Phillips: we are involved

Monday, August 1, 2011
Meditation:
    When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
    They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
    “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
    Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
    —Matthew 16:13-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We may with complete detachment study and form a judgment upon a religion, but we cannot maintain our detachment if the subject of our inquiry proves to be God Himself. This is, of course, why many otherwise honest intellectual people will construct a neat by-pass around the claim of Jesus to be God. Being people of insight and imagination, they know perfectly well that once to accept such a claim as fact would mean a readjustment of their own purposes and values and affections which they may have no wish to make. To call Jesus the greatest Figure in History or the finest Moral Teacher the world has ever seen commits no one to anything. But once to allow the startled mind to accept as fact that this man is really focused-God may commit anyone to anything! There is every excuse for blundering in the dark, but in the light there is no cover from reality. It is because we strongly sense this, and not merely because we feel that the evidence is ancient and scanty, that we shrink from committing ourselves to such a far-reaching belief as that Jesus Christ was really God.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Your God is too small [1953], Simon and Schuster, 2004, p. 83 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, give us the words we need to lead contentious men back to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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