Ramsay: Christianity & servitude

Saturday, August 6, 2016
Meditation:
    I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.) I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel...
    —Philemon 1:10-13 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Undoubtedly, messengers had often to be sent with letters round the congregations of the province. In the earlier stages of Church development, probably, those messengers were volunteers, discharging a duty which among the pagans was almost entirely performed by slaves: just as Luke and Aristarchus, when they travelled with St. Paul to Rome, must have voluntarily passed as his servants, i.e. as slaves, in order to be admitted to the convoy. In such cases, it is apparent how much this sense of duty ennobled labour and raised the social standing of the labourer, who was now a volunteer, making himself like a slave in the service of the Church. In this there is already involved the germ of a general emancipation of slaves and the substitution of free for slave labour.
    ... Sir William M. Ramsay (1851-1939), The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1904, p. 33 (see the book)
    See also Mark 10:43-44; Acts 19:29; Col. 4:10; Philem.1:10-13,24
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, accept me into the service of Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Hay: the search

Friday, August 5, 2016
    Feast of Oswald, King of Northumbria, Martyr, 642
Meditation:
    And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
    —Galatians 4:6-7 (ESV)
Quotation:
I sought Him where my logic led.
    “This friend is always sure and right;
    His lantern is sufficient light.
I need no Star,” I said.

I sought Him in the city square.
    Logic and I went up and down
    The marketplace of many a town,
But He was never there.

I tracked Him to the mind’s far rim.
    The valiant intellect went forth
    To east and west and south and north,
But found no trace of Him.

We walked the world from sun to sun,
    Logic and I, with Little Faith,
    But never came to Nazareth,
Nor met the Holy One.

We sought in vain. And finally,
    Back to the heart’s small house I crept,
    And fell upon my knees, and wept;
And Lo! He came to me!
    ... Sara Henderson Hay (1906-1987), A Footing on this Earth: Poems, Doubleday, 1966, p. 214 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 4:6-7; Ps. 27:8; 69:32; Pr. 8:17; Matt. 6:33; 7:7-8; John 5:39-40; Acts 2:21; Rom. 2:7; Heb. 11:6; 1 John 4:19
Quiet time reflection:
    You loved me first, Lord.

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Baillie: giving thanks for blessings

Thursday, August 4, 2016
    Feast of John Vianney, Curè d’Ars, 1859
Meditation:
    Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
    —2 Corinthians 9:15 (KJV)
Quotation:
    I thank Thee, O Lord God, that though with liberal hand Thou hast at all times showered thy blessing upon our human kind, yet in Jesus Christ Thou hast done greater Things for us than Thou ever didst before:
    Making home sweeter and friends dearer:
    Turning sorrow into gladness and pain into the soul’s victory:
    Robbing death of its sting:
    Robbing sin of its power:
Making peace more peaceful and joy more joyful and faith and hope more secure.
Amen.
    ... John Baillie (1886-1960) & Donald M. Baillie (1887-1954), A Diary of Private Prayer, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939, p. 103 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 9:15; Isa. 35:10; 1 Cor. 15:55-57; Tit. 3:4-7; 2 Tim. 1:8-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Praise be to You, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Traherne: love alone is necessary

Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Meditation:
    Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.
    —1 Peter 1:22-23 (ESV)
Quotation:
    God is present by Love alone. By Love alone He is great and glorious. By Love alone He liveth and feeleth in other persons. By Love alone He enjoyeth all the creatures, by Love alone He is pleasing to Himself, by Love alone He is rich and blessed. O why dost not thou by Love alone seek to achieve all these, by Love alone attain another self, by Love alone live in others, by Love attain thy glory? The Soul is shriveled up and buried in a grave that does not Love. But that which does love wisely and truly is the joy and end of all the world, the King of Heaven, and the Friend of God, the shining Light and Temple of Eternity, the Brother of Jesus Christ, and one Spirit with the Holy Ghost.
    ... Thomas Traherne (1637?-1674), Centuries of Meditations, edited and published by Bertram Dobell, in London, 1908, #50, p. 116 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 1:22-23; 1 Cor. 12:31; 13; Gal. 5:6; 1 Thess. 1:3; 1 John 4:7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, correct my lack of love towards ____ and ____. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Shoemaker: consciousness of the chasm

Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Meditation:
    As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
    —John 9:1-3 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The situation in which we find ourselves in this world seems to be a condition of estrangement from God, with little feeling of contact with Him, yet a curious nostalgic feeling that somewhere He exists and that our life would be much more complete if we were in relationship with Him. The deep, seemingly indestructible awareness of something like homesickness for God is the natural basis for believing in some kind of “fall”—we seem to remember something better and to be possessed to recapture it. There appears to be a gap, a chasm, between God and us which must be crossed if we are to be in relationship with him. We know that our own wrongdoing can widen the chasm: we are not so sure what will close it. Yet our first great need is not for a set of rules about how to be good: it is for something to bridge that yawning canyon between us and the God we dimly seem to remember but cannot entirely forget.
    ... Samuel M. Shoemaker (1893-1963), The Experiment of Faith, New York: Harper, 1957, p. 10 (see the book)
    See also John 9:1-3; 2 Sam. 14:14; Ps. 58:3; Isa. 9:2; Matt. 11:5; John 11:4; 12:46
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I cannot bridge the gap. I cross the chasm by Your grace alone. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bonhoeffer: the sufferings of God

Monday, August 1, 2016
Meditation:
    I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
    —John 17:15-18 (KJV)
Quotation:
    During the last year or so, I have come to appreciate the “worldliness” of Christianity as never before. The Christian is not a homo religiosus but a man, pure and simple, just as Jesus was man... It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe. One must abandon every attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, a converted sinner, a churchman, a righteous man, or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. This is what I mean by worldliness—taking life in one’s stride, with all its duties and problems, its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness... How can success make us arrogant or failure lead us astray, when we participate in the sufferings of God by living in this world?
    ... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Letters and Papers from Prison, London: Macmillan, 1962, p. 226-227 (see the book)
    See also John 17:15-18; Matt. 6:1-7; Rom. 8:17; 2 Cor. 4:10; Col. 1:24; 1 Pet. 4:13-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me strength to continue faithfully in the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Ignatius of Loyola: personal evangelism

Sunday, July 31, 2016
    Commemoration of Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus, 1556
Meditation:
    Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
    —Ephesians 6:11,12 (KJV)
Quotation:
    As the devil showed great skill in tempting men to perdition, equal skill ought to be shown in saving them. The devil studied the nature of each man, seized upon the traits of his soul, adjusted himself to them and insinuated himself gradually into his victim’s confidence—suggesting splendours to the ambitious, gain to the covetous, delight to the sensuous, and a false appearance of piety to the pious—and a master of saving souls ought to act in the same cautious and skillful way.
    ... St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491/5-1556), quoted in Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, Paul Van Dyke, C. Scribner’s Sons, 1927, p. 87 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 6:11-12; Matt. 10:16; Rom. 16:19; 1 Cor. 14:20; Eph. 5:15-17; Jas. 3:13-18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, we know the enemy opposes evangelism. Grant us wisdom in telling the Gospel. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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