Proclaimer Blog
Numbers, exciting numbers
I must get in a post about cricket. England have just whitewashed India, the number one test nation in the world, drubbing them 4-0 and gaining the number one spot themselves in the process.
Interested?
This will get you. Here are the series averages. To be honest, if it wasn't a work day, I would spend a good few hours going over these numbers. For example, did you know that KP scored an average of over 100 (106.60 to be precise) but his balls/100 rate was commendably low (good patience etc). And Broady picked up 25 at an average of 13.84 with an RPO of 2.24?
Still interested?
[Well, I don't understand the baseball averages either (though in fact they were devised by the same Englishman who invented the cricket scorecard).]
Numbers can be desperately boring….unless you're interested in them in which case they are delightfully, marvellously exciting and relevant. Believe it or not, US friends, we Brits can spend a whole evening talking about these things and still have room for more.
I'm studying the book of Numbers at the moment and many people who have read it will say that that the first few chapters are desperate, desperate, desperate. All those stats! All that counting! Count me out!
But no! Understand the context and the setting and then you can get excited about the numbers. Understand that only 70 people went up into Egypt (Exodus 1.5). Understand that the promise making God told Abraham about numerous descendants. Understand that this was still a rebellious people who should be wiped out.
Seen rightly, numbers are glorious.
Numbers, exciting numbers. Which means you can preach them too.