Eckhart: virtue made easy

Saturday, September 29, 2018
    Feast of Michael & All Angels
Meditation:
    He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
    —Isaiah 53:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We would fain be humble; but not despised. To be despised and rejected is the heritage of virtue. We would be poor too, but without privation. And doubtless we are patient, except with hardships and with disagreeables. And so with all the virtues.
    ... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?), Works of Meister Eckhart, London: J. M. Watkins, 1924, p. 45 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 53:3-4; Ps. 22:6-8; 69:10-12,19-20; Isa. 50:6; Matt. 5:3-11; 26:67; 27:39-44; Heb. 12:2-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach me to seek Your way, not the easy way. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Bruce: docetism

Friday, September 28, 2018
Meditation:
    As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.
    —Matthew 27:57-60 (NIV)
Quotation:
    One attempt to reconcile the Gnostic doctrine [of the unreality or evilness] of matter with the apostolic teaching about Christ was the theory that the body which our Lord took at His coming into the world was not a real body but a phantom one. He only seemed to inhabit a material body, and from the Greek word dokein, which means “to seem”, people who held this theory were known as Docetists.
    But if Christ’s incarnation was unreal, His death and resurrection were also unreal; and the whole gospel message was thus emptied of its truth and power. One unhappy legacy of this short-lived phase of Christian heresy ... remains to bedevil Christian witness to Muslims up to the present day. For when the Koran says of Jesus that “they did not kill Him, nor did they crucify Him: it was made a semblance to them”, we may infer that Muhammad was indebted for this idea to a Christian source tainted w ith Docetism.
    ... F. F. Bruce (1910-1990), The Apostolic Defense of the Gospel, London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1959, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, p. 83-84 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 27:57-60; John 1:14; 1 Cor. 12:3; 15:14; 1 John 4:2-3; 5:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You tasted the reality of death. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Boyle: the object of all studies

Thursday, September 27, 2018
    Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660
Meditation:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
    where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
    which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
    like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens
    and makes its circuit to the other;
    nothing is hidden from its heat.
    —Psalm 19:1-6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The gospel comprises indeed, and unfolds the whole mystery of man’s redemption, as far forth as it is necessary to be known for our salvation: and the corpuscularian or mechanical philosophy strives to deduce all the phenomena of nature from adiaphorous matter, and local motion. But neither the fundamental doctrine of Christianity nor that of the powers and effects of matter and motion seems to be more than an epicycle ... of the great and universal system of God’s contrivances, and makes but a part of the more general theory of things, knowable by the light of nature, improved by the information of the scriptures: so that both these doctrines... seem to be but members of the universal hypothesis, whose objects I conceive to be the natural counsels, and works of God, so far as they are discoverable by us in this life.
    ... Robert Boyle (1627-1691), The Excellency of Theology [1674], Works, v. IV, p. 19 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 19:1-6; Gen. 1; Job 38:4-14; Ps. 8:3-4; 33:4-7; 148:3-4; Isa. 40:22-26; Jer. 10:12; Rom. 1:18-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your name is written large on Your creation. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Manning: the celestial foundation

Wednesday, September 26, 2018
    Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942
Meditation:
    I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.
    —2 Corinthians 12:2-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is [in these Wesleyan hymns] the solid structure of historic dogma; there is the passionate thrill of present experience; but there is, too, the glory of a mystic sunlight coming directly from another world. This transfigures history and experience. This puts past and present into the timeless, eternal NOW. This brings together God and man until Wesley talks with God as a man talks with his friend. This gives to the hymn-book its divine audacity, those passages only to be understood by such as have sat in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and, being caught up into paradise, have heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
    ... Bernard Lord Manning (1892-1941), The Hymns of Wesley and Watts, London: Epworth Press, 1942, p. 29 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 12:2-4; Isa. 6:1-4; Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16; Heb. 11:5; Jas. 5:13; Rev. 2:7; 7:16-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me to know the inexpressible joy of Your life in me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Andrewes: the demands of revelation

Tuesday, September 25, 2018
    Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626
    Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392
Meditation:
    I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
    —Colossians 1:25-27 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The manifestation of God in the flesh the Evangelists set down by way of a history; the Apostle goes farther, and finds a deep mystery in it, and for a mystery commends it to us. Now there is difference between these two, many—this for one; that a man may hear a story, and never wash his hands, but a mystery requires both the hands and heart to be clean that shall deal with it.
    ... Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), sermon for Christmas day, 1607, Ninety-six Sermons, v. I, Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1841, p. 32 (see the book)
    See also Col. 1:25-27; Rom. 16:25; Eph. 1:9-10; 3:2-9; Col. 2:2; 1 Tim. 3:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Wash me, Lord, that I may know the mystery of Your grace. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Allen: unworthy of eternal life?

Monday, September 24, 2018
Meditation:
    Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
    —Acts 13:46-47 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    The possibility of rejection was ever present. St. Paul did not establish himself in a place and go on preaching for years to men who refused to act on his teaching. When once he had brought them to a point where decision was clear, he reminded that they should make their choice. If they rejected him, he rejected them... He did not simply “go away;” he openly rejected those who showed themselves unworthy of his teaching. It was part of the Gospel that men might “judge themselves unworthy of eternal life.” It is a question which needs serious consideration whether the Gospel can be truly presented if this element is left out.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or ours?, London: World Dominion Press, 1927, reprinted, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1962, p. 75 (see the book)
    See also Acts 13:46-47; Isa. 49:5-8; Matt. 21:43; Luke 14:16-24; John 1:11; Acts 7:51; 18:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me the people to whom we should preach. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Allen: the necessity of personal decision

Sunday, September 23, 2018
Meditation:
    [Joshua:] “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
    
    —Joshua 24:14-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [St. Paul] always contrived to bring his hearers to a point. There was none of the indeterminate, inconclusive talking, which we are apt to describe as “sowing the seed.” Our idea of sowing the seed seems to be rather like scattering wheat out of a balloon... Occasionally, of course, grains of wheat scattered out of a balloon will fall upon ploughed and fertile land and will spring up and bear fruit; but it is a casual method of sowing. Paul did not scatter seeds, he planted. He so dealt with his hearers that he brought them speedily and directly to a point of decision, and then he demanded of them that they should make a choice and act on their choice. In this way he kept the moral issue clearly before them, and made them realize that his preaching was not merely a novel and interesting doctrine, but a life. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or ours?, London: World Dominion Press, 1927, reprinted, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1962, p. 74-75 (see the book)
    See also Josh. 24:14-15; Matt. 13:3-9,18-23; Acts 14:1-3; 17:16-32
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You direct us to those who need Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth