Allen: the Gospel according to St. Paul

Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Meditation:
    As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ," he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.
    —Acts 17:2-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The first Epistle [to the Thessalonians] was written about a year after St. Paul’s first preaching in the city, where, according to Prof. [William] Ramsay’s calculation, he had laboured for only five months. Thus his stay had not been long enough for him to do more than teach the fundamental truths which seemed to him of the first importance: all the circumstances of his visit were still fresh in his memory and he was recalling to the minds of his readers what he had taught them by word of mouth. Now in that Epistle we get an extraordinarily clear and coherent scheme of simple mission-preaching not only implied but definitely expressed. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or ours?, London: World Dominion Press, 1927, reprinted, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1962, p. 68 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the simplicity of Your word persuades Your people.CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Price: a translator for all seasons

Tuesday, October 6, 2009
    Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536
Meditation:
    All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
    —2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [William Tyndale] was a master of a simple and forceful literary style. This, combined with exactness and breadth of scholarship, led him so to translate the Greek New Testament into English as largely to determine the character, form, and style of the Authorized Version. There have been some painstaking calculations to determine just how large a part Tyndale may have had in the production of the version of 1611. A comparison of Tyndale’s version of I John and that of the Authorized Version shows that nine-tenths of the latter is retained from the martyred translator’s work. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians retains five-sixths of Tyndale’s translation. These proportions are maintained throughout the entire New Testament. Such an influence as that upon the English Bible cannot be attributed to any other man in all the past.
    More than that, Tyndale set a standard for the English language that moulded in part the character and style of that tongue during the great Elizabethan era and all subsequent time. He gave the language fixity, volubleness, grace, beauty, simplicity, and directness. His influence as a man of letters was permanent on the style and literary taste of the English people, and of all who admire the superiority and epochal character of the literature of the sixteenth century.
    ... Ira Maurice Price (1856-1939), The Ancestry of Our English Bible, Philadelphia: The Sunday School Times Company, 1907, p. 245-246 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, there is no praise high enough for Your word.CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: which side are we on

Monday, October 5, 2009
Meditation:
    In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
    —1 Peter 1:6,7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If temptation were really what natural man and moral man understand by it, namely, testing of their own strength—whether their vital or their moral or even their Christian strength—in resistance, on the enemy, then it is true that Christ’s prayer would be incomprehensible. For that life is won only from death and the good only from the evil is a piece of thoroughly worldly knowledge which is not strange to the Christian. But all this has nothing to do with the temptation of which Christ speaks. It simply does not touch the reality which is meant here. The temptation of which the whole Bible speaks does not have to do with the testing of my strength, for it is of the very essence of temptation in the Bible that all my strength—to my horror, and without my being able to do anything about it—is turned against me; really all my powers, including my good and pious powers (the strength of my faith), fall into the hands of the enemy power and are now led into the field against me. Before there can be any testing of my powers, I have been robbed of them.
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Temptation, London: SCM Press, 1955, p. 9 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am helpless to resist temptation without You.CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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St. Francis: study your nature

Sunday, October 4, 2009
    Feast of Francis of Assisi, Friar, Deacon, Founder of the Friars Minor, 1226
Meditation:
    Just before dawn Paul urged them all to eat. “For the last fourteen days,” he said, “you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food—you haven’t eaten anything. Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.”
    —Acts 27:33-34 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Every one must study his own nature. Some of you can sustain life with less food than others can, and therefore I desire that he who needs more nourishment shall not be obliged to equal others, but that every one shall give his body what it needs for being an efficient servant of the soul. For as we are obliged to be on our guard against superfluous food which injures body and soul alike, thus we must be on the watch against immoderate fasting, and this the more, because the Lord wants conversion and not victims.
    ... St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), in Saint Francis of Assisi: a biography, Johannes Jørgensen, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912, p. 103 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to see the good things in life as Your provision.CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Stevenson: making people good?

Saturday, October 3, 2009
    Commemoration of William Morris, Artist, Writer, 1896
    Commemoration of George Kennedy Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker, 1958
Meditation:
    Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.
    —1 Corinthians 10:24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbors good. One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy—if I may.
    ... Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, v. XII, New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1922, p. 396 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, humble my heart to service.CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Rutherford: an idol of will

Friday, October 2, 2009
Meditation:
    But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
    Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
    “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
    —John 4:32 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Verily, we know not what an evil it is to indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will... Once I would make much ado, if I saw not the world carved and set in order to my liking; now I am silent, when I see God... is fattening and feeding the children of perdition. I pray God, I may never find my will again.
    ... Samuel Rutherford (1600-1664), Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Edinburgh: William Whyte & Co., 1848, letter, Feb. 20, 1637, p. 192 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my will is swallowed up in Yours.CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Therese of Lisieux: to know no fear

Thursday, October 1, 2009
    Commemoration of Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, Apostle of the Franks, 533
    Commemoration of Thérèse of Lisieux, Carmelite Nun, Spiritual Writer, 1897
Meditation:
    John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
    —Luke 3:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
To live of love, it is to know no fear;
    No memory of past faults can I recall;
No imprint of my sins remaineth here;
    The fire of Love divine effaces all.
O sacred flames! O furnace of delight!
    I sing my safe sweet happiness to prove.
In these mild fires I dwell by day, by night.
        I live of love!
    ... Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897), Poems of St. Teresa, Carmelite of Lisieux, Boston, Angel Guardian Press, 1907, “To Live of Love”, n. 6 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Send the fire of Your love into my heart, Lord!CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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