SHOT FROM GUNS
SEEDA SUDO NIM, Ph.D.

Editor’s Note: For the time being at least this able and well known Church of Christ leader chooses to remain anonymous, so he is assuming a nom de plume. You may expect more from him. We will only say that he is indeed a Ph.D., if that means anything.

While I was visiting recently with a beloved and well. known Far Eastern missionary, a man famous for his benevolent spirit and magnanimity, I was obliged to excuse my host for a few moments, inasmuch as he desired to fix us a lemonade (he called it a “Singapore Citrus”), the flaming orb of heaven being at its zenith. Awaiting the good man’s repast my eyes chanced to light on his venerable Bible, frayed at the edges from long and consecrated usage. To my astonishment I discovered that one of the pages from the Gospel of Matthew had been torn Out, or perhaps it had literally fallen away from ceaseless turning, and a new page had been inserted. The altered Matthew text, which I found myself reading, sent my senses reeling (had the good missionary written it in the grip of some unaccountably demonic impulse? had Satan himself placed it there?), and I reproduce it here below for the instruction, and, more likely, the bewilderment, of those more qualified than I to judge:

As they reached the coast of Caesarea Philippi, the Master took hold of Irascible Rice’s hand and said unto him, “Upon this rock I will build my church!”

“Upon me, Lord? But, Lord, I am a vain man, I suffer from a severe case of megalomania, I am carnal-minded, envious in the extreme, and constitutionally misanthropic. Not only that, but I think of my-self as the grand inquisitor, I have a persecution complex, and I am glibly ignorant.”

“This testimony is true,” said the Master. “Nevertheless, I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom. Here, take them.”

“Oh, thank you, Lord,” said Irascible, delightedly. “I’d rather have these than anything!”

“And I say unto thee that thy name is no longer Irascible, but henceforth thy name shall be called Firey. Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whomsoever thou shalt proscribe on earth shall be proscribed in heaven.”

“Boy, oh, boy!,” said Firey Rice, gleefully. “Do you really mean it, Lord?”

“Of course, I do,” replied the Master, benignly.

“Well, in that case, Lord,” responded Firey Rice, somewhat sternly, as he reached into his tunic and drew forth a parchment, “in that case, fill out this questionaire.” Firey had whipped out a questionnaire with what looked to be one hundred or so questions on it.

“Fill out what!?”

“Fill out this questionnaire and be quick about it. It seems to me you’re a little soft on (1) keeping the Sabbath day holy, (2) total abstinence, (3) people who cast out demons without using your name, and (4) Samaritanism.”

“Once again,” said the Master, sadly, “I change your name. From henceforth you shall be called Puft. As long as you live and even after you die, men shall call you Puft. Whenever men of good will shall gather they shall refer to you as Puft Rice.”

“Maybe so,” retorted Puft Rice, undismayed, “but, just the same, fill out that questionnaire. I’m gathering material for my new book called Burning Down The Forest.”

Note: Seeda Sudo Nim is the minister of the church in Holdenville, South Dakota. He left Korea during the war and received most of his education in the states. He attended Freed-Hardeman, Harding, David Lipscomb and Abilene Christian College and he holds the Ph.D. degree from Paris’ famed Wellington University. The subject of brother Nim’s dissertation was “The Effect of the Far Eastern Sun on Occidental Visitors and an Explanation of the Resultant Overcompensation of the Comic Capacity in Occasional Albeit Spectacular Instances.” Brother Nim specializes in bucolic stories such as the foregoing. His stories are obviously fanciful and have no basis in fact or actual events or real people. “I only write,” he has said on numerous occasions, “in order to distract people from the hustle and bustle of this modern age.”