Lord of the Rings<\/a>. This is an impressive feat given the presence of Gollum, orcs, and the Ringwraiths in the story. Maybe it\u2019s his obsequiousness, or the way he stays behind with the women and children, or the way his whispers are his weapon. All together, Grima is a revolting package. What\u2019s truly horrifying though, is that we\u2019ve all got a little Grima in us.<\/p>\n\u201cWHHHAAAATTT???\u201d you say.<\/p>\n
\u201cNEVER!\u201d you say.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot I!\u201d you say.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m torn between Star Wars and Shakespeare for a response. I think I\u2019ll go with both.<\/p>\n
Me thinks you doth protest too much. And, look inside yourself. You know it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n
Grima Wormtongue is the ignoble bane of King Th\u00e9oden of the Riders of the Mark. King Th\u00e9oden seems to be a weak old man, barely able to speak when readers first encounter him in the Lord of the Rings. This is the work of Grima Wormtongue. Like some incarnated devil on the shoulder, Grima is whispering evil into King Th\u00e9oden’s ear, and it is working.<\/p>\n
We all have our own Grima. It is called a couple different names in the Scriptures.\u00a0 In Romans 7:9 and onward, it is called simply \u201csin.\u201d Then, in Romans 8 we see \u201ccarnal mind,\u201d \u201cbody,\u201d and \u201cflesh.\u201d This is more poetic and is starting to fill in our picture. But, in Romans 6:6 and Colossians 3:9 it is called \u201cthe old man.\u201d This gives us an even better image of what we are up against. This sin, this flesh, this old man has a personality and an animosity that is undeniable when we start to do battle with it. That is why Grima is such a good representation of it, intentionally so or not on Tolkien’s part.<\/p>\n
Grima uses just words to deceive Th\u00e9oden into believing himself weak, old, incapable of making a difference any longer in the world. We all have a similar voice inside of us. Gandalf rebukes Grima and causes him to fall as if dead. If you are a Christian, this has already happened to your little Grima. Christ\u2019s death on the cross caused our old man to be crucified and killed. But, that isn\u2019t the end of the story.<\/p>\n
Once our personal Grima has been knocked down, it may play dead for awhile. It may act defeated. But, it is lying in wait for us. It is seeking an opportune time to pick up its head, and begin to whisper again in our ear. We must not listen! Repent, turn away from Grima and listen to him no more. Be Th\u00e9oden, King of the Mark. Mount your steed, ready your spear and your banners, and ride forth to do battle with the forces of the Dark Lord. God calls you, Christian. Can you hear Him over the whispers?<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Thomas Davidsmeier is the author of Blessings and Trials<\/em><\/a>, now available from Wisecraft Publishing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Article by Thomas Davidsmeier We\u2019ve all got a little Grima in us… Grima Wormtongue is the most repulsive of JRR Tolkien\u2019s characters in the Lord of the Rings. This is an impressive feat given the presence of Gollum, orcs, and the Ringwraiths in the story. Maybe it\u2019s his obsequiousness, or the way he stays behind…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[21,19,20,13],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speculation","tag-blessings-and-trials","tag-grima-wormtongue","tag-thomas-davidsmeier","tag-tolkien"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/inklings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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