Cassels: the whole message

Saturday, August 12, 2017
Meditation:
    All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
    —2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Any single verse of the Bible, taken in isolation, may actually be dangerous to your spiritual health. Every part of it must be read in relation to the whole message.
    ... Louis Cassels (1922-1974), Christian Primer, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964, p. 39 (see the book)
    See also 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Matt. 28:19-20; John 15:15; Acts 20:27; Rom. 3;2; 15:4; 1 Cor. 11:23; Heb. 4:12; 2 Pet. 1:19-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, guide me by your whole word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newman: living and written words

Friday, August 11, 2017
    Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253
    Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, Teacher, Tractarian, 1890
Meditation:
    When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
    —Acts 4:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In the first ages, [catechizing] was a work of long time; months, sometimes years, were devoted to the arduous task of disabusing the mind of the incipient Christian of its pagan errors, and of moulding it upon the Christian faith. The Scriptures indeed were at hand for the study of those who could avail themselves of them; but St. Irenaeus does not hesitate to speak of whole races who had been converted to Christianity, without being able to read them. To be unable to read or write was in those times no evidence of want of learning; the hermits of the deserts were, in one sense of the word, illiterate, yet the great St. Anthony, though he knew not letters, was a match in disputation for the learned philosophers who came to try him.
    ... John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), “What is a University?”, in The Office and Work of Universities, London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1856, p. 22-23 (see the book)
    See also Acts 4:13; Matt. 11:25; John 7:15-17; 1 Cor. 1:22-24, 27
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I never honor learning over faith. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Baillie: Teach me, O God

Thursday, August 10, 2017
    Feast of Lawrence, Deacon at Rome, Martyr, 258
Meditation:
Show me your ways, O LORD,
    teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are God my Savior,
    and my hope is in you all day long.
    —Psalm 25:4-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Teach me. O God, so to use all the circumstances of my life to-day that they may bring forth in me the fruits of holiness rather than the fruits of sin.
    Let me use disappointment as material for patience:
    Let me use success as material for thankfulness:
    Let me use suspense as material for perseverance:
    Let me use danger as material for courage:
    Let me use reproach as material for longsuffering:
    Let me use praise as material for humility:
    Let me use pleasures as material for temperance:
    Let me use pains as material for endurance.
    ... John Baillie (1886-1960) & Donald M. Baillie (1887-1954), A Diary of Private Prayer, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939, p. 101 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 25:4-5; 5:8; 86:11; 119:27; Isa. 30:18; John 6:45
Quiet time reflection:
    May the day come soon, Lord, when my conversion to Your way is complete. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Packer: the pragmatic use of inerrancy

Wednesday, August 9, 2017
    Feast of Mary Sumner, Founder of the Mothers’ Union, 1921
Meditation:
    While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, “How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”‘ David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?” The large crowd listened to him with delight.
    —Mark 12:35-37 (NIV)
Quotation:
    When evangelicals call the Bible “inerrant,” part at least of their meaning is this: that, in exegesis and exposition of Scripture and in building up our biblical theology from the fruits of our Bible study, we may not (1) deny, disregard, or arbitrarily relativize, anything that the biblical writers teach, nor (2) discount any of the practical implications for worship and service that their teaching carries, nor (3) cut the knot of any problem of Bible harmony, factual or theological, by allowing ourselves to assume that the inspired writers were not necessarily consistent either with themselves or with each other. It is because the word “inerrant” makes these methodological points about handling the Bible, ruling out in advance the use of mental procedures that can only lead to reduced and distorted versions of Christianity, that it is so valuable and, I think, so much valued by those who embrace it.
    ... James I. Packer (b. 1926), in Foundation of Biblical Authority, ed. James Montgomery Boice, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978, p. 77 (see the book)
    See also Mark 12:35-37; Isa. 55:10-11; 2 Cor. 4:2; 10:4-5; 1 Thess. 2:13; Heb. 4:12; Jas. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I will not ignore any part of Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Hugel: the only way to joy

Tuesday, August 8, 2017
    Feast of Dominic, Priest, Founder of the Order of Preachers, 1221
Meditation:
    Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
    —Matthew 16:24-25 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The mystery revealed, in a unique degree and form, in Christ’s life, is really a universal spiritual-human law: the law of suffering and sacrifice, as the one way to joy and possession, which has existed, though veiled till now, since the foundation of the world.
    ... Friedrich von Hügel (1852-1925), The Mystical Element of Religion: Introduction and biographies, J. M. Dent & sons, 1923, p. 34 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 16:24-25; Eph. 5:1-2; Phil. 2:5-8; 1 Pet. 2:21; 1 John 2:6; 3:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to know the way of sacrifice. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bruce: the best defense

Monday, August 7, 2017
    Commemoration of John Mason Neale, Priest, Poet, 1866
Meditation:
    You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
    —Galatians 5:4-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    For all the vigour of his polemic, St. Paul does not content himself with the denunciation of error, but finds the best defense against its insidious approaches in a closer adherence to the love of God and faith in Christ.
    ... F. F. Bruce (1910-1990), The Apostolic Defense of the Gospel, London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1959, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, p. 83 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 5:4-6; Rom. 3:31; 5:21; 6:1-4; Phil. 3:8-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, turn the world away from error to Your Truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Powell: the fountainhead

Sunday, August 6, 2017
Meditation:
    We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
    —1 Corinthians 2:12-14
Quotation:
    I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in Tennyson the ugliness of hypocrisy, in George Eliot the supremacy of duty, in Dickens the divinity of kindness, and in Ruskin the dignity of service. Irving teaches me the lesson of cheerfulness, Hawthorne shows me the hatefulness of sin, Longfellow gives me the soft, tranquil music of hope. Lowell makes us feel that we must give ourselves to our fellow men. Whittier sings to me of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood. These are Christian lessons: who inspired them? Who put it into the heart of Martin Luther to nail those theses on the church door of Wittenberg? Who stirred and fired the soul of Savonarola? Who thrilled and electrified the soul of John Wesley? Jesus Christ is back of these all.
    ... Lyman Pierson Powell (1866-1946), quoted in International Journal of Religious Education, v. 21, April, 1945, p. 27
    See also 1 Cor. 2:12-14; John 1:1; Rom. 2:14-15; Col. 1:15-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I know you to be the Lord of all goodness. Strengthen my faith, and open my eyes to Your presence around me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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