Barth: obedience and unity

Saturday, May 22, 2010
Meditation:
    If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.
    —James 2:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In the surrender of separation only one thing must be abandoned, namely, a failure in obedience to Christ, hitherto unrealised, in which a Church, in common... with a neighbor Church, or with all the severed Churches, has had a share of guilt in that trouble which is the multiplicity of the Churches. Its share has possibly lain in the fact that the normal and necessary multiplicity of communities, gifts, and persons within the Church has by the agency of the evil one been perverted; possibly in this, that undue place and import have been attributed to what is racial, to elements of human mentality and ethic, or of historical persistence. This would be the disobedience which the Church would have to consider, as it listened afresh to the voice of Christ.
    ... Karl Barth (1886-1968), The Church and the Churches [1936], Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005, p. 43-44 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, have mercy on us, for we forget that we are servants. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: the coming of union

Friday, May 21, 2010
    Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330
Meditation:
    How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!
    —Psalm 133:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I sometimes have a bright dream of reunion engulfing us unawares, like a great wave from behind our backs, perhaps at the very moment when our official representatives are still pronouncing it impossible. Discussions usually separate us; actions sometimes unite us.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1964, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 16 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    The world separates; You, Lord, unite. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Darby: restoring the primitive church

Thursday, May 20, 2010
Meditation:
    To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
    —Romans 1:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Before I can accede to your pretensions I must see, not only that the Church was such in the beginning, but, moreover, that it is according to God’s will that it be restored to its primitive glory; and, furthermore, that a voluntary union of “two or three” or two or three and twenty, or several such bodies, are each of them entitled, in any locality, to take the name of the Church of God, when that Church originally was an assemblage of all believers in any given locality.
    You must, moreover, make it clear to me, if you assume such a place, that you have so succeeded by the gift and power of God in gathering together believers that you can rightfully treat those who refuse to answer to your call as schismatics, self-condemned, and strangers to God’s Church. And let me here dwell on a most important consideration, which they who are bent on making churches have overlooked. They have had their thoughts so fully engaged in their churches that they have almost lost sight of the Church. According to Scripture, the whole sum of the churches here on earth compose the Church, at least the Church on earth; and the Church in any given place was no other than the regular association together of whatever formed part of the entire body of the Church, that is to say, of the complete body of Christ here on earth; and he who was not a member of the Church in the place in which he dwelt, was no member of Christ’s Church ! at all.
    ... John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), Reflections on the Ruined Condition of the Church, London: D. Walther, 1841, p. 9 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You will bring us to the unity You have promised. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Cundy: a branch of the one vine

Wednesday, May 19, 2010
    Feast of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ.
    —Matthew 23:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    While the local church is not the total body of Christ, it must be seen to be [that body’s] particular expression in its worship, ministry, and mission. It has authority to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments, but does not possess that authority in isolation, only as part of the total catholic Church. The authority of the local church can never, therefore, be absolute or autonomous, for, if it [asserts such authority], it denies that it is a part of the larger body and confuses the Church of God with its particular expression in the local church. It therefore requires a structure which allows it to act with the authority of the Church of God, because it must be Christ to its local community—while, at the same time, demonstrating that it possesses such authority only because it is part of the total Church of God whose authority is derived from its organic relationship with Christ, its Head.
    ... lan P. M. Cundy (b. 1945), “The Church as Community”, in The People of God, Ian Cundy, ed., vol. 2 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 36 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the source of life for Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Moffatt: the audience of the New Testament

Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Meditation:
    Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you
    —1 Thessalonians 1:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The attentive reader will notice two items about the New Testament, as he comes to the end of it. For one thing, there is no book of church order, laying down a code of rules for the worship and organization of the communities: [there is] no book corresponding to the Book of Leviticus. The other thing is that the writings are all meant for communities, not for individuals: they reflect and presuppose the life of a society or fellowship. Even the private notes of Paul to Philemon and of the presbyter John to Gaius are addressed to these individuals as members of the church; and Luke’s two volumes are intended primarily—but only primarily—for the Christian education of his friend and patron Theophilus.
    ... James Moffatt (1870-1944), A New Translation of the Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935, New York: Harper, 1935, Introduction, p. xxxv (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have given Your word to the whole church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Saucy: where the church can be seen

Monday, May 17, 2010
Meditation:
For the LORD loves the just
    and will not forsake his faithful ones.
They will be protected forever,
    but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off;
the righteous will inherit the land
    and dwell in it forever.
    —Psalm 37:28-29 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is true that the New Testament uses the term ekklesia for the spiritual reality of the body of Christ and also for the assembly, in which the genuineness of the spiritual reality of every individual professing member cannot be known. To this extent, the exact membership of any individual church and the universal church at large cannot be known and is thereby invisible. But even this invisible membership is very visible in the reality of life. As for membership in an invisible church without fellowship with any local assembly, this concept is never contemplated in the New Testament. The universal church was the universal fellowship of believers who met visibly in local assemblies.
    ... Robert L. Saucy, The Church in God’s Program, Chicago: Moody Press, 1972, p. 17 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your invisible church is visible to the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Allen: missionary colonialism

Sunday, May 16, 2010
    Commemoration of Caroline Chisholm, Social Reformer, 1877
Meditation:
    Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?
    —2 Corinthians 12:14-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Our fear of congregationalism is, I shrink from saying it, only another name for our fear of independence. We think it quite impossible that a native [Anglican] Church should be able to exist without the paternal care of an English overseer. If it were financially independent, it might be tempted to dispense with his services, and then, we are persuaded, it would at once fall into every error of doctrine and practice.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or ours?, London: World Dominion Press, 1927, reprinted, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1962, p. 60 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your spirit alone animates Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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