Interesting points from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader

So today i re-read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader again :) the thing that i loved about this series was that there were quite a few (sort of) biblical references being made throughout all the books.

In the chapter "How the adventure ended" where Eustace described how he transformed from a dragon back to a boy, it is mentioned that Aslan, the lion, brought Eustace to a well, and asked him to undress then "get in there and bathe". Eustace had no clothes on, but he soon understood that he was supposed to scratch and peel off his scaly dragon skin. All this+the bath was so that he would become a human again, that his flesh would be restored. Water is also often labeled as something we use to cleanse or clean ourselves with, even in the Bible, where Pontious Pilate, during Jesus's trial, washed his hands in front of the crowd when they demanded Jesus's death. This was to signify that he was innocent of Jesus's blood. This can be found in Matthew 27:24.

 This story (in my opinion) can be linked to the story of Naaman, found in 2 Kings 5. He was the commander of the king's army. Unfortunately, he was afflicted with leprosy. As we all know, leprosy is a very serious disease caused by a type of bacteria and one of the effects of having leprosy, is that your skin will  become scaly. God instructed Naaman, through Elisha, to bathe in the Jordan River 7 times, so that his "flesh would be restored and" he "would be cleansed."

Another biblical reference I believe has been made, would be when Eustace tries in vain to remove all his scaly skin. He peeled and peeled and peeled, but the skin was never completely removed. It was only when Aslan said "You will have to let me undress you" and Eustace agreed, that the skin finally came off and Eustace was restored to his normal human self. This section is possibly highlighting this bible verse, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." from Proverbs 3:5. By ourselves, we will never be able to accomplish anything, it is only with God's grace and his help that we will be able to carry out his good works. This passage also reminded me that God always wants to help us (well except when he's angry with us) because he loves us, but we will never get helped if we don't open our hearts to receive his love and help. Similarly, if Eustace didn't agree to Aslan's help, he would never have been restored to his human self.

Well all this are just my thoughts haha sorry if there are any mistakes (if there are pls do point out!!) and I hope that you have attained some new insight from this :)

God bless! ^^

9 Fascinating Facts about Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech

1. Originally, the speech was titled "Normalcy, Never Again" and was based on several drafts.
2. Dr. King didn't begin drafting his speech until 12 hours before he was scheduled to speak because of his hectic schedule. 3 people contributed to the content of the speech, Dr. King, Stanley Levinson and Clarence Jones.
3. According to co-author Jones, Dr. King dramatically departed from the original draft, essentially ad-libbing one of the world's greatest speeches.
4. As he was speaking, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson yelled to Dr. King: "Tell them about the dream Martin." From that point, Dr. King began punctuating his speech with the phrase, "I have a dream."
5. Many sections of the speech were originally delivered as part of a speech Dr. King gave in June 1963 after the Great Walk to Freedom in Detroit.
6. Because of the impact of the speech, Dr. King was named Time's Man of the Year for 1963 and received the Nobel Peace Prize a year later, becoming the youngest recipient.
7. The rhetorical technique of repeating a phrase at the beginning of a sentence is called anaphora. The famous phrase is repeated 8 times.
8. As Dr. King left the podium after the speech, he gave the copy of his speech to George Raveling, a Villanova basketball player and acting volunteer guard, who still has the typewritten text and has turned down a $3 million offer for the speech .
9. The speech is 1666 words long and took 16 minutes and 2 seconds to deliver.
From Reader's Digest
http://www.rdasia.com/10-facts-mlk-speech