Saturday, March 21, 2020

Joad: an excluded category

Saturday, March 21, 2020
Meditation:
    I tell you this [about riches in Christ] so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.
    —Colossians 2:4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The fact that a belief is subjectively determined does not mean that it is untrue; it may be a rationalization of our wishes and may, nevertheless, be in accordance with the evidence. Sometimes we are in the fortunate position of knowing that this is so. We may hold a belief to be true because we wish it to be true, and we may at a later date gratefully acknowledge that the evidence is strongly in its favour. It is by no means to be taken for granted that religious beliefs do not fall within this category. I make this point because many people argue as if it were sufficient to show that our religious beliefs are rationalizations, ... in order to disprove them; as if the fact that religious beliefs fulfilled our wishes and comforted our feelings was in itself a reason for supposing them to be false.
    ... C. E. M. Joad (1891-1953), God and Evil, New York: Harper, 1943, p. 228 (see the book)
    See also Jer. 25:31; 2 Cor. 10:2-5; Col. 2:2-4; 2 Tim. 2:23-24; Titus 3:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, rid my mind of all controversies concerning You.
CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Friday, March 20, 2020

Ambrose: the rules of art

Friday, March 20, 2020
    Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”
    “The son of David,” they replied.
    He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”
    —Matthew 22:42-45 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Very many deny that the Sacred writers wrote according to the rules of art. Nor do we contend for the contrary; for they wrote not according to art, but according to grace, which is above all art; for they wrote that which the Spirit gave them to speak. And yet they who wrote on art made use of their writings from which to frame their art, and to compose its comments and rules.
    ... St. Ambrose of Milan (Aurelius Ambrosius) (339-397), letter to Justus, A.D. 381, The Letters of S. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Oxford, J. Parker, 1881, p. 27 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 22:42-45; Acts 2:4; 4:25
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have placed beauty of language in Your word that we may recognize the marks of Your truth.
CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Thomas a Kempis: diligence

Thursday, March 19, 2020
    Feast of Joseph of Nazareth
Meditation:
    Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.
    —1 Peter 2:16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If thou shalt remain faithful and zealous in labour, doubt not that God shall be faithful and bountiful in rewarding thee. It is thy duty to have a good hope that thou wilt attain the victory: but thou must not fall into security lest thou become slothful or lifted up.
    ... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ [1418], Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1877, I.xxv.1, p. 76 (see the book)
    See also 1 Pet. 2:16; Ps. 23:1; 65:9-13; Luke 12:35-40; John 6:31; 1 Cor. 2:9; 4:1-2; 2 Cor. 9:8-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, keep me faithful in the hour of trial.
CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Drummond: the most destructive sin

Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Meditation:
    Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
    —Ephesians 4:31-32 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or “touchy” disposition. This compatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics... No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to unChristianize society than evil temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom off of childhood, in short, for sheer, gratuitous misery-producing power; this influence stands alone.
    ... Henry Drummond (1851-1897), “The Greatest Thing in the World”, in Addresses, H. Altemus, 1891, p. 39-41 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 4:31-32; Ps. 4:4; Pr. 17:14; Eccl. 7:8-9; Matt. 5:22; Eph. 4:26; Col. 3:15; Jas. 1:19-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, cool my temper, particularly with ____ and ____.
CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Rutherford: on being cut off

Tuesday, March 17, 2020
    Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460
Meditation:
    I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
    —Lamentations 3:19-23 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I get not my feasts without some mixture of gall; neither am I free of old jealousies; for he hath removed my lovers and friends far from me; he hath made my congregation desolate, and taken away my crown; and my dumb sabbaths are like a stone tied to a bird’s foot, that wanteth not wings; they seem to hinder my flight, were it not that I dare not say one word, but “Well done, Lord Jesus.”
    ... Samuel Rutherford (1600-1664), Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Edinburgh: William Whyte & Co., 1848, letter, Feb. 20, 1637, p. 192-193 (see the book)
    See also Lam. 3:19-23; 2 Tim. 4:8; Jas. 1:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I will wait on You.
CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Monday, March 16, 2020

Peterson: the freedom of God

Monday, March 16, 2020
Meditation:
    And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”
    —Exodus 33:19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God is absolutely free. He doesn’t do anything because he has to do it. There is no necessitas in God. He is not a part of the cause-effect sequence of things. He operates out of free love—no constraints.
    ... Eugene H. Peterson (1932-2018), in “On Being Unnecessary”, The Unnecessary Pastor, Marva J. Dawn, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000, p. 5 (see the book)
    See also Ex. 33:19; Isa. 65:1; Mic. 7:18; Luke 10:21; John 1:12-13; 3:8; Rom. 2:4; 9:15-21; Eph. 1:4-8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You spread Your light where You will.
CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Lewis: the God of good

Sunday, March 15, 2020
Meditation:
    And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’S commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good? To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.
    —Deuteronomy 10:12-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There were in the eighteenth century terrible theologians who held that “God did not command certain things because they are right, but certain things are right because God commanded them.” To make the position perfectly clear, one of them even said that though God has, as it happens, commanded us to love Him and one another, He might equally well have commanded us to hate Him and one another, and hatred would then have been right. It was apparently a mere toss-up which He decided on. Such a view of course makes God a mere arbitrary tyrant. It would be better and less irreligious to believe in no God and to have no ethics than to have such an ethics and such a theology as this.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Reflections on the Psalms, Edinburgh: James Thin, 1958; G. Bles, 1958, p. 61 (see the book)
    See also Deut. 6:5; 7:9; 10:12-16,19; 30:6; Mark 12:30-31; John 15:12-13; 1 Thess. 3:12; 4:9; Heb. 13:1; 1 John 4:16; 2 John 5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are good, and You have rejected evil.
CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth