Et Cetera – “a number of unspecified additional persons or things.” Could those unspecified “things” be stories, ideas. experiences, et cetera? It suggests that more could be said but there isn’t time or space. More people could be mentioned but I will skip over them now.
The use of the word suggests to me several challenges:
- There isn’t enough room to complete the list
- There isn’t enough time to compile the list
- The list of people or things is not nearly as important as what has already been listed
Those items or people included in “et cetera” are easily dismissed because they aren’t named. Yet they are important. If they had no value, there would not be the need for the “et cetera.” Another way of looking at the word et cetera, (really two words) is that the story is too big or the stories are too numerous. In other words, the story being told is just the tip of the iceberg of what could be told.
The Apostle John wrote an “et cetera paragraph” at the end of the Gospel account He authored. “Jesus did many other things as well. If everyone of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” - John 21:25
We have 21 chapters of amazing stories – accounts of miracles, teaching, enduring, dying and coming back to life. Those stories are just the tip of the iceberg of what could be said. There is more in the “et cetera” than in the written pages.
I sometimes wish more pages had been written. But the book was written to give us a taste so that we desire more of the Central Figure of the book than just additional stories. In some cases, “et cetera” is the easy way out- a way of saying, “I don’t want to bore you with additional details. It is the conclusion. John 21:25 is the invitation to explore more. It is not the end but the beginning.
In fact the story is still unfolding as Christ works in lives – stories of marriages being restored; grace being received to walk with unpredictable disease; peace in the loss of a job; ET CETERA!
