Pinnock: the proofs of theism

Saturday, June 29, 2019
    Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles
Meditation:
    Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
    —Genesis 1:26 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It has been observed that nowhere does Scripture attempt a deductive argument for the existence of God, like those of Thomas Aquinas, for example. This fact ought not to be taken to imply, however, that such an effort is unjustifiable and necessarily useless. The distinctiveness of the Biblical approach is its immediacy. The theistic proofs for God’s existence constitute a laborious, painstaking, and patient justification of theism. They attempt to set forth in rational argument what the soul grasps intuitively. But for the Bible, the deepest proof of God’s existence is just life itself. The knowledge of God and man’s knowledge of himself are closely intertwined. If only God could be written off neatly and cleanly, how simple things would be! But the hound of heaven pads after us all. He does not let us go. There is no escaping him...; when least expected, he closes in. The explanation for this is man’s creation in the image of God. His identity is known theologically, in relation to the God who as a man in his true significance cannot survive permanently in isolation from his Maker. Without God, man is the chance product of unthinking fate, and so of little worth. The current loss of identity and the emergence of the faceless man in today’s culture are testimony to the effects of losing our God. The knowledge of God is given in the same movement in which we know ourselves.
    ... Clark H. Pinnock (1937-2010), Set Forth Your Case, Chicago: Moody Press, 1971, p. 108-109 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 1:26; 1 Chr. 28:9; Ps. 119:66; Jer. 24:7; 31:33-34; Amos 8:11-13; Hab. 2:14; John 6:45; 17:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You demonstrate Your presence in life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Clowney: Christians and luck

Friday, June 28, 2019
    Feast of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, Teacher, Martyr, c.200
Meditation:
God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.
    —Psalm 46:1-3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Too many Christians still live with crossed fingers, sweating out their good luck as a portent of calamity. To see them, you would never guess that God’s good pleasure, and not the goddess of fate, rules human destiny.
    ... Edmund P. Clowney (1917-2005)
    See also Ps. 46:1-3; 62:7-8; 91:1-7; John 4:34; Rom. 12:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, my life is always in Your hands. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Studd: the devotion that matters

Thursday, June 27, 2019
Meditation:
    Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
    —Luke 5:31-32 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christ’s call is ... to save the lost, not the stiff-necked; He came not to call scoffers but sinners to repentance; not to build and furnish comfortable chapels, churches, and cathedrals at home in which to rock Christian professors to sleep by means of clever essays, stereotyped prayers and artistic musical performances, but to capture men from the devil’s clutches and snatch them from the very jaws of Hell. But this can be accomplished only by a red-hot, unconventional, unfettered Holy Ghost religion, where neither man nor traditions are worshipped or preached, but only Christ and Him crucified.
    ... C. T. Studd (1860-1931), quoted in C. T. Studd—Cricketer and Pioneer [1933], Norman P. Grubb, World-Wide Revival Prayer Movement, 1947, p. 163 (see the book)
    See also Luke 5:31-32; Matt. 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 15:7; 1 Cor. 1:23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have loved the lost ones. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Sarna: the point of the stories

Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Meditation:
    By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
    —Hebrews 11:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Exclusive concentration on the criterion of historicity obscures the intent, meaning, and message of the narrative which, after all, are its enduring qualities. If Abraham’s migration can no longer be explained as part of a larger Amorite migratory stream from east to west, it should be noted that what has fallen by the wayside is a scholarly hypothesis, not the Biblical text. Genesis itself presents the movement from Haran to Canaan as an individual, unique act undertaken in response to a divine call, an event, not an incident, that inaugurates a new and decisive stage in God’s plan of history. The factuality or otherwise of this Biblical evaluation lies beyond the scope of scholarly research.
    ... Nahum W. Sarna (1925-2005), in Biblical Archaeology Review, March, 1978, Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, p. 52 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 11:8; Gen. 12:1-4; Isa. 51:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, lead me to follow You in faith. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tillotson: pre-testing for martyrdom

Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Meditation:
    Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
    —2 Timothy 2:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In vain does any man pretend that he will be a martyr for his religion, when he will not rule an appetite, nor restrain a lust, nor subdue a passion, nor cross his covetousness and ambition, for the sake of it, and in hope of that eternal life “which God that cannot lie hath promised.’ He that refuseth to do the less is not like to do the greater. It is very improbable that a man will die for his religion, when he cannot be persuaded to live according to it. He that cannot take up a resolution to live a saint, hath a demonstration within himself, that he is never like to die a martyr.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. IV, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon LXXVII, p. 451-452 (see the book)
    See also 2 Tim. 2:3; Tit. 1:2; 2 Tim. 2:11-12; 4:5; Heb. 12:2-3; Jas. 1:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the eternal judge of men. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Donne: periods of silent sin

Monday, June 24, 2019
    Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist
Meditation:
    Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
    —Psalm 19:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Men perish with whispering sins, nay with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience that they are sins, as often as with crying sins; and in hell there shall meet as many men that never thought what was sin, as that spent all their thoughts in the compassing of sin.
    ... John Donne (1573-1631), Works of John Donne, vol. I, London: John W. Parker, 1839, Sermon XIV, p. 276 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 19:12; Lev. 4:22-23; Job 6:24; Ps. 139:23-24; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 14:23; 1 Cor. 4:4; Heb. 9:7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, correct my conscience. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kurosaki: following the Bible

Sunday, June 23, 2019
    Feast of Etheldreda, Abbess of Ely, c.678
Meditation:
    I know that the LORD is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods.
    —Psalm 135:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    One might think that with the Bible as the center of Christianity, the unity of Christians could be easily realized. Unfortunately this has not proved true, though we can consider it fortunate that, as this inability to unify proves, the letter of the Bible cannot really replace the living Christ as the center of our faith.
    The Bible is the expression of the life and work of God, and since “life” is greater than its manifestation, it cannot be expressed completely in any logical or theological form. Therefore, the Bible itself cannot escape being understood in many different ways. Thus we see how in the wisdom of God it is impossible in practice to make the Scriptures the end or final authority in themselves, for they only express God’s authority to those who live in fellowship with the Spirit.
    ... Kokichi Kurosaki (1886-1970), One Body in Christ, Kobe, Japan: Eternal Life Press, 1954, ch. 3 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 135:5; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 4:23-24; 14:16-17,26; 15:26; 20:22; Acts 2:4; 4:31; 5:32; 8:17; Rom. 14:5; Tit. 3:9; Jas. 1:17-18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I know that Your presence is more real even than my own. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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