Christlieb: the amorphous idol

Saturday, June 2, 2018
Meditation:
    For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
    “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
    the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
    Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
    —1 Corinthians 1:18-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    You meet a thousand times in life with those who, in dealing with any religious question, make at once their appeal to reason, and insist on forthwith rejecting aught that lies beyond its sphere, without however being able to render any clear account of the nature and proper limits of the knowledge thus derived, or of the relation in which such knowledge stands to the religious needs of men. I would invite you, therefore, to inquire seriously whether such persons are not really bowing down before an idol of the mind, which, while itself of very questionable worth, demands as much implicit faith from its worshipers as divine revelation itself.
    ... Theodor Christlieb (1833-1889), Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, Ediburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1879, p. 69 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 1:19-21; Isa. 29:14; 41:28-29; 44:24-25; 53:1; Rom. 1:20-23; 1 Cor. 1:22-23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach me to trust You more fully. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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St. John Chrysostom: multipliers of charity

Friday, June 1, 2018
    Feast of Justin, Martyr at Rome, c.165
    Commemoration of Angela de Merici, Founder of the Institute of St. Ursula, 1540
Meditation:
    If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
    —1 John 3:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Every day the church here [in Antioch] feeds 3000 people. Besides this, the church daily helps provide food and clothes for prisoners, the hospitalized, pilgrims, cripples, churchmen, and others. If only ten [other groups of] people were willing to do this, there wouldn’t be a single poor man left in town.
    ... St. John Chrysostom (345?-407) (see the book)
    See also 1 John 3:17; Luke 3:11; 2 Cor. 8:9; 1 Tim. 6:17-18; Heb. 13:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, forgive my hardheartedness. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Coleridge: Messiah or conqueror?

Thursday, May 31, 2018
Meditation:
    But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
    —Isaiah 53:5 (KJV)
Quotation:
    If the prophecies of the Old Testament are not rightly interpreted of Jesus our Christ, then there is no prediction whatever contained in it of that stupendous event—the rise and establishment of Christianity—in comparison with which all the preceding Jewish history is as nothing. With the exception of the book of Daniel, which the Jews themselves never classed among the prophecies, and an obscure text of Jeremiah, there is not a passage in all the Old Testament which favours the notion of a temporal Messiah. What moral object was there, for which such a Messiah should come? What could he have been but a sort of virtuous [Napoleon]?
    ... Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Table Talk, 2nd ed., London: John Murray, 1836, April 13, 1830, p. 49 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:5; 9:6-7; Dan. 7:13-14; Zech. 9:9; John 18:36
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, let us know You even more, ever better. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Phillips: taking God as your leader

Wednesday, May 30, 2018
    Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906
    Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431
    Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933
Meditation:
    My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
    —1 Corinthians 1:11-13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There are doubtless many reasons for the degeneration of Christianity into churchiness, and the narrowing of the Gospel for all mankind into a set of approved beliefs; but the chief cause must be the worship of an inadequate god—a cramped and regulated god who is a ‘good churchman’ according to the formulas of the worshipper. For actual behaviour infallibly betrays the real object of the man’s worship.
    All Christians, whatever their Church, would of course instantly repudiate the idea that their god was a super-example of their own denomination, and it is not suggested that the worship is conscious. Nevertheless, beneath the conscious critical level of the mind it is perfectly possible for the Anglo-Catholic, for example, to conceive God as particularly pleased with Anglo-Catholicism, doubtful about Evangelicalism, and frankly displeased by all forms of Nonconformity... The ultra-low Churchman on the other hand must admit, if he is honest, that the God whom he worships disapproves most strongly of vestments, incense, and candles on the altar. The tragedy of these examples—which could be reproduced ad nauseam any day of the week—is not difference of opinion, which will probably be with us till the Day of Judgment, but the outrageous folly and damnable sin of trying to regard God as the Party Leader of a particular point of view.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), Your God is Too Small [1953], Simon and Schuster, 2004, p. 38-39 (see the book)
    See also Acts 10:34,35; Deut. 10:17; John 4:23; Rom. 2:11; 1 Cor. 1:11-13; Col. 3:11; Jas. 2:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, only You lead Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Stace: getting around the problem

Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Meditation:
    To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
    —1 Peter 2:21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The problem of evil assumes the existence of a world-purpose. What, we are really asking, is the purpose of suffering? It seems purposeless. Our question of the why of evil assumes the view that the world has a purpose, and what we want to know is how suffering fits into and advances this purpose. The modern view is that suffering has no purpose because nothing that happens has any purpose. The world is run by causes, not by purposes.
    ... W. T. Stace (1886-1967), Religion and the Modern Mind, Lippincott, 1952, p. 168 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 2:21; Ps. 89:30-32; John 13:15; 1 John 2:6; 3:16; Rev. 12:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are creation’s Purpose. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Williams: the price of truth

Monday, May 28, 2018
    Commemoration of Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089
Meditation:
    I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.
    —Revelation 3:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Having tried, we must hold fast [to the truth], upon [the penalty of] the loss of a crown; we must not let go for all the fleabitings of the present afflictions, etc. Having bought truth dear, we must not sell it cheap, not the least grain of it for the whole world; no, not for the saving of souls, though our own most precious; least of all for the bitter sweetening of a little vanishing pleasure.
    ... Roger Williams (1603?-1683), The Bloudy Tenent [1644], London: J. Haddon, 1848, p. 9 (see the book)
    See also Rev. 3:11; 1 Cor. 9:24-25; 1 Thes. 5:21; 2 Tim. 1:13; Heb. 4:14; 1 Pet. 5:4; Rev. 2:25
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep my priorities right. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Calvin: separatism

Sunday, May 27, 2018
    Trinity Sunday
    Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564
Meditation:
    Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
    —James 4:11-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    But if the holy prophets had scruples against separating themselves from the church because of many great misdeeds, not of one man or another but of almost all the people, we claim too much for ourselves if we dare withdraw at once from the communion of the church just because the morals of all do not meet our standard, or even square with the profession of Christian faith.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. II, tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, IV.i.18, p. 240 (see the book)
    See also Jas. 4:11-12; Matt. 7:1; Rom. 2:1; 14:4,13; 1 Cor. 4:4-5; Eph. 4:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, liberate me from the party spirit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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