“And so you are actually priding yourself on being narrow!” He spoke almost angrily. It was annoying to have her so stubborn, so ignorant of modern ideas, so bound by these old traditions.
“No,” she said sadly. “Those are not my words. They are my Lord’s. I didn’t make them. I’m only telling you why I’m narrow, as you say.”
“Well, if you’d only go to a respectable church, and hear some really good teaching along intellectual lines I feel sure you are bright enough and open-minded enough to give up these silly, pharisaical ideas. They are really too egotistical for a sweet young girl like you.”
Joyce lifted her eyes sadly to his.
“You don’t understand because you can’t,” she said. “Your eyes are blinded. There are a great many people like that nowadays. I didn’t know it till I came away from Meadow Brook. I didn’t understand what the verse meant when it said that the natural man could not understand the things of the Spirit. Now I know. You can’t understand because you haven’t been born again.”
The young man made an impatient movement.
“Oh, I dislike that phrase. Please don’t use it. It’s so ridiculous to talk that way in this age of the world.”
“Jesus Christ used it,” said Joyce quietly.
“Well, it isn’t a thing to be talked about,” he said crossly. “How should you set up to say I’m not ‘born again’ as you say it?”
“Because you don’t understand. Because you can listen to a minister who doesn’t believe that Jesus died to shed His blood to wash away our sins. Because you can listen to a man who can dare to say that they called Jesus divine because they couldn’t think of any other word to use, and who said the blind man only thought he was blind, and Jesus just waked him up to open his eyes and use them. I heard him say all those things, and I can’t go and listen to him any more. It is dishonoring my Lord to hear him.”