Gossip: the Gospel is free

Saturday, May 26, 2012
    Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605
    Commemoration of Arthur John Gossip, spiritual writer, 1954
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
    —Matthew 24:12-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    No doubt the gospel is quite free, as free as the Victoria Cross, which anyone can have who is prepared to face the risks; but it means time, and pains, and concentrating all one’s energies upon a mighty project. You will not stroll into Christlikeness with your hands in your pockets, shoving the door open with a careless shoulder. This is no hobby for one’s leisure moments, taken up at intervals when we have nothing much to do, and put down and forgotten when our life grows full and interesting... It takes all one’s strength, and all one’s heart, and all one’s mind, and all one’s soul, given freely and recklessly and without restraint. This is a business for adventurous spirits; others would shrink out of it. And so Christ had a way of pulling up would-be recruits with sobering and disconcerting questions, of meeting applicants, breathless and panting in their eagerness, by asking them if they really thought they had the grit, the stamina, the gallantry, required. For many, He explained, begin, but quickly become cowed, and slink away, leaving a thing unfinished as a pathetic monument of their own lack of courage and of staying power.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924, p. 230-231 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant Your people strength to persevere. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Fenelon: reservations from God

Friday, May 25, 2012
    Feast of the Venerable Bede, Priest, Monk of Jarrow, Historian, 735
    Commemoration of Aldhelm, Abbot of Mamsbury, Bishop of Sherborne, 709
Meditation:
    Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
    —1 Corinthians 5:7-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If we look carefully within ourselves, we shall find that there are certain limits beyond which we refuse to go in offering ourselves to [God]. We hover around these reservations, making believe not to see them, for fear of self-reproach... The more we shrink from giving up any such reserved point, the more certain it is that it needs to be given up. If we were not fast bound by it, we should not make so many efforts to persuade ourselves that we are free.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Selections from Fénelon, ed. Mary Wilder Tileston, Boston: Roberts Bros., 1879, p. 61-62 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me what I must yield to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wesley: preaching in the field

Thursday, May 24, 2012
    Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788
Meditation:
    To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
    —1 Corinthians 9:22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I could scarcely reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which [Whitfield] set me an example on Sunday; having been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin, if it had not been done in a church.
    ... John Wesley (1703-1791), entry for March 29, 1739, Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, v. I, London: J. Kershaw, 1827, p. 177 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are calling Your people to spread the gospel. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dodd: the pedagogue

Wednesday, May 23, 2012
    Commemoration of Petroc, Abbot of Padstow, 6th century
Meditation:
    So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
    —Galatians 3:24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    “The Law,” he says, “was our ‘pedagogue’, until Christ should come.” Those words have been interpreted as though they described the Law as a preparatory education, continued at a higher stage by Christ. That, however, is not quite what Paul meant. The “pedagogue” in Greek society was not a schoolmaster, he did not give lessons... He was a slave who accompanied a boy to school, and both waited upon him and exercised a supervision which interfered with the boy’s freedom of action. He is, in fact, a figure in the little allegory which Paul gives us to illustrate the position of the People of God before Christ came. There was a boy left heir to a great estate. He was a minor, and so must have guardians and trustees. He was as helpless in their hands as if he had been a slave. He must live on the allowance they gave him, and follow their wishes from day to day. They gave him a “pedagogue” to keep him out of mischief. He could not please himself, or realize his own purposes and ambitions. Yet all the time he was the heir; the estate was his, and no one else’s. Just so the People of God, the Divine Commonwealth, was cramped and fettered by ignorance and evil times. It remained in uneasy expectation of one day coming into active existence. At last the heir came of age: guardians and trustees abdicated their powers, and the grown man possessed in full realization all that was his. So now the fettered life of the Divine Commonwealth bursts its bonds and comes into active existence... The intervention of law was not a reversal of God’s original and eternal purpose of pure love and grace towards men, it only subserved that purpose, while it seemed to contradict it, just as the presence of the “pedagogus” might seem to the high-spirited young heir quite contrary to the rights secured to him by his father’s will.
    ... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for Today, London: Swarthmore, 1920, reprint, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 79-80 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your will is now revealed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Eckhart: bearing failings with patience

Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Meditation:
    No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
    —1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If you have failings, ask God often whether it be His honour and pleasure to take them away from you; for without Him you can do nothing. If he takes them away, thank Him; but if He does not do that, you will bear it no more, however, as the defect of a sin, but as a great trial with which you are to gain merit and practice patience. You should be content, whether or not He accords you His gift.
    ... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?), Works of Meister Eckhart, London: J. M. Watkins, 1924, p. 39 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the patience to bear my trials. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Augustine: the object of our desires

Monday, May 21, 2012
    Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330
Meditation:
    I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.
    —Leviticus 26:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God Himself, who is the Author of virtue, shall there [in the city of God] be its reward; for, as there is nothing greater or better, He has promised Himself. What else was meant by His word through the prophet, “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people,” than, I shall be their satisfaction, I shall be all that men honorably desire,—life, and health, and nourishment, and plenty, and glory, and honor, and peace, and all good things? This, too, is the right interpretation of the saying of the apostle, “That God may be all in all.” He shall be the end of our desires who shall be seen without end, loved without cloy, praised without weariness.
    ... St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), The City of God, v. II, Marcus Dods, ed., as vol. 2 of The Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Edinbugh: T & T Clark, 1871, XXII.30, p. 541 (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the sole object of our hope. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Luther: idolatry

Sunday, May 20, 2012
Meditation:
    When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
    —Colossians 3:4-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Idolatry is... all manner of devotion in those that would serve God without Christ the Mediator, his Word and command. In [the Roman Catholic world] it was held a work of the greatest sanctity for the monks to sit in their cells and meditate of God, and of his wonderful works; to be kindled with zeal, kneeling on their knees, praying, and having their imaginary contemplations of celestial objects, with such supposed devotion, that they wept for joy. In these their conceits, they banished all desires and thoughts of women, and what else is temporal and evanescent. They seemed to meditate only on God, and his wonderful works. Yet all these seeming holy actions of devotion, which the wit and wisdom of man holds to be angelical sanctity, are nothing else but works of the flesh. All manner of religion, where people serve God without his Word and command, is simply idolatry, and the more holy and spiritual such a religion seems, the more hurtful and venomous it is; for it leads people away from the faith of Christ, and makes them rely and depend upon their own strength, works, and righteousness.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), Table-Talk [1566], CLXXI (see the book)
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I must depend on You alone. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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