Barth: obedience and unity

Saturday, May 30, 2020
    Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906
    Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431
    Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933
Meditation:
    If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.
    —James 2:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In the surrender of separation only one thing must be abandoned, namely, a failure in obedience to Christ, hitherto unrealised, in which a Church, in common... with a neighbor Church, or with all the severed Churches, has had a share of guilt in that trouble which is the multiplicity of the Churches. Its share has possibly lain in the fact that the normal and necessary multiplicity of communities, gifts, and persons within the Church has by the agency of the evil one been perverted; possibly in this, that undue place and import have been attributed to what is racial, to elements of human mentality and ethic, or of historical persistence. This would be the disobedience which the Church would have to consider, as it listened afresh to the voice of Christ.
    ... Karl Barth (1886-1968), The Church and the Churches [1936], Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005, p. 43-44 (see the book)
    See also Jas. 2:8-9; Acts 20:28; 1 Cor. 1:13; 11:18; Eph. 2:19-20; Jas. 2:3-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, have mercy on us, for we forget that we are servants. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Moody: a compressed autobiography

Friday, May 29, 2020
Meditation:
    So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
    —2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Some day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone up higher, that is all; out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal, a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body like unto His own glorious body. I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.
    ... Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899), quoted in The Shorter Life of D. L. Moody, v. 1, Paul Dwight Moody & Arthur Percy Fit, Chicago: The Bible Institute Colportage Association, 1900, p. 9 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 4:18; John 3:5-6; 5:21; 6:39-40; 11:25-26; Rom. 8:11; Phil. 3:20-21; 1 John 2:16-17; Rev. 21:4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have made me to be born of the Spirit. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kraemer: to see redemption

Thursday, May 28, 2020
    Commemoration of Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089
Meditation:
    Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
    —Galatians 1:3-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    What does it mean to be a Christocratic brotherhood? Not a place where religion of a certain brand brings people together at stated times for stated activities, but a brotherhood where everybody finds his or her place, as in 1 Cor. 12, and where the creative fact is the living Christ, the [Redeemer] and Reconciler, who wants to reach the world to minister to it through His redeemed. For the world wants to see redemption. It is not interested in being talked to about it.
    ... Hendrik Kraemer (1888-1965), A Theology of the Laity, London: Lutterworth Press, 1958, p. 179-180 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 1:3-5; 1 Cor. 12; Gal. 4:4-5; Tit. 2:14; Heb. 9:15; 1 Pet. 1:18-19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, demonstrate redemption in the lives of Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Calvin: the arrogance of withdrawal

Wednesday, May 27, 2020
    Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564
Meditation:
    Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written: “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to your name.”
    —Romans 15:7-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Dreadful are those descriptions in which Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Habakkuk, and others, deplore the disorders of the Church of Jerusalem. There was such general and extreme corruption in the people, in the magistrates, and in the priests, that Isaiah does not hesitate to compare Jerusalem to Sodom and Gomorrah. Religion was partly despised, partly corrupted. Their manners were generally disgraced by thefts, robberies, treacheries, murders, and similar crimes. Nevertheless, the prophets on this account neither raised themselves new churches, nor built new altars for the oblation of separate sacrifices; but whatever were the characters of the people, yet because they considered that God had deposited his word among that nation, and instituted the ceremonies in which he was there worshipped, they lifted up pure hands to him even in the congregation of the impious. If they had thought that they contracted any contagion from these services, surely they would have suffered a hundred deaths rather than have permitted themselves to be dragged to them. There was nothing therefore to prevent their departure from them, but the desire of preserving the unity of the Church. But if the holy prophets were restrained by a sense of duty from forsaking the Church on account of the numerous and enormous crimes which were practised, not by a few individuals, but almost by the whole nation,—it is extreme arrogance in us, if we presume immediately to withdraw from the communion of a Church where the conduct of all the members is not compatible either with our judgment, or even with the Christian profession.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. II, tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, IV.i.18, p. 239 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 15:7-12; Isa. 3:8-9; Jer. 13:9-10; Matt. 10:40; Mark 9:37; Rom. 14:1-3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You alone unite Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: He is gracious

Tuesday, May 26, 2020
    Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605
    Commemoration of Arthur John Gossip, Spiritual Writer, 1954
Meditation:
Rend your heart
    and not your garments.
Return to the LORD your God,
    for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
    and he relents from sending calamity.
    —Joel 2:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I like to begin a service with some divine assurance of the liberality and the eager forgiveness of the God who is now meeting with us; not by beseeching Him to be gracious, but by believing that He is; that He stands to His promises; and that, quite safely, we can deal with Him on that assumption.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), In the Secret Place of the Most High, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947, p. 54 (see the book)
    See also Joel 2:13; Mark 1:15; Acts 17:30-31; 2 Tim. 2:25-26; 1 John 1:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I have received Your mercy. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Saucy: where the church can be seen

Monday, May 25, 2020
    Feast of the Venerable Bede, Priest, Monk of Jarrow, Historian, 735
    Commemoration of Aldhelm, Abbot of Mamsbury, Bishop of Sherborne, 709
Meditation:
For the LORD loves the just
    and will not forsake his faithful ones.
They will be protected forever,
    but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off;
the righteous will inherit the land
    and dwell in it forever.
    —Psalm 37:28-29 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is true that the New Testament uses the term ekklesia for the spiritual reality of the body of Christ and also for the assembly, in which the genuineness of the spiritual reality of every individual professing member cannot be known. To this extent, the exact membership of any individual church and the universal church at large cannot be known and is thereby invisible. But even this invisible membership is very visible in the reality of life. As for membership in an invisible church without fellowship with any local assembly, this concept is never contemplated in the New Testament. The universal church was the universal fellowship of believers who met visibly in local assemblies.
    ... Robert L. Saucy (1930-2015), The Church in God’s Program, Chicago: Moody Press, 1972, p. 17 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 37:28-29; John 10:27-30; Rom. 11:2-5; 1 Cor. 8:3; 2 Tim. 2:19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your invisible church is visible to the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wesley: all things possible

Sunday, May 24, 2020
    Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788
Meditation:
    Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
    —Jeremiah 32:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If all things are possible with God, then all things are possible to him who believes in him.
    ... John Wesley (1703-1791), Sermons on Several Occasions, v. II, New York: Carlton & Phillips, 1855, p. 446 (see the book)
    See also Jer. 32:17; Gen. 18:14; Matt. 6:22-23; 19:26
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You have performed a miracle within me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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