Ministering spirits

From approximately 31 to 40 minutes, Corrie ten Boom tells four stories about angels. The second story is reminiscent of 2 Kgs 6:17. Admittedly I'm more skeptical about her third story. Her fourth story is intriguing.

Diet Eman

Like Corrie ten Boom, Diet Eman is a Dutch Christian who helped Jews and resisted the Nazis during World War II. She's also honored as a "righteous gentile" by Israel. Her testimony about her time in the war is edifying to listen to and it likewise holds lessons for us today. In the end, in life or death, the only certainty is God with us if we are his.

Family ten Boom

(The ten Boom family in 1895. Top row: Cor (mother), Casper (father), family friend. Middle row: Aunt Jans, Aunt Bep, Aunt Anna. Bottom row: Willem, Corrie, Nollie, and Betsie. Betsie was the eldest child, Willem second, Nollie third, and Corrie the youngest.)

1. It seems to me the ten Boom family had many faithful Christians (Dutch Reformed) across several generations. At least as far back as the early 1800s. Apparently they were always poor watchmakers but everyone in their community knew and respected them.

Their home was always open. They held Bible studies and prayer meetings in their home. They always welcomed guests. They always contributed to their community (e.g. lending what money they had). Not only to help Jews, but also others like missionaries and their kids (e.g. missionaries from the Dutch East Indies aka modern Indonesia).

In this respect Corrie ten Boom wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary in helping Jews since her family had always been doing the same for generations. In fact, though Corrie was most famous (because she lived to tell the tale), her other immediate family members seemed to have done more than Corrie did during the war. Today Corrie, her sister Betsie, and her father Casper are honored as "the righteous among the nations" by Israel. Yad Vashem is Israel's official Shoah (Holocaust) museum to honor the deceased; Yad Vashem honors the ten Boom family too.

2. However, from what I can tell, World War II effectively wiped out most if not all the ten Boom family (e.g. Corrie's father Casper died 10 days into his imprisonment in Scheveningen prison, Corrie's eldest sister Betsie died in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944). The few that survived the war died soon after (e.g. Corrie's brother Wilhem who was a pastor died in 1946 from an infectious disease he contracted in a concentration camp), never married or had kids (e.g. Corrie ten Boom), or their kids were never heard from again (e.g. Corrie's nephew was never seen again and most likely died in a concentration camp).

3. Sometimes Christians can be utterly faithful and committed to God, but it doesn't necessarily end well for them. Their branch is cut off from the tree. Indeed their family ends precisely because they were faithful.

4. That stands in stark contrast to professing Christians today who have a mindset that God is always going to bless them in terms of material success. As if a relationship with God is a quid pro quo relationship.

5. It likewise stands in stark contrast to those who prosper because of their wickedness. Consider Psalm 73.

6. I suppose that's one reason why biblical wisdom literature includes both the book of Proverbs as well as the book of Ecclesiastes. To (over?)simplify, Proverbs is about the general moral norms of life, while Ecclesiastes is about the hard cases in life. It's one thing to walk on a clear and bright day, but it's another to walk when the sunlight has dimmed, when the shadows creep in, when the darkness envelops.

Corrie ten Boom

Below are some random tidbits associated with Corrie ten Boom.

First a disclaimer:

All this is based on what Corrie ten Boom has claimed in interviews and books. However I can't vouch for all her claims. I haven't studied her life in any depth. I've only watched some of her interviews and read some of her material.

As such, it's possible these facts are incorrect. If so, I doubt she was intentionally attempting to deceive or lie, but it's possible she misperceived events or the like.

For example, I think Corrie has often told a story about seeing a Nazi prison guard at a post-war evangelistic meeting. She hated him for how he treated her and her older sister Betsie in their concentration camp. However she ended up forgiving him after he had asked for her forgiveness in light of becoming a Christian. At the same time, starting at approximately 51:30 in this video, Corrie tells what appears to be an almost identical story except it's a female nurse. To be fair, perhaps this truly happened to her with two different people on two different occasions.

Also, though Corrie was Dutch Reformed, she wasn't a theologian. In fact, as far as I know, she wasn't ever formally educated beyond secondary school, though apparently she did become the first female watchmaker in the Netherlands.

And she may have held theological beliefs I don't agree with (e.g. I've read she was premil).

All that said, and in no particular order:

The Davitamon bottle

(Left to right: Betsie ten Boom, Nollie ten Boom, Corrie ten Boom c. 1905.)

Here is an excerpt from Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place. The book is in part about her time in a concentration camp during World War II. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Reformed Christian who helped hide Jews during the war, but was eventually caught and imprisoned by the Nazis, along with most the rest of her family including her older sister Betsie ten Boom.

---

Another strange thing was happening. The Davitamon bottle was continuing to produce drops. It scarcely seemed possible, so small a bottle, so many doses a day. Now, in addition to Betsie, a dozen others on our pier were taking it.

My instinct was always to hoard it-Betsie was growing so very weak! But others were ill as well. It was hard to say no to eyes that burned with fever, hands that shook with chill. I tried to save it for the very weakest-but even these soon numbered fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. . . .

And still, every time I tilted the little bottle, a drop appeared at the top of the glass stopper. It just couldn’t be! I held it up to the light, trying to see how much was left, but the dark brown glass was too thick to see through.

"There was a woman in the Bible," Betsie said, "whose oil jar was never empty." She turned to it in the Book of Kings, the story of the poor widow of Zarephath who gave Elijah a room in her home: "The jar of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of Jehovah which he spoke by Elijah."

Well-but-wonderful things happened all through the Bible. It was one thing to believe that such things were possible thousands of years ago, another to have it happen now, to us, this very day. And yet it happened, this day, and the next, and the next, until an awed little group of spectators stood around watching the drops fall onto the daily rations of bread.

Many nights I lay awake in the shower of straw dust from the mattress above, trying to fathom the marvel of supply lavished upon us. "Maybe," I whispered to Betsie, "only a molecule or two really gets through that little pinhole-and then in the air it expands!"

I heard her soft laughter in the dark. "Don’t try too hard to explain it, Corrie. Just accept it as a surprise from a Father who loves you."

And then one day Mien pushed her way to us in the evening food line. "Look what I’ve got for you!"

Mien was a pretty young Dutch woman we had met in Vught. She was assigned to the hospital and often managed to bring to Barracks 28 some stolen treasure from the staff room-a sheet of newspaper to stuff in a broken window, a slice of bread left untouched on a nurse’s plate. Now we peered into the small cloth sack she carried.

"Vitamins!" I cried, and then cast an apprehensive glance at a camp policeman nearby. "Yeast compound!" I whispered.

"Yes!" she hissed back. "There were several huge jars. I emptied each just the same amount."

We gulped the thin turnip water, marveling at our sudden riches. Back at the bunk I took the bottle from the straw. "We’ll finish the drops first," I decided.

But that night, no matter how long I held it upside down, or how hard I shook it, not another drop appeared.