Packer: Scripture

Saturday, May 4, 2019
    Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation
Meditation:
    And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
    —2 Peter 1:19-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God the Father is the giver of Holy Scripture; God the Son is the theme of Holy Scripture; and God the Spirit ... is the author, authenticator, and interpreter of Holy Scripture.
    ... James I. Packer (b. 1926), God has Spoken: revelation and the Bible, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1965, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979, p. 97 (see the book)
    See also 2 Pet. 1:19-21; Matt. 21:42; 22:43; Rom. 15:4; 2 Tim. 3:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word brings me to repentance. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chapin: eternal significance

Friday, May 3, 2019
Meditation:
    Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.
    —1 Timothy 6:12-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.
    ... Edwin Hubbel Chapin (1814-1880), paraphrased from Duties of Young Men, Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1853, p. 160 (see the book)
    See also 1 Tim. 6:12-16; Matt. 6:19-20; John 3:16; 17:3; Rom. 6:23; 1 John 2:17; Jude 1:21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, though we are weak and sinful, You use Your people for greater good than we could ever intend. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Athanasius: permeation of the Word

Thursday, May 2, 2019
    Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373
Meditation:
    For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.
    —John 5:26 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A man’s personality actuates and quickens his whole body. If anyone said it was unsuitable for the man’s power to be in the toe, he would be thought silly, because, while granting that a man penetrates and actuates the whole of his body, he denied his presence in the part. Similarly, no one who admits the presence of the Word of God in the universe as a whole should think it unsuitable for a single human body to be by Him actuated and enlightened.
    ... St. Athanasius (293?-373), The Incarnation of the Word of God [4th century], St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996, XLII, p. 77 (see the book)
    See also John 5:26; 1 Cor. 12:12,27; Rom. 12:4-5; Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I am never apart from You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Carmichael: Deep unto deep

Wednesday, May 1, 2019
    Feast of Philip & James, Apostles
Meditation:
Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.
By day the LORD directs his love,
    at night his song is with me—
    a prayer to the God of my life.
    —Psalm 42:7-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
Deep unto deep, O Lord,
    Crieth in me,
Gathering strength I come,
    Lord, unto Thee.
Jesus of Calvary,
    Smitten for me,
Ask what Thou wilt, but give
    Love to me.
    ... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), If [1938], London: SPCK, 1961, p. 78 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 42:7-8; 130:1-2; 145:1-2; Isa. 30:29; Rom. 8:35-39; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:17-18; 5:1-2,25; 1 John 3:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are my greatest desire. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: changing God's mind?

Tuesday, April 30, 2019
    Commemoration of Pandita Mary Ramabai, Translator of the Scriptures, 1922
Meditation:
    And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
    —Ephesians 6:18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to cooperate in the execution of His will. “God,” says Pascal, “instituted prayer in order to lend to His creatures the dignity of causality.” But it is not only prayer; whenever we act at all, He lends us that dignity. It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events th an that my other actions should do so.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Efficacy of Prayer [1958], Cincinnati: Forward Movement, 2003, p. 9-10 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 6:18; Ps. 6:9; 66:18-20; 116:1-2; Luke 18:1-7; Rom. 12:12; Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:17; Heb. 5:7; Jude 1:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, receive my prayer. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dodd: disown evil

Monday, April 29, 2019
    Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380
Meditation:
    There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
    —1 Corinthians 12:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    The ascetic believed that, because he was becoming so holy the Devil was permitted special liberties with him, and he found in his increasing agony of effort a token of divine approval. Not along this track lies the path of moral progress. Christianity says: face the evil once for all, and disown it. Then quiet the spirit in the presence of God. Let His perfections fill the field of vision. In particular, let the concrete embodiment of the goodness of God in Christ attract and absorb the gaze of the soul. Here is righteousness, not as a fixed and abstract ideal, but in a living human person. The righteousness of Christ is a real achievement of God’s own Spirit in man.
    ... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for Today, London: Swarthmore, 1920, reprint, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 113 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 12:6; John 5:17; 1 Cor. 3;7; Eph. 1:18-21; 3:20-21; Heb. 13:20-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I look upon Your goodness with awe. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dodd: Christian righteousness

Sunday, April 28, 2019
    Commemoration of Peter Chanel, Religious, Missionary in the South Pacific, Martyr, 1841
Meditation:
    Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
    —Romans 3:20-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The higher faiths call their followers to strenuous moral effort. Such effort is likely to be arduous and painful in proportion to the height of the ideal, desperate in proportion to the sensitiveness of the conscience. A morbid scrupulousness besets the morally serious soul. It is anxious and troubled, afraid of evil, haunted by the memory of failure. The best of the Pharisees tended in this direction, and no less the best of the Stoics. And so little has Christianity been understood that the popular idea of a serious Christian is modelled upon the same type of character. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for Today, London: Swarthmore, 1920, reprint, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 112 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 3:20-21; Ps. 55:22; 2 Cor. 3:5; Phil. 2:13; Col. 1:20; 1 Thes. 2:13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, all good works are Your creation. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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