Bonevac: the incoherence of liberalism

Saturday, March 2, 2013
    Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672
Meditation:
    When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
    —John 6:16-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I remember my Anthropology of Religion professor... urging us to ask not whether Jesus walked on water but what the gospel writer wanted to communicate by writing that Jesus walked on water... The professor’s answer, that the writer wanted to convey Jesus’ mastery over nature, and the dependence of the world of nature on something beyond it, seemed to conflict with his dismissal of Jesus’ actually walking on water. If Jesus didn’t, or couldn’t, walk on water, then what are we to make of the symbolic claim that nature depends on something beyond it? To maintain the dependence of nature in the face of Jesus’ inability to walk on water, command the wind and the waves, heal the sick, etc., is not contradictory, but it is epistemically undercutting in the sense that it involves asserting a thesis while denying the possibility of any evidence for it. That epistemic incoherence lies at the heart of the naturalistic, sy! mbolic interpretation of Christianity that many leaders of the _____ Church currently embrace.
    ... Daniel A. Bonevac, from “Are You a Religious Extremist? Religion and the Academy,” in The Truth That Makes Them Free, Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Austin, Texas: Christian Faculty Network: 2011, p. 34 (see the book)
    See also John 6:16-21; Ps. 107:28-29; Matt. 8:24-27; 12:39-40; 14:22-33; 28:18; Mark 1:27; 4:37-41; 6:45-52; John 5:37-40; 10:25-26; 12:37
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, am I too susceptible to the futile thinking of this age? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bloesch: throwing ourselves on the mercy

Friday, March 1, 2013
    Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601
Meditation:
    While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.
    —Acts 10:44-45 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The very act of throwing ourselves on the mercy of God brings forth the confidence that God looks with favor on our request, since this act could only arise from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
    ... Donald G. Bloesch (1928-2010), The Struggle of Prayer, Harper & Row, 1980, p. 47-48 (see the book)
    See also Acts 10:44-45; Joel 2:28-32; Luke 2:25-26; Acts 2:14-18,21,33; Rom. 8:26; Gal. 4:6; Eph. 2:18; 6:18; Tit. 3:4-7; Jude 1:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, am I demonstrating Your grace in my life? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Forsyth: importunity in prayer

Thursday, February 28, 2013
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
    —Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Does not Christ set more value upon importunity than on submission? “Knock, and it shall be opened.” I would refer also not only to the parable of the unjust judge, but to the incident of the Syrophenician woman, where her wit, faith, and importunity together did actually change our Lord’s intention and break His custom. There there is Paul beseeching the Lord thrice for a boon; and urging us to be instant, insistent, continual in prayer. We have Jacob wrestling. We have Abraham pleading, yea, haggling, with God for Sodom. We have Moses interceding for Israel and asking God to blot his name out of the book of life, if that were needful to save Israel. We have Job facing God, withstanding Him, almost bearding Him, and extracting revelation. And we have Christ’s own struggle with the Father in Gethsemane.
    It is a wrestle on the greatest scale—all manhood taxed as in some great war, or some gre! at negotiation of State. And the effect is exhaustion often. No, the result of true prayer is not always peace.
    ... P. T. Forsyth (1848-1921), The Soul of Prayer [1916], Regent College Publishing, 2002, p. 101-102 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 7:7-8; Gen. 18:20-33; 32:24-29; Ex. 32:31-34; Deut. 1:45; Matt. 10:34; 26:36-44; Mark 7:25-30; Luke 2:36-38; 11:5-8; 18:1-8; 2 Cor. 12:7-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your will brings fulfilment at the end. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Herbert: Yet, Lord, restore thine image

Wednesday, February 27, 2013
    Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633
Meditation:
    Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
    —Exodus 32:15-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
Yet, Lord, restore thine image, hear my call:
    And though my hard heart scarce to thee can groan,
    Remember that thou once didst write in stone.
    ... George Herbert (1593-1633), The Poetical Works of George Herbert, New York: D. Appleton, 1857, p. 44 (see the book)
    See also Ex. 32:15-16; Gen. 1:26-27; 5:1; Ex. 24:12; 31:18; Eze. 36:26; Mark 10:5; Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:3,18; Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 3:9-10; 1 John 3:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, engrave my heart with Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Beecher: incomplete confession

Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Meditation:
    Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
    Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
    Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
    —John 9:39-41 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A man will confess sins in general; but those sins which he would not have his neighbor know for his right hand, which bow him down with shame like a wind-stricken bulrush, those he passes over in his prayer. Men are willing to be thought sinful in disposition; but in special acts they are disposed to praise themselves. They therefore confess their depravity and defend their conduct. They are wrong in general, but right in particular.
    ... Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), Life Thoughts: gathered from the extemporaneous discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, Edna Dean Proctor, ed., Sheldon, 1860, p. 23 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 19:12; 139:23-24; Lam. 3:40; Hag. 1:5; Matt. 7:1-2; John 9:39-41; Rom. 10:3; 11:19-21; 1 Cor. 11:31; Gal. 6:3-5; Jas. 1:26
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, bar all excuses from my lips. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Buechner: chance?

Monday, February 25, 2013
Meditation:
The lot is cast into the lap,
    but its every decision is from the LORD.
    —Proverbs 16:33 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God’s things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak—even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe that there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys.
    ... Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), Listening to Your Life, HarperCollins, 1992, p. 4 (see the book)
    See also Pr. 16:33; Ex. 3:1-5; 1 Kings 19:11-13; Luke 10:30-32; Acts 1:26; Rom. 8:28; Jas. 4:13-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your purpose fills all things. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: does prayer work?

Sunday, February 24, 2013
Meditation:
    Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
    —Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The very question “Does prayer work?” puts us in the wrong frame of mind form the onset. “Work”: as if it were magic or a machine—something that functions automatically. Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person. Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. In it God shows Himself to us. That He answers prayer is a corollary—not necessarily the most important one—from that revelation. What He does is learned from what He is.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), “The Efficacy of Prayer” in The World’s Last Night [1960], Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 8 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 3:20-21; Ps. 106:1; 139:7-10; Matt. 6:9-13; Rom. 14:11; Eph. 2:18; Phil. 4:6; Col. 4:2; Jas. 4:8-10; 1 John 1:9; Rev. 4:9-11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the privilege of prayer has opened up Your riches for me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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