Kirk: between the times

Saturday, September 30, 2017
Meditation:
    He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
    —Revelation 22:22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We are living “between the times”—the time of Christ’s resurrection and the new age of the Spirit, and the time of fulfillment in Christ. Life in the Spirit is a pledge, a “down-payment,” on the final kingdom of shalom. In the meantime, we are to be signs of the kingdom which is, and which is coming.
    ... David Kirk (1935-2007), Quotations from Chairman Jesus, Springfield, Ill.: Templegate Publishers, 1969, p. 69 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 22:20; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; Gal. 3:14; Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your return is our message and our hope. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Joad: the truth about evil

Friday, September 29, 2017
    Feast of Michael & All Angels
Meditation:
    But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
    —James 1:14-15 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The view of evil which regards it as the by-product of circumstances, which circumstances can, therefore, alter and even eliminate, has come to seem to me intolerably shallow, and the contrary view of it as endemic in man, more particularly in its Christian form, the doctrine of original sin, to express a deep and essential insight into human nature.
    ... C. E. M. Joad (1891-1953), The Recovery of Belief, London: Faber and Faber, 1952, p. 63 (see the book)
    See also Jas. 1:14-15; Ps. 51:5; 58:3; Rom. 5:12-17; 7:21-23; Eph. 2:3
Quiet time reflection:
    You are my salvation, Lord. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Green: priesthood of all believers

Thursday, September 28, 2017
Meditation:
    And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.
    —Hebrews 10:10-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We instinctively contrast the ministry with the laity, the priesthood with the people, the professional with the amateur. But the New Testament church knew nothing of this. This is perfectly astounding when you recall that every society in the world, including Israel, had had its specialized holy seasons, holy places, and holy people. In Christianity, all three were abolished. The keeping of holy days was a matter of indifference to the early Christians. They had no holy buildings, but met in private houses—the incarnation of God had made the secular sacred. As for holy people, why, all believers were called to be that holy people, that universal priesthood envisioned long ago in the Old Testament but never hitherto realized. The mediation of Jesus has abolished the need for an intermediary caste of priests: all can have access to God in virtue of the sacrifice of Christ; all have the priestly responsibility of interceding for man to God; all have the prophetic task of speaking God’s message to men. There is no priestly body within Christianity. It is a one-class society, though you would never guess as much, so grossly has conformity to pagan and Old-Testament models distorted this unique facet of Christ’s community.
    ... Michael Green (b. 1930), “Mission and Ministry”, E. M. B. Green, in The People of God, Ian Cundy, ed., vol. 2 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 69-70 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 10:10-12; 1 Tim. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:5; Rev. 1:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I may speak the Gospel clearly. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: interfering with the world

Wednesday, September 27, 2017
    Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660
Meditation:
    The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”
    —Isaiah 29:13-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If you wanted a label for us, would you find a better than a Sadducean Age? We also are not worrying about immortality, hardly believe in it, or at least are not sure; we, too, have limited ourselves to this dust-speck of time, leaving unclaimed the vast inheritance beyond of which Christ told us; we, too, are putting all our zeal and passion and enthusiasm into things of this earth here, quite sure that that is the only road to progress, and that this everlasting chatter about the soul is quite beside the point. And they are all so earnest and so certain, work so hard, are animated often by such lofty motives, are so sure that there is really no manner of need for Christ; that given this, and this, and this, each of them pushing forward his particular panacea—the world will manage very well; that to talk about Christ, and changing people’s hearts, and making us new creatures, is merely to lose precious time and wander from the practical into vague day-dreaming of which nothing comes. And year by year their voices grow a little harder, and they eye Christ more and more askance, feel sourly that He is a bit of a nuisance and a stumbling-block to progress, keeping people quiet who should not be quiet, lulling them with these dim, immaterial, fantastic, spiritual hopes of His which they think have no body, and can not have. Once more the whisper grows, “Were He not far better away?” Meantime we can ignore Him, they say; and they do.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), The Galilean Accent, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1926, p. 129 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 29:13-14; 1 Cor. 2:8; Eph. 4:14; 1 Tim. 6:3-5,20-21; 2 Pet. 2:1-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may Your voice be heard throughout the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wirt: the Gospel in action

Tuesday, September 26, 2017
    Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942
Meditation:
    For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.
    —Mark 9:41 (ESV)
Quotation:
    Christianity is not a religion but a relationship of love expressed toward God and men. The church is committed by its Founder to reach out in love to every movement that upbuilds character and integrity in men, and every gesture that aims to resolve the differences that estrange human beings from each other. The Gospel in its free course goes hand-in-hand with the cup of cold water.
    ... Sherwood Eliot Wirt (1911-2008), The Social Conscience of the Evangelical, New York: Harper & Row, 1968, p. 150 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 10:42; 5:9; 25:40; Mark 9:41; 12:42-43; 2 Cor. 8:12; Jas. 3:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, heap blessings on _____ and _____ who nourished me in time of need. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Hanson: the earliest ministry

Monday, September 25, 2017
    Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626
    Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392
Meditation:
    If Timothy comes, see to it that he has nothing to fear while he is with you, for he is carrying on the work of the Lord, just as I am. No one, then, should refuse to accept him. Send him on his way in peace so that he may return to me. I am expecting him along with the brothers.
    —1 Corinthians 16:10-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It may seem an anachronism to speak of “the relation of the ordained ministry towards the Church” ... when we are only thinking about Paul and his converts. Was there really an ordained ministry as early as that? We need not argue about whether, or how, Paul was ordained, but he certainly considered that he and his fellow workers had a special pastoral relation to their converts... Paul was primarily a missionary, which in itself establishes a link with the Servant of the Lord. As a missionary, he was not working on his own, but was supported by a group of assistants without whose help he could never have carried on his work. We know the names of many of them... But there were many more whose names we do not know, sometimes referred to as “the brethren” (e.g., 1 Cor. 16:11). This missionary group with Paul as its leader is the New Testament equivalent of the ordained ministry of today, and it is significant for us that Paul describes this group as carrying out in some sense the work of servants in the Church.
    ... Anthony T. Hanson (1916-1991), The Church of the Servant, London: SCM Press, 1962, p. 45-46 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 16:10-11; Acts 15:36; 16:4-5; 2 Cor. 8:23; 3 John 1:5-6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You alone ordain ministry. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dodd: meeting the Father

Sunday, September 24, 2017
Meditation:
    For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
    —Romans 5:6-8 (KJV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    What knowledge of Jesus Christ and His teaching lay behind the flash of enlightenment it is now impossible for us to say: but it is clear that the God whom Paul met was the “Father” of Jesus’ own Gospel parables, the Shepherd who goes after the one sheep until He finds it. It was the God, in fact, whom the whole of the life of Jesus set forth, to the astonishment of those among whom He moved. Loving still, He brought God to men in the same unmistakable way. The divine love that through Jesus had found Zacchaeus the publican had now through the risen Jesus found Paul the Pharisee. Henceforward the central facts of life for Paul were that while he was yet a sinner God had found and forgiven him, and that this was the work of Jesus Christ in whose love the love of God had become plain.
    ... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for Today, London: Swarthmore, 1920, reprint, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 75 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 5:6-8; Luke 15:4-6; 19:2-9; Rom. 8:35-39; 2 Cor. 5:14-15,18-19; Col. 1:13-15; Eph. 1:4-7; 2:4-10; 3:18-19; 5:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You came for me, a sinner. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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