Saturday, October 17, 2009

Packer: heralds of the Sovereign

Saturday, October 17, 2009
    Feast of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyr, c.107
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
    —John 10:27-29 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is abroad today a widespread suspicion that a robust faith in the absolute sovereignty of God is bound to undermine any adequate sense of human responsibility. Such a faith is thought to be dangerous to spiritual health because it breeds a habit of complacent inertia. In particular, it is thought to paralyse evangelism by robbing one both of the motive to evangelize and of the message to evangelize with. The supposition seems to be that you cannot evangelize effectively unless you are prepared to pretend while you are doing it, that the doctrine of divine sovereignty is not true. I shall try to make it evident that this is nonsense. I shall try to show further that, so far from inhibiting evangelism, faith in the sovereignty of God’s government and grace is the only thing that can sustain it, for it is the only thing that can give us the resilience that we need if we are to evangelize boldly and persistently, and not be daunted by temporary setbacks. So far from being weakened by this faith, therefore, evangelism will inevitably be weak and lack staying power without it.
    ... James I. Packer (b. 1926), Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God [1961], Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1991, p. 10 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are Your people's eternal shepherd.
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Friday, October 16, 2009

Newton: immediacy in the parables

Friday, October 16, 2009
Meditation:
    After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
    —Luke 10:1,2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I observe that Christ and His forerunner John in their parabolic discourses were wont to allude to things present. The old prophets, when they would describe things emphatically, did not only draw parables from things which offered themselves, as from the rent of a garment, ... from the vessels of a potter, ... but also, when such objects were wanting, they supplied them by their own actions, as by rending a garment, ... by shooting, ... etc. By such types the prophets loved to speak. And Christ, being endued with a nobler prophet spirit than the rest, excelled also in this kind of speaking, yet so as not to speak by His own actions, [which would have been] less grave and decent, but to turn into parables such things as offered themselves. On occasion of the harvest approaching, He admonishes His disciples once and again of the spiritual harvest. Seeing the lilies of the field, He admonishes His disciples about clothing. In allusion to the present season of fruits, He admonishes His disciples about knowing men by their fruits. In the time of the Passover, when trees put forth their leaves, He bids His disciples, “learn a parable from the fig-tree.”
    ... Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Commentary on Daniel, Echo Library, 2007, p. 60, fn. (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You know our world perfectly. Send us where we may best be used.
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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Teresa of Avila: knowing ourselves in God

Thursday, October 15, 2009
    Feast of Teresa of Avila, Mystic, Teacher, 1582
Meditation:
Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.
The LORD sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.
    —Psalm 147:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We shall never learn to know ourselves except by endeavoring to know God, for, beholding His greatness, we realize our own littleness; His purity shows us our foulness; and by meditating upon His humility we find how very far we are from being humble.
    ... Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), The Interior Castle [1577], reprint, BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008, p. 47 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I cannot stand before You except by Your grace.
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Lindskoog: leaving the work to others

Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Meditation:
    By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.
    —Hebrews 11:24-25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [C. S. Lewis] was leery of too many prayers that leave all the work to God and other people.
    ... Kathryn Lindskoog (1934-2003), C. S. Lewis, Mere Christian, Glendale, Cal.: G/L Publications, 1973, reprint, Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1981, p. 125 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You move us by faith.
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Lewis: keeping the commandments

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
    Feast of Edward the Confessor, 1066
Meditation:
    [Nicodemus] came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
    In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
    —John 3:2-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The very activities for which we were created are, while we live on earth, variously impeded: by evil in ourselves or in others. Not to practice them is to abandon our humanity. To practice them spontaneously and delightfully is not yet possible. This situation creates the category of duty, the whole specifically moral realm.
    It exists to be transcended. Here is the paradox of Christianity. As practical imperatives for here and now, the two great commandments have to be translated “Behave as if you loved God and man.” For no man can love because he is told to. Yet obedience on this practical level is not really obedience at all. And if a man really loved God and man, once again this would hardly be obedience; for if he did, he would be unable to help it. Thus the command really says to us, “Ye must be born again.” Till then, we have duty, morality, the Law. A schoolmaster, as St. Paul says, is to bring us to Christ. We must expect no more of it than of a schoolmaster; we must allow it no less.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1964, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 147-148 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I have become new-born forever in You.
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Monday, October 12, 2009

Thielecke: beyond anesthetics

Monday, October 12, 2009
    Commemoration of Wilfrid, Abbot of Ripon, Bishop of York, Missionary, 709
    Commemoration of Elizabeth Fry, Prison Reformer, 1845
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] In hell, where [the rich man] was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with [the beggar] Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
    —Luke 16:23-24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Life provides all kinds of astonishingly effective anodynes and narcotics, all of which are nothing but misused gifts of God. But now in hell, that is, beyond a fixed boundary set by God, all the securities and safeguards disappear into thin air. What here is only a tiny flame of secret self-reproach that flickers up occasionally and is quickly smothered, there becomes a scorching fire. What here is no more than a slight ticking sound in our conscience suddenly becomes the trumpet tone of judgment which can no longer be ignored. Lazarus is permitted to see what he believed, but the rich man is compelled to see what he did not believe.
    ... Helmut Thielecke (1908-1986), The Waiting Father: the parables of Jesus, New York: Harper & Row, 1975, p. 48 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have returned from death so that Your people might believe and be saved.
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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Pinnock: the demand for exclusion

Sunday, October 11, 2009
    Commemoration of Ethelburga, Abbess of Barking, 675
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
    Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
    —John 5:26-30 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Most Christians would agree with C. S. Lewis when he says [of the doctrine of the Final Judgment], “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power.” * But we cannot do so, for two reasons: first, because it enjoys the full support of Christ’s own teaching, and second, because it makes a good deal of sense. If the gospel is extended to us for our acceptance, it must be possible also to reject and refuse it. The alternative would be for God to compel an affirmative response.
    It would be nice to be able to say that all will be saved, but the question arises, Does everyone want to be saved? What would love for God be like if it were coerced? There is a hell because God respects our freedom and takes our decisions seriously, more seriously, perhaps, than we would sometimes wish. God wants to see hell completely empty; but if it is not, He cannot be blamed. The door is locked only on the inside. It is not Christians but the unrepentant who “want” it [to be locked].
* C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p. 106
    ... Clark H. Pinnock (b. 1937), Reason Enough, Exeter: Paternoster, 1980, p. 116-117 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    You alone are fit, Lord, to judge men’s hearts.
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