CQOD: 05/06/06 -- Newbigin: true history

Christian Quotation of the Day

May 6, 2006Meditation:
    In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
    -- Ephesians 1:7-10 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    What is the relation of a secular, this-worldly unification of mankind to the biblical promise of the summing up of all things in Christ? Is it a total contradiction of it? Is it some sort of a reflection of it? or perhaps a devil’s parody of it? Or has it nothing to do with it at all? Perhaps there will be many Christians to whom it would not occur to pose the question whether the process of secularization has anything to do with the biblical understanding of the goal of history. The Bible, for them, belongs to a religious world which is not admitted to belong to the world of secular events—the world in which we are when we read the daily newspaper. But this is to read the Bible wrongly. Whatever else it may be, the Bible is a secular book dealing with the sort of events which a news editor accepts for publication in a daily newspaper; it is concerned with secular events, wars, revolutions, enslavements and liberations, migrants and refugees, famines and epidemics and all the rest. It deals with events which happened and tells a story which can be checked. We miss this because we do not sufficiently treat the Bible as a whole. When we do this, we see at once that the Bible—whatever be the variety of material which it contains: poetry, prayers, legislation, genealogy, and all the rest—is in its main design a universal history. It is an interpretation of human history as a whole, beginning with the saga of creation and ending with a vision of the gathering together of all the nations and the consummation of God’s purpose for mankind. The Bible is an outline of world history.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), Honest Religion for Secular Man [1966]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I believe You, and I know that Your will shall prevail in all things.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 05/05/06 -- Clark: the school of happiness

Christian Quotation of the Day

May 5, 2006Meditation:
    The LORD is good to all,
        and his mercy is over all that he has made.
    -- Psalm 145:9 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Among Christians so much prominence has been given to the disciplinary effects of sorrow, affliction, bereavement, that they have been in danger of overlooking the other and more obvious side: that by every joy, by every favor, by every sign of prosperity—yea, and by these chiefly—God designs to educate and discipline His children. This one-sided view of the truth has made many morbid, gloomy Christians, who look for God’s hand only in the lightning and never think of seeing it in the sunlight.
    ... F. E. Clark (1851-1927)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, as You cause me to be sorrowful for my sins, You fill my heart with gladness at my salvation.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 05/04/06 -- Law: the dwelling of God's Spirit

Christian Quotation of the Day

May 4, 2006

Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation

Meditation:
    Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
    -- Romans 12:21 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    If it be the earnest desire, and longing of your heart, to be merciful as he is merciful; to be full of his unwearied patience, to dwell in his unalterable meekness; if you long to be like him in universal, impartial love; if you desire to communicate every good, to every creature that you are able; if you love and practice everything that is good, righteous, and lovely, for its own sake, because it is good, righteous, and lovely; and resist no evil, but with goodness; then you have the utmost certainty, that the Spirit of God lives, dwells, and governs in you.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), The Spirit of Prayer, 2.3-67 [1749]

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your goodness is better and stronger than any evil.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 05/03/06 -- Tillotson: dealing with other's faults

Christian Quotation of the Day

May 3, 2006Meditation:
    But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you...
    -- Luke 6:27 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    He is not a good Christian who is not heartily sorry for the faults even of his greatest enemies. And if he will be so, he will lay them bare no further than is necessary to some good end.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grow pity in my heart for my enemies and Yours.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 05/02/06 -- St. Athanasius: teaching the One Word

Christian Quotation of the Day

May 2, 2006

Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373

Meditation:
    For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
    -- Luke 19:10 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Human and human-minded as men were, therefore, to whichever side they looked in the sensible world, they found themselves taught the truth. Were they awe-stricken by creation? They beheld it confessing Christ as Lord. Did their minds tend to regard men as gods? The uniqueness of the Savior’s works marked Him, alone of men, as Son of God. Were they drawn to evil spirits? They saw them driven out by the Lord, and learned that the Word of God alone was God and that the evil spirits were not gods at all. Were they inclined to hero-worship and the cult of the dead? Then the fact that the Savior had risen from the dead showed them how false these other deities were, and that the Word of the Father is the one true Lord, the Lord even of death. For this reason was He both born and manifested as Man, for this He died and rose, in order that, eclipsing by His works all other human deeds, He might recall man from all the paths of error to know the Father. As He says Himself, “I came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
    ... St. Athanasius (293?-373), The Incarnation of the Word of God

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Quiet time reflection:
    Your Word alone, Lord, leads me.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 05/01/06 -- St. Athanasius: God's solution

Christian Quotation of the Day

May 1, 2006

Feast of Philip & James, Apostles

Meditation:
    Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
    -- Romans 1:22-23 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    What was God to do in the face of the dehumanizing of mankind—this universal hiding of the knowledge of Himself? So burdened were men with their wickedness that they seemed rather to be brute beasts than reasonable men, reflecting the very likeness of the Word. What, then, was God to do? What else could He possibly do, being God, but renew His Image in mankind, so that through it men might once more come to know Him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Savior Jesus Christ?... Men had turned from the contemplation of God above, and were looking for Him in two opposite directions, down among created things, and things of sense. The Savior of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, meeting their senses, so to speak, half-way. He became Himself an object for the senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... St. Athanasius (293?-373), The Incarnation of the Word of God

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Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, our people have abandoned You for gods of our own making.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 04/30/06 -- Augustine: whose is truth?

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 30, 2006

Commemoration of Pandita Mary Ramabai, Translator of the Scriptures, 1922

Meditation:
    ... to [false brothers] we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
    -- Galatians 2:5 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    The truth is neither mine nor his nor another’s; but belongs to us all whom Thou callest to partake of it, warning us terribly, not to account it private to ourselves, lest we be deprived of it.
    ... St. Augustine (354-430)

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Quiet time reflection:
    Praise be to You, Lord, for Your truth that illuminates Your church.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
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CQOD: 04/29/06 -- MacDonald: destruction of the spiritual nature

Christian Quotation of the Day

April 29, 2006

Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380

Meditation:
    For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
    -- 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905)

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Quiet time reflection:
    My selfishness destroys my witness.

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2004
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

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CQOD Compilation Copyright 2006, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
CQOD Home Page:    http://www.cqod.com/
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Comments and problems: email to curator@gospelcom.net