MacDonald: to advance the cause

Saturday, July 3, 2010
    Feast of Thomas the Apostle
Meditation:
    He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
    But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
    —Mark 8:31-33 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is a serious thought that the disobedience of the men he had set free from blindness and leprosy should be able to hamper him in his work for his father. But his best friends, his lovers did the same. That he should be crucified was a horror to them; they would have made him a king, and ruined his father’s work. He preferred the cruelty of his enemies to the kindness of his friends. The former with evil intent wrought his father’s will; the latter with good intent would have frustrated it.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “The Displeasure of Jesus”, in Unspoken Sermons, Third Series, London: Longmans, Green, 1889, p. 190 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, not my will, but Yours be done. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Clement: goods

Friday, July 2, 2010
Meditation:
    Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.
    Do not say to your neighbor, “Come back later; I’ll give it tomorrow”—when you now have it with you.
    —Proverbs 3:27-28 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We are not to throw away those things which can benefit our neighbor. Goods are called good because they can be used for good: they are instruments for good, in the hands of those who use them properly.
    ... St. Clement of Alexandria (150?-220?), The Ante-Nicene Fathers, v. II, Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, trs., Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885, p. 595 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Your Spirit, Lord, has opened torrents of charity. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Summers: the Lollard fundamentals

Thursday, July 1, 2010
    Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873
Meditation:
Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees;
    then I will keep them to the end.
Give me understanding,
    and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.
Direct me in the path of your commands,
    for there I find delight.
Turn my heart toward your statutes
    and not toward selfish gain.
    —Psalm 119:33-36 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Reynold Pecock, Bishop of St. Asaph, [in The Repressor of Overmuch Blamings of the Clergy] tells us that the Lollards objected to image-worship, pilgrimages, the landed endowments of the Church, degrees of rank among the clergy, the authority of tradition, the monastic orders, the invocation of the saints (and every practice based on the doctrine of the transference of merit), the use of ornaments in Divine service, the mass (and the doctrine of sacramental grace generally), oaths, war, and capital punishment. We have here the outlines of a system approximating in some respects to modern Quakerism, and the likeness is enhanced by something like the doctrine of the “inward light.” Pecock ascribes to the “Bible-men” three fundamental principles, or “trowings,” as he calls them:
    1. That nothing is to be esteemed a law of God, unless it is founded on Scripture;
    2. That every Christian “meke in spirit” shall without fail understand the true sense of the Bible;
    3. That he should then heed no arguments of “clerks” to the contrary... Further on in the book he adds a fourth “trowing” of theirs—that the clergy were so blinded by self-interest that it was impossible for them to arrive at the true sense of Scripture.
    ... W. H. Summers, Our Lollard Ancestors, London: National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, 1904, p. 81-83 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have moved mightily among Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Barclay: doubts

Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Meditation:
    When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.
    —Mark 16:9-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach.
    ... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of John, v. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, p. 322 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have changed my mind. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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John of the Cross: seeing God clearly

Tuesday, June 29, 2010
    Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles
Meditation:
    “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
    —Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    One of the greatest favors bestowed on the soul transiently in this life is to enable it to see so distinctly and to feel so profoundly that it cannot comprehend God at all. These souls are herein somewhat like the saints in heaven, where they who know Him most perfectly perceive most clearly that He is infinitely incomprehensible; for those who have the less clear vision do not perceive so clearly as do these others how greatly He transcends their vision.
    ... St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), The Spiritual Canticle, VII.9 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, without Your revelation, I could know nothing of You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Weil: to be always relevant

Monday, June 28, 2010
    Feast of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, Teacher, Martyr, c.200
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
    —Matthew 24:35 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal.
    ... Simone Weil (1909-1943), Simone Weil: Utopian Pessimist, David McLellan, Macmillan, 1989, p. 2 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, in our daily affairs, lift our eyes to eternity. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Luther: the quandary of priesthood

Sunday, June 27, 2010
Meditation:
    [Grace and peace] from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
    —Revelation 1:5-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A priest, especially in the New Testament, was not made, he was born,... created, not ordained. He was born, not indeed of the flesh, but through a birth of the Spirit... It is not enough for anyone who follows Christ to be anointed to become a priest. To say that outward ceremonies make a priest... is to [say that we can] make no one a priest until he denies that he was a priest before. Thus, in the very act of making him a priest, they in fact remove him from his priesthood.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), “Concerning the Ministry” [1523] in Church and Ministry II, as v. XL of Works of Martin Luther, v. XL, Concordia Pub. House, 1986, p. 19-20 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach us how to exercise the priesthood You have bestowed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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