Davidman: mis-taking the fifth

Saturday, September 22, 2018
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.”
    —Matthew 15:4-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Taken as practical counsel for survival, the Fifth Commandment is now almost a dead letter. Yet if our world were truly Christian, the change might be a reason for rejoicing. We no longer need our families—we are therefore free to love them with complete unselfishness. Now at last it is possible to honour our parents genuinely, because they no longer have the power to kill us if we don’t. The old sort of honour was sometimes an ugly sham: the son who respects Father only out of fear of punishment is not much of a son, just as the Christian who worships God only out of fear of hell is precious little of a Christian. But the new sort of honour can be a beautiful and holy thing. There are many sweet and sane families bound together by love; there are plenty of experts who remind us that only love can make the modern family work at all. And one must admit that there are plenty of parents very willing to be honoured.
   &nb sp;The catch is that not so many of them are willing to be honourable.
    ... Joy Davidman (1915-1960), Smoke on the Mountain, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1955, reprint, Westminster John Knox Press, 1985, p. 67-68 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 15:4-6; Ex. 20:12; Jer. 12:2; Mark 7:10-13; Heb. 3:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me Your love for my family. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Guinness: gaps in the Church's wall

Friday, September 21, 2018
    Feast of Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist
Meditation:
    God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.
    —Hebrews 6:18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Modern Christianity is crucially weak at three vital points. The first is its compromised, deficient understanding of revelation. Without Biblical historicity and veracity behind the Word of God, theology can only grow closer to Hinduism. Second, the modern Christian is drastically weak in an unmediated, personal, experiential knowledge of God. Often, what passes for religious experience is a communal emotion felt in church services, in meetings, in singing or contrived fellowship. Few Christians would know God on their own. Third, the modern church is often pathetically feeble in the expression of its focal principle of community. It has become an adult social club, preaching shop, or minister-dominated group. With these weaknesses, modern Christianity cannot hope to understand why people have turned to the East, let alone stand against the trend and offer an alternative.
    ... Os Guinness (b. 1941), The Dust of Death, Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1973, p. 209 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 6:18; Matt. 14:1-2; Luke 1:1-4; 2:1-2; 3:1; 9:7; Acts 12:19-23; 18:12; 25:13; 1 John 4:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, remove the counterfeits and restore Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Packer: two ends of knowledge

Thursday, September 20, 2018
    Feast of John Coleridge Patteson, First Bishop of Melanesia, & his Companions, Martyrs, 1871
Meditation:
    ... I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.
    —2 Timothy 1:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Knowing God is more than knowing about Him; it is a matter of dealing with Him as He opens up to you, and being dealt with by Him as He takes knowledge of you. Knowing about Him is a necessary precondition of trusting in Him, but the width of our knowledge about Him is no gauge of the depth of our knowledge of Him.
    ... James I. Packer (b. 1926), Knowing God, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973, p. 39 (see the book)
    See also 2 Tim. 1:12; Ps. 9:10; 46:10; 56:9; Phil. 3:8-11; Tit. 1:16; 1 Pet. 4:19; 1 John 4:6-7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, reveal Yourself to my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Newton: biblical authenticity

Wednesday, September 19, 2018
    Commemoration of Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 690
Meditation:
    ... but first I will tell you what is written in the Book of Truth.
    —Daniel 10:21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I find more marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever.
    ... Isaac Newton (1642-1727) (see the book)
    See also Dan. 10:21; Isa. 43:8-9; Amos 3:7; Luke 3:1-2; Rom. 3:2-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word is true. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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MacDonald: reality or illusion

Tuesday, September 18, 2018
    Commemoration of George MacDonald, Spiritual Writer, 1905
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
    —John 10:27 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There are those who in their very first seeking of it are nearer to the kingdom of heaven than many who have for years believed themselves [to be] of it. In the former there is more of the mind of Jesus, and when he calls them, they recognise him at once and go after him; while the others examine him from head to foot, and finding him not sufficiently like the Jesus of their conception, turn their backs, and go to church or chapel or chamber to kneel before a vague form mingled of tradition and fancy.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), Thomas Wingfold, Curate [1876], New York: George Routledge & Son, 1876, p. 229-230 (see the book)
    See also John 10:27; Matt. 24:5; John 8:12; 10:4,16; Rev. 14:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me and all Your people to a more authentic knowledge of You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Jones: the character of the Redeemer

Monday, September 17, 2018
    Feast of St. Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179
Meditation:
    The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
    “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
        and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
        so he did not open his mouth.
    In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
        Who can speak of his descendants?
        For his life was taken from the earth.”
    The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
    —Acts 8:32-35 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Some have said that the power of a Redeemer would depend upon two things: first, upon the richness of the self that was given; and second, upon the depths of the giving. Friend and foe alike are agreed on the question of the character of Jesus Christ... Whatever our creed, we stand with admiration before the sublime character of Jesus. Character is supreme in life, and hence Jesus stood supreme in the supreme thing—so supreme that, when we think of the ideal, we do not add virtue to virtue, but think of Jesus Christ, so that the standard of human life is no longer a code, but a character.
    ... E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973), Now and Then
    See also Acts 8:32-35; Ps. 69:4; Isa. 52:13-53:12; Matt. 27:12-14; Luke 17:12-14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have demonstrated the Gospel. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Cyprian: safety

Sunday, September 16, 2018
    Feast of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Martyr, 258
    Commemoration of Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle to the Picts, c. 430
    Commemoration of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, tractarian, 1882
Meditation:
The LORD is my light and my salvation;
    whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the strength of my life;
    of whom shall I be afraid?
    —Psalm 27:1 (KJV)
Quotation:
    No one is strong in his own strength, but he is safe by the grace and mercy of God.
    ... St. Cyprian (Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus) (?-258), Treatise IV. On the Lord’s Prayer [252], in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, v. V, Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, trs., Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1886, par. 14, p. 451 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 27:1; 46:1-2; Isa. 40:31; Matt. 6:9-13; Gal. 6:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have me in the hollow of Your hand. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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