called Saul and apparently a Roman citizen. In order to spread the gospel he traveled to Rome in a time when Christians were prosecuted. Still he managed to preach in the heart of the Roman empire and say the following words to people that were warrior-like and a bit bloodthirsty but apparently also very religious: "Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands." ( Acts 17:24). What Paul meant was a an altar that existed in the city of Rome which was dedicated to the Unknown God. The Romans listened to Paul because they wouldn´t want to offend that god they didn´t know. This only proves that you can't do things without having a certain knowledege of the field you´re going to visit. Paul certainly knew what he was doing.
Comments