Pinnock: a wheel within a wheel

Saturday, January 6, 2018
    EPIPHANY
Meditation:
    Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
    —John 18:36 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Though sympathizing with the revolutionaries’ analysis of what was wrong with society and in fact being mistaken for a revolutionary himself by the political authorities of his day, nevertheless Jesus did not advocate a new political regime to be established by force through revolutionary action. He called for the love of our enemies, not their destruction; ... for readiness to suffer instead of using force; for forgiveness instead of hate and revenge. One might even say [that] Jesus was more revolutionary than the revolutionaries, or revolutionary in a very different way. The revolution he had in mind was a radical change of heart on the part of mankind, involving conversion away from selfishness and toward the willing service of God and of people in general.
    ... Clark H. Pinnock (1937-2010), Reason Enough, Exeter: Paternoster, 1980, p. 80 (see the book)
    See also John 18:36; Pr. 25:12-22; Matt. 5:44-46; Luke 6:27-28; 23:34; Rom. 6:3-4; 7:6; 8:9; 12:2; 1 Pet. 2:23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have changed Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Butterfield: the hand of God in history

Friday, January 5, 2018
Meditation:
    [The LORD:] “And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.”
    —Ezekiel 36:27-28 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I am unable to see how a man can find the hand of God in secular history unless he has first found an assurance of it in his personal experience.
    ... Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979), Christianity and History, London: Bell, 1949, 1950, p. 107 (see the book)
    See also Eze. 36:27-28; Rom. 1:20-22; 8:16; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 5:5; Col. 2:2-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your hand has guided all the circumstances of my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Donne: where your treasure is

Thursday, January 4, 2018
Meditation:
    For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
    —Matthew 6:21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I have seen minute-glasses: glasses so short liv’d! If I were to preach upon this text (“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matt. 6:21), to such a glass, it would be enough for half the sermon, enough to show the worldly man his treasure, and the object of his Heart, to call his eye to that minute-glass, and to tell him, “There flows, there flies, your treasure, and your heart with it.” But if I had a secular glass, a glass that would run an age; if the two hemispheres of the world were composed in the form of such a glass, and all the world calcined and burnt to ashes, and all the ashes, and the sands, and atoms of the world put into that glass, it would not be enough to tell the godly man what his treasure, and the object of his heart is. A parrot ... will sooner be brought to relate to us the wisdom of a council table, than any Ambrose, or any Chrysostom, men that have gold and honey in thei r names, shall tell us what the sweetness, what the treasure of heaven is, and what that man’s peace, that hath set his heart upon that treasure.
    ... John Donne (1573-1631), Works of John Donne, vol. V, London: John W. Parker, 1839, Sermon CXXXVI, p. 435 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:19-21; Isa. 33:6; Matt. 13:44-46; Luke 12:34; 2 Cor. 4:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my hands were empty, but You have placed in them treasure beyond measure. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: ethics

Wednesday, January 3, 2018
    Commemoration of Gladys Aylward, Missionary in China, 1970
Meditation:
    Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
    —Deuteronomy 6:4-7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Men say, “How are we to act, what are we to teach our children, now that we are no longer Christians?” You see, gentlemen, how I would answer that question. You are deceived in thinking that the morality of your father was based on Christianity. On the contrary, Christianity presupposed it. That morality stands exactly where it did; its basis has not been withdrawn for, in a sense, it never had a basis. The ultimate ethical injunctions have always been premises, never conclusions. Kant was perfectly right on that point at least, the imperative is categorical. Unless the ethical is assumed from the outset, no argument will bring you to it.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), “On Ethics”, in Christian Reflections, ed. Walter Hooper, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1967, p. 55-56 (see the book)
    See also Deut. 6:1-7; 11:18-19; Ps. 71:18; 78:4-6; Pr. 22:6; Eph. 6:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You alone know what is good. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Basil: why the wicked prosper

Tuesday, January 2, 2018
    Feast of Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Teachers, 379 & 389
    Commemoration of Seraphim, Monk of Sarov, Mystic, Staretz, 1833
Meditation:
You are always righteous, O LORD,
    when I bring a case before you.
Yet I would speak with you about your justice:
    Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
    Why do all the faithless live at ease?
    —Jeremiah 12:1 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If you ask why the life of the wicked is prolonged and the days of the just shortened; why the wicked is prosperous and the just afflicted; why the child is cut off before its time; whence wars, shipwrecks, earthquakes, droughts, and floods; why those things have been created which are deadly to human life; why one is a slave and another free, one rich and another poor, and what requital is to be made by the Judge for all these,—when these things come into your thought, remember that the judgments of God are a great deep. But to him that believeth is the promise given by God, “I will give thee hidden treasures of secret places.”
    ... St. Basil the Great (330?-379), Homily on Ps. XXXII.5, quoted in Saint Basil the Great, Richard T. Smith, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1879, p. 111-112 (see the book)
    See also Jer. 12:1; Job 21:7; Ps. 37:1-2; 73:3; 92:6-7; Isa. 45:3; Mal. 3:15; Matt. 6:19-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, through Your faithfulness, we are rich indeed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Marshall: the only way

Monday, January 1, 2018
    Feast of the Naming & Circumcision of Jesus
Meditation:
    For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
    —Matthew 6:14-15 (KJV)
Quotation:
    If the wounds of millions are to be healed, what other way is there except through forgiveness?
    Jesus, at least, leaves us no alternative. The command is stern. The terms are set: “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
    ... Catherine Marshall (1914-1983), Beyond Our Selves, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961, p. 126 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:14-15; 7:2; 18:21-35; Mark 11:25; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me whom I have not forgiven, that I may more fully obey You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sergeant: the principles of the Lollards

Sunday, December 31, 2017
    Commemoration of John Wycliffe, Reformer, 1384
Meditation:
    What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
    —2 Timothy 1:13-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The gist of what [John Wycliffe] has to say on every point is practically this, that where the Church and the Bible do not agree, we must prefer the Bible; that where authority and conscience appear to be rival guides, we shall be much safer in following conscience; that where the letter and the spirit seem to be in conflict, the spirit is above the letter.
    ... Lewis Sergeant (1841-1902), John Wyclif: last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1893, p. 325 fn (see the book)
    See also 2 Tim. 1:13-14; 2 Cor. 3:6; Gal. 1:8; 2 Tim. 3:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Praise to You, Lord, for Your precious Word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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