Allen: Christ transcends ignorance

Saturday, September 18, 2010
Meditation:
    When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
    —Acts 4:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christ transcends all ignorance. It will be observed that my friend from India said that ignorance was a bar preventing the people from receiving our message. That may very well be. Our message is not delivered in a form easy to be understood by men of no literary education, nor is it always delivered by men who can approach their hearers with true understanding and use the expressions which they naturally understand. But that the most ignorant man on earth cannot receive Christ and find grace and help in Him seems to me to be contradicted by our own knowledge of Christ’s nature and our frequent experience of His power.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes Which Hinder It, London: World Dominion Press, 1949, reprint, Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1997, p. 113 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, there is no defect of ours that You cannot overcome. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Robinson: prayer like a dove

Friday, September 17, 2010
    Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179
Meditation:
    Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
    —James 5:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Prayer is like the dove that Noah sent forth, which blessed him not only when it returned with an olive-leaf in its mouth, but when it never returned at all.
    ... Edward Robinson (1794-1863), from Job, ascribed by M. G. Easton (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Spirit of God, pray within me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Fisher: wise about life

Thursday, September 16, 2010
    Feast of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Martyr, 258
    Commemoration of Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts, c. 430
    Commemoration of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, tractarian, 1882
Meditation:
    “Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.” When he said this, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
    —Luke 8:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life, that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.
    ... Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879-1958) (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may my life bear fruit for You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Manley: the costly love of unity

Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Meditation:
    Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
    —Hebrews 10:25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The task to which we are called is not the sacrifice of any principle in which we firmly believe. It is rather to return to Christ, not a figure of the imagination, but the Christ of the Scriptures, and to listen to His voice in obedience, to discover afresh what is the Truth. All unpretentious Bible study, every effort to disseminate a true scriptural theology, and every earnest prayer is part of the task of promoting that unity which is truly Christian.
    We must not envisage Christian Unity as consisting of far-off and doubtful schemes, but as something very nigh which affects us all. If we are really to seek for Christian Unity, we must be prepared to pay the cost. For it must be based upon love, and love is always costly. It will never be attained until there is “far more humility, far more thought, far more self-sacrifice, and far more prayer, than there is at present.” *
    If we are right in the conclusion that such disunion as has been sinful in the history of the Church has been due to pride, self-assertion, and contempt for God’s Word and commandment, then it follows that the way to the unity which God wills is through humility, love of the brethren, and obedience to the Divine Revelation. When Christians pray to be shown where they have been wrong, proud, complaisant, or censorious, and to be put right; when they meet for common counsel and study of the Word, in the spirit of obedience and prepared to subject their individual opinions to the guidance of the Spirit; where the strong are willing to foster and strengthen the weak; and where all are seeking the common good rather than their own sectional interests; then the pathway to unity will become plain, and God will grant His blessing.
* Streeter, B. H., Restatement and Reunion, 1914, p. 56
    ... G. T. Manley, Christian Unity, London: Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1945, p. 87-88 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You alone can grant Your people unity. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Reeves: the unity of a new race

Tuesday, September 14, 2010
    Feast of the Holy Cross
Meditation:
    There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
    —Galatians 3:28-29 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Whatever may be our differences of colour, culture, and class, the unity that is ours in Christ is given visible expression at every Synod. Here we all gather around the one Altar, here we all share in shaping the policy of the Church in this diocese; here we all take part in making provision for carrying on the work of the Church during the coming year. At this time, year by year, we are specially conscious of our unity in Christ, and are made aware afresh that we are members of this new race of human beings which is made up of all those of every ethnic group who have been added to Christ. We are members of that Kingdom in which all human antagonisms are transcended. Yet we shall not interpret aright this unity which is ours in Christ Jesus unless we continually remind ourselves that it has its origin in His death and resurrection. The Church springs out of the deeds of Jesus done in the flesh, and we can only fulfill our destiny in the Church as we learn that we are utterly dependent upon the whole Body of Christ... Whatever gifts we possess belong to the Body, and are useful only as they are used in the common life of the Church. All this is made very plain in the New Testament Epistles, for in them we are taught that in each local Christian community is a fellowship in which every member is to live in humility and in love to the brethren. Yet no local church is to live to itself. Again and again, local churches are reminded of their close relationship to one another, in life, work, worship, pain, and death. Not that such a relationship is to be regarded either as a matter of convenience or as a question of organization. On the contrary, this intimate relationship is seen as the direct outcome of the saving work of Christ. This unity with one another, and of local churches with each other, is the unity which belongs to the Body of Christ, arising from the unity of God Himself, uttered in the dying and rising again of Jesus, and now expressed in the order and structure of the Church.
    ... Ambrose Reeves (1899-1980), “The Church is United in the Body of Christ”, in Church and Race in South Africa, David M. Paton, London: SCM Press, 1958, p. 30-31 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your presence saves us again. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Edwards: unity

Monday, September 13, 2010
    Feast of John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher, 407
Meditation:
    Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.
    —2 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Paul] Tillich can show us that the unity which we seek as Christians must involve our denominations in changes even greater than those which many of us now expect. His insistence on taking seriously the gropings of all men for the truth about their lives must be allowed to remind the ecumenical movement that the word oikoumene is Greek not for “the Church” but for “the whole inhabited world.” The ecumenical movement is more than Christian patriarchs kissing. Christian unity means the unity of mankind in finding and obeying God. Tillich can teach us that the Church must not shut its door to celebrate a family reunion while a single child of God remains outside.
    ... David L. Edwards (b. 1929), “A New Stirring in English Christianity”, in The Honest to God Debate, David L. Edwards, ed., London, SCM Press, 1963, p. 35-36 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we await the day when all Your people are gathered. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Hromadka: the word heard new

Sunday, September 12, 2010
Meditation:
    Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
    —Romans 10:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Word of God must always be heard quite specifically and in a new way, varying according to the conditions under which it is preached. Faith is not an acceptance of general, abstract truths, but an answer and a decision at a certain time and in a very certain place.
    ... J. L. Hromadka (1889-1969)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You speak to us in our condition. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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