Allshorn: all of love

Saturday, June 20, 2020
Meditation:
    And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
    —Romans 5:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Holy Spirit is ... born from Love and is of Love, all its treasures are of love, and if we are to believe our Gospels it is received by love and love only. I am aware that to talk of love vaguely like this is not much help. I know how difficult it is to die to pride and self-concern, to the cowardice of a spiritual apathy that dare not face itself for what it fears to know. I know how difficult it is to remember, and to act as though we knew, that only forgiveness has a Resurrection, resentment has not—all those things that are the great and tormenting enemies to Love and its gracious freedoms.
    ... Florence Allshorn (1887-1950), The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn, London: SCM Press, 1957, p. 64 (see the book)
    See also John 6:63; Rom. 5:5; Eph. 2:17-18; Gal. 5:22; 6:8; 2 Pet. 1:21; Rev. 22:17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit implants love in my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Singh: Christ breathing through the Church

Friday, June 19, 2020
    Commemoration of Sundar Singh of India, Sadhu, Evangelist, Teacher, 1929
Meditation:
    ... Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.
    —1 Corinthians 14:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Church is called ‘the body of Christ’ because the relation between Christ and Christians is not that between a master and his servants. It is more than that. Christians are Christ’s own parts. They are not only friends of Christ, they are Christ Himself. He breathes through them.
    ... Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929), The Message of Sadhu Sundar Singh, B. H. Streeter & A. J. Appasamy, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922, p. 54 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 14:12; Rom. 15:2; 1 Cor. 12:13,24-28; 2 Cor. 12:19; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 4:11-13; 1 Thess. 5:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your church is listening to Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Hoskyns: a vital fundamentalism

Thursday, June 18, 2020
Meditation:
    Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.
    —Jude 3-5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Fundamentalism is widely spoken against because many assume that an adequate doctrine of evolution is available, and is the truth, and that any protest against it is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit who is speaking to us through the doctrine of evolution. Many also take it as proven that the criticism of the Bible has produced certain assured results which in fact destroy the old Christian orthodoxy, and in particular the catastrophic view of history which is the background of the Biblical imagery. It is therefore supposed that the Biblical criticism has unearthed a simple humanist or humanitarian history behind the Biblical narratives, and that the Bible, as it stands, needs a radical reinterpretation which will bring it into line with other discoveries in other branches of knowledge. Now, of course, to all who are thus persuaded, the appearance of Fundamentalism, or a return to the old Biblical language taken at its face value, is just a blasphe my against modern knowledge and a return to the pre-critical, and is therefore quite hopelessly reactionary.
    If Fundamentalism were no more than a protest against the tyranny of a rather superficial doctrine of evolution claiming the right to interpret and remould the truths of the Christian religion, and if it were no more than a criticism of the intolerable dogmatism of a very influential section of Biblical critics, it would be exceedingly difficult for us not to side wholly and convincedly with the Fundamentalists in their insistence on the necessity of a return to the Bible, and to refrain from pointing out that the Church is inevitably Fundamentalist in this sense.
    ... Sir Edwyn C. Hoskyns (1884-1937), We are the Pharisees, London: SPCK, 1960, p. 65-66 (see the book)
    See also Jude 1:3-5; Acts 17:32; Rom. 1:21-22; 1 Cor. 1:19-23; 2 Cor. 10:5; Col. 2:8; 1 Tim. 6:20-21
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You alone are Truth. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Houston: the two wings

Wednesday, June 17, 2020
    Commemoration of Samuel & Henrietta Barnett, Social Reformers, 1913 & 1936
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”
    —Matthew 10:42 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Evangelism and social concern are like the two wings of a bird. Without an intimate association of the two, the church cannot hope to grow over the long term.
    ... Thomas Houston, former president, World Vision International, in a private communication from World Vision
    See also Matt. 9:5; 10:42; Mark 9:41; 12:42-43; Acts 3:6; 8:4; 2 Cor. 8:12
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your gospel fills hearts with compassion. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Joad: getting started

Tuesday, June 16, 2020
    Feast of Richard of Chichester, Bishop, 1253
    Commemoration of Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, Moral Philosopher, 1752
Meditation:
    In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
    Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
    —Genesis 1:1-2 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Whatever be our conception of the universe we must, it is obvious, start somehow; we must begin with something; and the something with which we begin, from the very fact that we do begin with it, must itself be without explanation, since, if something else were invoked to explain it, then the “something else” must needs be logically prior to that which it is invoked to explain. Thus the “something” being explained by a logically prior “something else” could not have been ultimate.
    ... C. E. M. Joad (1891-1953), God and Evil, New York: Harper, 1943, p. 87 (see the book)
    See also Gen. 1:1-2; John 1:1-5; Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, all things begin with You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Underhill: Christ in beauty and love

Monday, June 15, 2020
    Feast of Evelyn Underhill, Mystical Writer, 1941
Meditation:
And afterward,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
    Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your old men will dream dreams,
    your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
    —Joel 2:28-29 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christianity is not an argument, and Christianity is not given us in the form of logic but in the form of beauty and love.
    ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), The Light of Christ, New York: Longmans, Green, 1949, p. 30 (see the book)
    See also Joel 2:28-29; Matt. 4:23; 13:44; Gal. 3:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I can never understand, but I believe. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Baxter: the bare deed

Sunday, June 14, 2020
    Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691
Meditation:
    Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
    He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
    —Matthew 15:12-14 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God takes men’s hearty desires and will, instead of the deed, where they have not power to fulfill them; but He never took the bare deed instead of the will.
    ... Richard Baxter (1615-1691), Directions and Persuasions to a Sound Conversion, in The Practical Works of Richard Baxter, v. VIII, London: J. Duncan, 1830, p. 174 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 15:8-14; Mal. 2:7-8; Matt. 21:28-32; John 4:23-24; Eph. 4:17-19
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You want men’s hearts, not merely their labors. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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