A major theological idea that undergirded Frank Boreham’s communication was Boreham’s view that theology was seeing something more in ‘ordinary’ things.He revealed an important insight into his role of encouraging his readers to see beyond the surface of things and experiences when he noted, “The papers that I have written possess no value or importance of their own; but they point to things that no man can afford to miss: that is their only glory.” Boreham went on to link the origin of the ‘pointer’ image to his experience on an ocean voyage, when someone exclaimed, “There are the pointers of the Southern Cross.”[1]
Although, many years later, Archbishop Donald Coggan used the image of a ‘pointer’ as a metaphor for preaching, Boreham drew his analogy from the nocturnal vistas with which his readers would have been familiar—the southern skies.[2]
Geoff Pound
Image: Pointers to the Southern Cross.
[1] F W Boreham, The crystal pointers, 8.
[2] Donald Coggan, Preaching: The sacrament of the word (New York: Crossroad, 1988), 109-110.