Glover: new shoot from an old root

Monday, April 23, 2018
    Feast of George, Martyr, Patron of England, c.304
    Commemoration of Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1988
Meditation:
    [Jesus] told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”
    —Luke 21:29-31 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A teacher appears—for whom no one was prepared, and whom no one could have expected. The argument from prophecy, on which the early apologists laid so much weight, was all ex post facto. No one beforehand could have conjectured a tenth of it. But without the background of Jewish prophet and psalmist, of Jewish national history, it would be hard to understand Jesus. If prophet and historian and legislator did not in type and enigma foretell in detail the story of his life, he was none the less their heir. None the less was he their heir in that he was not in bondage to his inheritance, but... a “minister not of the letter but of the spirit,” and the whole of his activity lay “in newness of spirit.” Without conjecturing what he might have been on another soil or of another stock—a type of guesswork always futile in history—we have to recognize the immense spiritual wealth that lay ready to his hand.
    ... T. R. Glover (1869-1943), The Influence of Christ in the Ancient World, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929, p. 113-114 (see the book)
    See also Luke 21:29-31; Isa. 53:2-12; Micah 5:2; Matt. 21:42-43; John 5:39-40; 2 Cor. 3:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have made all things new. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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