For sometime we have been thinking about resurrecting “The Reflector” or publishing a similar paper. A
number of people who were on our mailing list when we edited the “The Reflector” as a bulletin of the
Fultondale (Alabama) church of Christ from August 1970 until the end of 1991, have told us that they would
like to see us publish such a paper again. Up until now, we have not attempted to do it because of the cost
and logistics of publication and distribution. Since we do not have the financial resources needed to
publish a hard copy version, which we would prefer, we decided to go with the second best by taking
advantage of the wide spread use of the internet and bring it back as an electronic publication.
“The Reflector” is far from a unique name. Just a quick google search will bring up multitudes of
newspapers, church and college publications using it as a title. Because of this we considered giving this
new effort a more unique name. But since many still remember our efforts in the old bulletin and since the
name, “The Reflector,” is obviously not the exclusive property of anyone, we have decided to go ahead and
call the new publication by the same name.
Why are we embarking on this effort? We are not under any delusion that what we might say or write will
have any great impact on the church either present or future. So, we are not undertaking this renewed
effort with the notion that brethren cannot afford to be without our writings. We just hope that we can
help to remind our brothers and sisters in the Lord that the Bible and it alone has the answers to our many
“brotherhood” and local problems. We have been trying to do this all of our preaching life and as we grow
ever more closely to the end of our earthly pilgrimage we feel an even greater urgency to be doing this as
long as we are “in this tabernacle.”
Since 1991 when we ceased publication of the old Reflector, several issues have been added to the list of
issues that were already bothering those who profess to be following the New Testament pattern. These
issues need to be addressed.
Over the past several years much of the preaching coming from our pulpits both in weekly services and
gospel meetings leaves a lot to be desired – not so much in style as in substance. Rather than “reason(ing)
with them from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:2), and challenging the hearers to look at the scriptures with
them, too many sermons(?) are filled with pop psychology, quotations from denominational writers, cheer
leader type hype, and emotional manipulation. We want to encourage any that we can to reverse this trend
and get back to Paul’s charge to Timothy – “preach the word.”
We want to do all we can to encourage young men coming along who desire to preach to examine themselves as
to why they want to preach. Is it because they want a “professional career” or is it because they have a
burning desire to point lost souls to salvation and to build the saved up in the faith? If the later, they
need to realize that only the gospel that the Apostles preached can save souls (Rom. 1:16; Gal. 1:8,9) and
that only the “word of his grace ... is able to build” the saved up and “give (them) an inheritance among
them which are sanctified.” (Acts 20:32). Presenting lessons that will accomplish this will require men who
are willing to spend much time in study and preparation of the kind of lessons that will help accomplish
these goals. If they can get brethren to financially support them as they do this, well and good, if not
they will still do it as time and opportunity will allow them. We hope that we can use this medium to
encourage young men to think more along these lines.
There are some brethren closer to our age that we feel may be suffering from “battle fatigue” and have all
but thrown in the towel and decided that the best way to go is to ignore controversial matters or at least
push them to the back burner and spend most, if not all, their efforts in making brethren feel good about
themselves. We hope that we can somehow in some small way rekindle the militant fire that was once within
these brethren.
Lest someone get the idea that we should have named this new publication “The War Bonnet,” we want to make
it clear that we recognize that we cannot be built up by just fighting the wrongs among us, but that we
must balance that with positive material from the scriptures. We hope to do both.
We are not like one of whom it was said that “if he could find any material that he thought better than his
own, he would publish it in his paper.” We will welcome short articles from brethren on about any religious
subject – even those with whom we do not agree. We will likely publish a reply to that with which we
disagree. We still believe that truth has nothing to fear from investigation. We are not interested in
“wrangling” with anyone, but we are interested in contending for the faith. That we will do to the best of
our ability. Of course, we reserve the right to decline publishing anything that we feel is not in keeping
with the size and purpose of this small publication or is not in the best interest of furthering the
truth.
For all the above reasons, we launch this renewed effort with fear and trembling and with the belief that
most brethren want to do what is right and will do the right thing when it is pointed out to them from the
scriptures.
We are using the PDF format because of the ease with which it can be formatted as close to “The Reflector”
of old as possible. It will be easy to retrieve it from our website and print it out as a four page
document and pass it on to anyone that our readers think it would benefit.
Pray for us.
edbragwell@gmail.com
