Anselm: knowing God in heaven

Saturday, April 21, 2018
    Feast of Anselm, Abbot of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, Teacher, 1109
Meditation:
    I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.
    —Romans 15:14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Those blessed ones of thine... shall rejoice according as they shall love; and they shall love according as they shall know. How far they will know thee, Lord, then! and how much they will love thee!
    ... St. Anselm (1033-1109), Discourse on the Existence of God, Chicago: The Opencourt Publishing Co, 1903, p. 33 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 15:14; Jer. 31:34; 1 John 4:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Through Your grace, Lord, I grow daily in knowledge of You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Schaeffer: a cold kind of burning

Friday, April 20, 2018
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.”
    —Matthew 23:34-36 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Men today do not, perhaps, burn the Bible, nor does the Roman Catholic Church any longer put it on the index, as it once did. But men destroy it in the form of exegesis: they destroy it in the way they deal with it. They destroy it by not reading it as written in normal literary form, by ignoring historical-grammatical exegesis, by changing the Bible’s own perspective of itself as propositional revelation in space and time, in history, by saying that only the “spiritual” portions of the Bible have authority for us.
    ... Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984), Death in the City, London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1969, Good News Publishers, 2002, p. 77-78 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 23:29-36; Jer. 8:9; 36:22-24; Matt. 22:29; Luke 16:31; John 5:39-40,46; Acts 8:32-35; 17:11; 2 Tim. 3:14-17; 2 Pet. 1:19-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, restore Your word to Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newbigin: the church lives solely by the power of the Holy Spirit

Thursday, April 19, 2018
    Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012
Meditation:
    After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.”
    —Acts 15:7-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We must frankly face the fact that there is in this teaching [that the church lives solely by the power of the Holy Spirit] a revolutionary element which could be dangerously subversive of our existing ways of thought. Let us admit that it is part of the fallen human nature of ecclesiastics, no less than of others in responsible positions, to desire always criteria of judgment which can be used without making too heavy demands upon the delicate faculty of spiritual discernment, clear-cut rules by which we may hope to be saved from making mistakes, or rather from being obviously and personally responsible for the mistakes. We are uncomfortable without definite principles by which we may guide our steps. We fear uncharted country, and the fanatics of all kinds who, upon the alleged authority of the Holy Spirit, summon us with strident cries in all directions simultaneously. Only those who have never borne the heavy burden of pastoral responsib ility will mock at the cautious spirit of the ecclesiastic.
    ... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God, London, SCM Press, 1953, New York: Friendship Press, 1954, p. 106 (see the book)
    See also Acts 15:7-9; 1:8; 2:4; 4:31; 10:44-45; 13:4; 16:6; 2 Pet. 1:21
Quiet time reflection:
    When You will, Lord, release me from caution. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Donne: Death, be not proud

Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Meditation:
    I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
    —Philippians 1:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,
For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, than from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell.
And poppy, or charms, can make us sleep as well,
And better, than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
    ... John Donne (1573-1631), Works of John Donne, vol. VI, London: John W. Parker, 1839, Holy Sonnets, XII, p. 448 (see the book)
    See also Phil. 1:20-24; Rom. 14:7-8; 1 Cor. 15:26; 1 Thess. 4:16; 2 Tim. 1:10; Rev. 14:13
Quiet time reflection:
    My life and my death are in Your hands, Blessed Lord.

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Denney: repentance

Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Meditation:
Because I love your commands
    more than gold, more than pure gold,
and because I consider all your precepts right,
    I hate every wrong path.
    —Psalm 119:127-128 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The self-centred regret which a man feels when his sin has found him out—the wish, compounded of pride, shame, and anger at his own inconceivable folly, that he had not done it: these are spoken of as repentance. But they are not repentance at all... It is the simple truth that that sorrow of heart, that healing and sanctifying pain in which sin is really put away, is not ours in independence of God; it is a saving grace which is begotten in the soul under the impression of sin it owes to the revelation of God in Christ. A man can no more repent than he can do anything else without a motive; and the motive which makes evangelic repentance possible does not enter into his world till he sees God as God makes Himself known in the death of Christ. All true penitents are children of the Cross. Their penitence is not their own creation: it is the reaction towards God produced in their souls by this demonstration of what sin is to Him, and of what H is love does to reach and win the sinful.
    ... James Denney (1856-1917), The Atonement and the Modern Mind, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1903, p. 89-90 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 119:127-128; Job 42:5-6; 2 Cor. 7:10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, create repentance within my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bronnert: the Scapegoat

Monday, April 16, 2018
Meditation:
    [Moses:] “When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert.”
    —Leviticus 16:20-22 (NIV)
Quotation:
    One of the most striking parts of the Day of Atonement is that of the scapegoat. The high priest placed both his hands on the head of a goat and confessed all the sins of the nation. Then the goat carrying the sins of the people is sent off into the wilderness. But it is not just a piece of history!
    There is in the modern world a quest for scapegoats though with one enormous difference. Whenever there is an accident or a tragedy, there is a search for someone to blame. Often all the modern means of communication join in; accusations, resignations, demands for compensation and the rest. If a guilty person is found, then an orgy of condemnation and vilification. Rarely a sense of, there but for the grace of God go I. Instead of dealing gently with one another’s failure because of our own vulnerability to criticism, there is the presumption that we are in a fit condition to judge and to condemn.
    The enormous difference? The original scapegoat followed a confession of the sins of the people. There was no blaming of someone else, but an admission of guilt and a quest for the forgiveness of God. The goat wasn’t hated, but was a dramatic picture of the carrying away sins. It was the very opposite of a selfrighteous victimisation of someone else.
    Ever since 200 A.D., Christians have seen the scapegoat as a picture of Jesus. As it was led out to die in the wilderness bearing the sins of the people, so he was crucified outside Jerusalem for our sins. We are to be both forgiven and forgiving people.
    ... David Bronnert, in a personal communication from the author
    See also Lev. 16:8-26; Ps. 32:1,2; Isa. 53:9-10; Rom. 2:1; Heb. 10:1-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me into forgiveness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dixon: redemptive art

Sunday, April 15, 2018
Meditation:
    Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
    —Colossians 3:23-24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Man cannot make a redemptive art, but he can make an art that communicates what he experiences of redemption as a man and what he knows of it as an artist. God in his infinite wisdom may use an art work as an instrument of redemption, but what serves or can serve that purpose is beyond the knowledge of man.
    ... John W. Dixon, Jr., in Christian Faith and the Contemporary Arts, ed. Finley Eversole, New York: Abingdon Press, 1962, p. 6 (see the book)
    See also Col. 3:23-24; Ex. 35:30-35; Matt. 16:16-17; Gal. 1:11-12; 1 Pet. 1:18-19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, redeem the works of my hands to Your glory. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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