
New Beginnings Baptist Church

Audio Only
Center of The Universe
Speaker: Michael Stark
Richard Mouw served as the President of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California for twenty years. He tells of the first time he and his wife attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. He wrote, “It is always an exciting event. We were sitting at a table near the front of the large banquet hall, and we had a great view of the impressive line-up at the head table on the platform: the Bushes, the Quayles, General Colin Powell, members of Congress, and others.
“I was seated next to a young Muslim,” he wrote, “a diplomat from one of the Middle Eastern embassies. In our brief conversation, I asked him how long he had been in Washington. ‘Less than a year,’ was his answer. I asked him what it was like for him to live and work in our nation's capital. He smiled. ‘We're not supposed to say this kind of thing, but this is a wonderful place to be.’ And then he added a comment, gesturing toward the platform as he said it: ‘Washington is the centre of the universe.’”
Mouw then concluded by writing, “There wasn't time to continue the conversation, so I did not have a chance to tell him about my map of the universe. It is described in the first chapter of Colossians.” [3] The passage Mouw cited reads, “By [Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” [COLOSSIANS 1:16-17].