Pinnock: ethics and Christianity

Saturday, July 8, 2017
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
    —John 15:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The philosopher [Immanuel] Kant was right long ago to notice that moral activity implies a religious dimension. The atheist [Friedrich] Nietzsche also saw the point and argued forcefully that the person who gives up belief in God must be consistent and give up Christian morals as well, because the former is the foundation of the latter. He had nothing but contempt for fellow humanists who refused to see that Christian morality cannot survive the loss of its theological moorings, except as habit or as lifeless tradition. As Ayn Rand also sees so clearly, love of the neighbor cannot be rationally justified within the framework of secular humanism. Love for one’s neighbor is an ethical implication of the Christian position. This suggests to me that the world’s deepest problem is not economic or technological, but spiritual and moral. What is missing is the vision of reality that can sustain the neighbor-oriented life style that is so urgen tly needed in our world today.
    ... Clark H. Pinnock (1937-2010), Reason Enough, Exeter: Paternoster, 1980, p. 31-32 (see the book)
    See also John 15:12; Matt. 22:37-40; 23:23; Mark 12:30-31; John 13:34; Rom. 12:10; 1 Thess. 4:9; 1 Pet. 1:22; 4:8; 1 John 2:7-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have shown us Your love. Now make us to love like You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Bonner: fleeing scholars

Friday, July 7, 2017
Meditation:
    Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
    —1 Peter 1:8-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A certain group of scholars, mostly German or influenced by German protestant theology, has rushed to abandon positions before they were attacked, and to demythologize the Gospel message when there was no clear evidence that intelligent minds outside the Church were any more frightened by her mystery than by her morals.
    ... G. I. Bonner (1926-2013), quoted in The Secularization of Christianity, E. L. Mascall, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1966, p. 213 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 1:8-12; John 7:7; 15:18-19; 20:29; 2 Cor. 4:18; 5:7; Heb. 11:1,39-40
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, strengthen my faith against the attacks of skeptics. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Arnold: condensing Christianity

Thursday, July 6, 2017
    Feast of John Huss, Reformer, Martyr, 1415
    Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, &
    John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535
Meditation:
    Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
    —Romans 11:33 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christianity is a source; no one supply of water and refreshment that comes from it can be called the sum of Christianity... It is a mistake, and may lead to much error, to exhibit any series of maxims, even those of the Sermon on the Mount, as the ultimate sum and formula into which Christianity may be run up.
    ... Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Literature and Dogma, New York: The Macmillian Company, 1875, p. 188,187 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 11:33; Ps. 147:4-5; Luke 10:21; John 21:25; Col. 2:2-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are far greater than any can express. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Wesley: why the gifts were withdrawn

Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Meditation:
    ... for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
    —2 Corinthians 3:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The grand reason why the miraculous gifts were so soon withdrawn was not only that faith and holiness were well nigh lost, but that dry, formal, orthodox men began even then to ridicule whatever gifts they had not themselves, and to decry them all as either madness or imposture.
    ... John Wesley (1703-1791), entry for Aug 15, 1750, Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, v. II, London: J. Kershaw, 1827, p. 161 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 3:6; 1 Cor. 14:1,39; Eph. 4:30; 1 Thess. 5:19-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I never have contempt for Your Spirit’s work. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Williams: the weakness of the sword

Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Meditation:
    And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
    —2 Timothy 2:24-26 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If the civil magistrates be Christians or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, ... they are bound by the command of Christ to suffer opposition to their doctrine, with meekness and gentleness, and to be so far from striving to subdue their opposites with the civil sword, that they are bound with patience and meekness to wait, if God peradventure will please to grant repentance unto their opposites...
    The sword may make... a whole nation of hypocrites; but to recover a soul from Satan by repentance, and to bring them from anti-Christian doctrine or worship to the doctrine and worship Christian in the least true internal or external submission, [is only worked by] the all-powerful God, by the sword of the Spirit in the hand of His spiritual officers.
    ... Roger Williams (1603?-1683), The Bloudy Tenent [1644], London: J. Haddon, 1848, p. 106 (see the book)
    See also 2 Tim. 2:24-26; Matt. 11:29; 1 Cor. 14:39-40; Gal. 6:1; 1 Pet. 3:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that others may see some of the gentleness and meekness of Jesus in my answers. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Betz: faith and sight

Monday, July 3, 2017
    Feast of Thomas the Apostle
Meditation:
    For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight.
    —2 Corinthians 5:4-7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In the [era] of faith there is room for repentance, since each person can decide freely for Christ; in the era of sight, when the reign of Christ is manifest, only judgment is left for the undecided.
    ... Otto Betz (1917-2005), What Do We Know About Jesus?, translation of Was wissen wir von Jesus?, 1965, London, S.C.M. Press, 1968, p. 115 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 5:4-7; Matt. 11:21-23; John 20:29; 1 Cor. 13:12; 2 Cor. 4:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, strengthen my faith until I see. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Scott: remission

Sunday, July 2, 2017
Meditation:
    This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
    —1 John 1:5-7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is possible that for a Jew nothing more was required than the assurance that his sins were ‘remitted,’ ‘blotted out’; he might thereafter feel himself automatically restored to the relation of favour on God’s part and confidence on his own, which was the hereditary prerogative of his people. But it was different with those who could claim no such prerogative, and with those Jews who had become uneasy as to the grounds of such a relation and their validity, in a word, with any who had been led by conscience to take a deeper view of the consequences of sin. So long as these were found mainly in punishment, suffering, judgment, so long ‘remission of sins’ letting off the consequences, might suffice. But when it was recognized that sin had a far more serious consequence in alienation from God, the severing of the fellowship between God and His children, then Justification... ceased to be sufficient. ‘Forgiveness’ took on a deeper meaning; it connoted restoration of the fellowship, the establishment or re-establishment of a relation which could be described on the one side as fatherly, on the other as filial.
    ... Anderson Scott (1859-1941), Christianity According to St. Paul, Cambridge: The University Press, 1927, CUP Archive, 1959, p. 74-75 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 1:5-7; Ps. 32:1-2; 85:4; Isa. 43:25; Mic. 7:18-19; Acts 13:38-39; Rom. 4:6-8; 8:1-4; 1 John 4:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, restore us again into Your fellowship. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth