Saturday, April 04, 2020

Gray: creeds

Saturday, April 4, 2020
Meditation:
    “Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it.”
    —Habakkuk 2:18-19 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    Because God has been so far from us, we feel the need to draw nigh to him. We use sacred word, sacred rite, and sacred music to celebrate his previous disclosures of his character and will for us. We perhaps await his further word and guidance. We certainly confess our faith that he is the answer or the resolution of our questions, the guide or the disturber of our conduct, the peace or the sword of our spirits. Confessions of faith tend to become specific and explicit. At their best, they win converts, rekindle loyalty, and place the confessors of creeds at the mercy and disposal of the almighty God. At their worst, creeds alienate the alien seeker in our midst, deaden our spontaneity, and protect us from adventuring beyond God’s previous calls. If the wideness of God’s possible revelations can be perverted into an idolatry of the world, the narrowness of an inflexible use of tradit ional forms of worship can also be perverted into its own kind of idolatry—the idolatry of book, altar, preacher, and propriety.
    ... Wallace Gray, “Philosophy and Worship”
    See also Hab. 2:18; Ps. 135:15-18; Isa. 44:18-20; John 4:23-24; Rom. 1:25; 2 Cor. 4:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Only You, Lord, can keep Your church safe from idolatry.
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Friday, April 03, 2020

Gray: the nearness and remoteness of God

Friday, April 3, 2020
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”
    —Matthew 25:40 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The nearness of God may inspire awareness of his activity, mystery and order in the most ordinary and “non-sacred” places. Therefore, Christians working in any kind of college must pray for and cultivate delicate sensitivity to God’s unexpected disclosures in the ordinary and even in the profane areas of life. The temptation of those who exalt the unrestricted activity of God in any and all places is that they may become overly diffuse in their outlook, seeing him where he does not deign to disclose himself or scorning the customary or conventional places of public worship. These, strangely enough, are the places where the very distance of God leads us. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Wallace Gray, “Philosophy and Worship”
    See also Matt. 25:40; Ex. 3:1-5; Deut. 6:4-9; Matt. 10:42; Heb. 11:6
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me know the touch of Your Spirit when I am involved with the world’s affairs.
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Thursday, April 02, 2020

Lewis: the morning is coming

Thursday, April 2, 2020
Meditation:
Sing to the LORD, you saints of his;
    praise his holy name.
For his anger lasts only a moment,
    but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may remain for a night,
    but rejoicing comes in the morning.
    —Psalm 30:4-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ—can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father—that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begin to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Mere Christianity, New York: MacMillan, 1952, reprint, HarperCollins, 2001, p. 200 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 30:4-5; 5:3; Isa. 11:6-9; 65:20-25; Eze. 34:25-29; Hos. 2:18; Rom. 14:17
Quiet time reflection:
    O Lord, the night is long. Swiftly bring the morning.
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Wednesday, April 01, 2020

Gore: divisions in the Christian Church

Wednesday, April 1, 2020
    Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872
Meditation:
    Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
    —Matthew 5:9 (KJV)
Quotation:
    Do we habitually remember how it offends our Lord to see divisions in the Christian Church, nations nominally Christian armed to the teeth against one another, class against class and individual against individual in fierce and relentless competition, jealousies among clergy and church-workers, communicants who forget that the sacrament of union with Christ is the sacrament of union with their fellow men?
    Christians are to be the makers of Christ’s peace. Something we can all do [is] to reconcile individuals, families, classes, churches, nations. The question is, Are we, as churchmen and citizens, by work and by prayer, in our private conduct and our public action, doing our utmost with deliberate, calculated, unsparing effort? If so, our benediction is of the highest: it is to be, and to be acknowledged as being, sons of God.
    ... Charles Gore (1853-1932), The Sermon on the Mount [1910], London: John Murray, 1905, p. 43 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5:9,23-26; Rom. 8:14; 15:5-7; 1 Cor. 1:13
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant that I shall be an instrument of Your peace.
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Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Donne: a frivolous view of sin

Tuesday, March 31, 2020
    Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
    “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
    “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
    —Matthew 22:11-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Consider the insupportable penances that were laid upon sinners, by those penitential canons, that went through the church in those primitive times; when for many sins which we pass through now, without so much as taking knowledge that they are sins, men were not admitted to the Communion all their lives—no, nor easily upon their death-beds. Consider how dangerously an abuse of that great doctrine of Predestination may bring thee to thinke, that God is bound to thee, and thou not bound to him; that thou mayest renounce him, and he must embrace thee, and so make thee too familiar with God, and too homely with religion, upon presumption of a decree.
    ... John Donne (1573-1631), Works of John Donne, vol. III, London: John W. Parker, 1839, Sermon LXVIII, p. 216 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 22:11-14; Ps. 65:5; Mark 16:16; Rom. 8:29
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I never presume upon Your mercy.
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Monday, March 30, 2020

Ramsay: the Ascension

Monday, March 30, 2020
Meditation:
    After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.
    “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
    —Acts 1:9-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    After this conviction was produced, we come to the final stage, the apparent departure of the embodied Divine Nature, the man Jesus, from the world. The earthly period had fulfilled its purpose and reached its climax. This is the Ascension. This term, like many of the other words which must be employed by man in discussing the subject, is an attempt to express Divine truth—which as Divine is not subject to worldly conditions—in the language of human imperfection. The Divine Nature is omnipresent. It does not lie more in one direction from us than in another; it is neither above nor below: it is everywhere. To say that Jesus went up into heaven is a merely symbolic expression; it has not a local significance; it is an emblematic statement of the truth. The truth which has to be conceived in the mind is that, at the due stage and the proper moment, Jesus ceased to be apparent to human senses in the world, and is God with God.
    ... Sir William M. Ramsay (1851-1939), Pictures of the Apostolic Church, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910, p. 2-3 (see the book)
    See also Acts 1:8-11; Luke 24:46-53; John 1:1,14; 1 Cor. 15:3-9; 1 John 4:8-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your authority is without limit.
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Sunday, March 29, 2020

Ramsay: witnesses to the Resurrection

Sunday, March 29, 2020
    Commemoration of Jack Winslow, Missionary, Evangelist, 1974
Meditation:
    ... but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
    —2 Timothy 1:10 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    It was therefore an essential part of the Divine purpose, that those who had known the Divine Word in its human expression as the man Jesus, should become aware that death had no real power over Him. This result was accomplished by various events after such fashion that a sufficient number of persons were firmly convinced of the truth, and constituted a body of witnesses whose evidence might convince the world and give effect to the Divine will. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Sir William M. Ramsay (1851-1939), Pictures of the Apostolic Church, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910, p. 2 (see the book)
    See also 2 Tim. 1:8-10; Luke 24:46-51; John 1:1,14; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor. 15:3-9; 1 John 4:8-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have conquered death.
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