French Confession on Scripture

Saturday, March 10, 2018
Meditation:
    Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
    —John 20:30-31 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We believe that the Word contained in these books [viz., the Bible] has proceeded from God, and receives its authority from Him alone, and not from men. And inasmuch as it is the rule of all truth, containing all that is necessary for the service of God and for our salvation, it is not lawful for men, nor even for angels, to add to it, to take away from it, or to change it. Whence it follows that no authority, whether of antiquity, or custom, or numbers, or human wisdom, or judgments, or proclamations, or edicts, or decrees, or councils, or visions, or miracles, should be opposed to these Holy Scriptures, but on the contrary, all things should be examined, regulated, and reformed according to them.
    ... The French Confession of Faith [1559], in Bibliotheca Symbolica Ecclesiae Universalis: The evangelical Protestant creeds, vol. 3, Philip Schaff, New York: Harper, 1919, art. V (see the book)
    See also John 3:30-31; Deut. 4:2; 12:32; Pr. 30:6; Matt. 15:9; John 3:26-29; 5:33-34; 15:15; 20:30-31; Acts 5:28-29; 20:27; 1 Cor. 11:2,23; Gal. 1:8; 1 Tim. 1:15; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 1 Pet. 1:11-12; 2 Pet. 1:20-21; Rev. 22:18-19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, thank you for Your word that is fixed for all time. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Westminster Confession on Scripture

Friday, March 9, 2018
Meditation:
    But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.
    —1 John 2:20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to a high and reverend esteem of the Holy Scripture, and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.
    ... The Westminster Confession of Faith [1646], Introduction & Notes by John Macpherson, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1881, chapter 1, article V (see the book)
    See also 1 John 2:20; Isa. 59:21; John 16:13,14; 1 Cor. 2:10-12; 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 John 2:27
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, the testimony of Your Spirit leads me into truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Studdert Kennedy: Thou who art Lord

Thursday, March 8, 2018
    Commemoration of Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, Priest, Poet, 1929
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
    —Matthew 5:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
Thou who art Lord of all the tender pities,
    Mercy Incarnate, human and divine,
How could we write Thy Name upon these cities
    Wherein Thy children live like herded swine?

Would not those eyes that saw their angels gazing
    Into the brightness of the Father’s face
Turn on this slum, with Love and Fury blazing,
    Shriveling our souls with shame of such a place?

“Where are My children, those the Father gave you?
    What have you done with babes that bore My Name?
Was it for this I suffered so to save you?
    Must I for ever burn for you in shame?”
    ... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), The Wicket Gate, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1923, p. 90 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5:7; Job 31:16-22; Ps. 37:26; 122:9; Pr. 14:21; 19:17; Mic. 6:8; Matt. 6:1-4; 25:31-46; Jas. 2:13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, pour out the Spirit of Your mercy on Your people.

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Packer: the one solution still

Wednesday, March 7, 2018
    Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203
Meditation:
    Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
    —2 Corinthians 13:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What, after all, are the world’s deepest problems? They are what they always have been, the individual’s problems—the meaning of life and death, the mastery of self, the quest for value and worth-whileness and freedom within, the transcending of loneliness, the longing for love and a sense of significance, and for peace. Society’s problems are deep, but the individual’s problems go deeper; Solzhenitsyn, Dostoyevsky, or Shakespeare will show us that, if we hesitate to take it from the Bible.
    ... James I. Packer (b. 1926), “Jesus Christ the Lord”, in The Lord Christ [1980], John Stott, ed., vol. 1 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 56 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 13:5; Ps. 26:2; 139:23-24; Lam. 3:4; Hag. 1:5; John 15:15,19; 1 Cor. 11:28-31; Gal. 6:4; 1 John 3:19-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, in Your grace, make my faults known to me, and enable me to amend my ways. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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St. John Chrysostom: the Player and the instrument

Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Meditation:
    However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him“— but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
    —1 Corinthians 2:9-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Seeing, then, it is no longer the fisherman, the son of Zebedee, but He who knoweth “the deep things of God”, the Holy Spirit, I mean, that striketh this lyre, let us hearken accordingly. For he will say nothing to us as a man, but what he saith, he will say from the depths of the Spirit.
    ... St. John Chrysostom (345?-407), The Homilies of S. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John, v. I, Oxford: Parker, 1848, p. 3 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 2:9-10; Job 12:22; Ps. 42:7; 92:5-7; Dan. 2:22; Rom. 11:33-36
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make my testimony to You ring loud and clear. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Oldham: reforming society?

Monday, March 5, 2018
Meditation:
    If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
    —2 Peter 2:20,21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Does not the public repudiation of the whole Christian scheme of life in a large part of what was once known as Christendom force to the front the question whether the path of wisdom is not rather to attempt to work out a Christian doctrine of modern society and to order our national life in accordance with it?
    Those who would give a quick, easy or confident answer to this question have failed to understand it. It cannot even be seriously considered without a profound awareness of the extent to which Christian ideas have lost their hold over, or faded from the consciousness of, large sections of the population; of the far-reaching changes that would be called for in the structure, institutions and activities of existing society, which is in many of its features a complete denial of the Christian understanding of the meaning and end of man’s existence; and of the stupendous and costly spiritual, moral and intellectual effort that any genuine attempt to order national life in accordance with the Christian understanding of life would demand.
    ... J. H. Oldham (1874-1969), from a letter to The Times printed October 5, 1938, quoted in The Idea of a Christian Society, T. S. Eliot, London: Faber, 1939, reprint, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1960, p. 68 (see the book)
    See also 2 Peter 2:20-21; Matt. 12:31-32; 13:22; Mark 4:18-19; Luke 8:14; 11:24-26; 18:24; Heb. 6:4-6; 10:26-29
Quiet time reflection:
    May the Lord send His grace again to our wayward world! CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tauler: God's way

Sunday, March 4, 2018
    Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647
Meditation:
    The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ... But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
    —1 Corinthians 12:12,18-20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God does not lead all His servants by one road, nor in one way, nor at one time; for God is in all things; and that man is not serving God aright, who can only serve Him in his own self-chosen way.
    ... Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300-1361), The Inner Way, Sermon XVI (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 12:12,18-20,27; Matt. 5:6; Luke 10:41-42; 1 Cor. 14:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me a heart that waits upon You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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