A wee glimpse of one of my bookshelves; then a second glimpse into the work ethic of one of my favourite New Testament scholars of a past generation.
Vincent Taylor's trilogy Jesus and His Sacrifice, Atonement in New Testament Teaching, and Forgiveness and Reconciliation, still sit on one of my theological classics shelves, alongside:
- H R Mackintosh The Christian Experience of Forgiveness,
- Emil Brunner, The Mediator,
- James Denney, The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation,
- P T Forsyth, The Work of Christ,
- A B Bruce The Humiliation of Christ,
- D M Baillie God Was in Christ.
Now, Vincent Taylor's work ethic. His magnum opus was his monumental commentary The Gospel According to St Mark. He was often asked how he managed to complete the massive task of writing a commentary of just under 700 pages, mostly double column small font. The answer is a lesson in industry, and in the cumulative effects of small goals regularly met:
"Taylor had a firm belief in the principle that a regular accumulation of small drops will eventually-and more quickly than is often supposed-fill a vessel of considerable size. During the ten years he devoted to the production of his monumental Commentary on St. Mark’s Gospel, his aim was to complete ’ one quarto page
per day ’-and seldom did he fail to do so (later, upon his retirement, Dr. Taylor applied a similar method to the task of shifting fifty tons of soil from the front gate to the back garden of his bungalow at St. Annes-on-Sea !) (Expository Times, vol. 75, Issue 6, page 164)
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