Machen: all is denied

Saturday, February 12, 2022
    Commemoration of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (Nicolas Herman), spiritual writer, 1691
Meditation:
    When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
    —Luke 24:9-11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It makes very little difference how much or how little of the creeds of the Church the Modernist preacher affirms, or how much or how little of the Biblical teaching from which the creeds are derived. He might affirm every jot and tittle of the Westminster Confession, for example, and yet be separated by a great gulf from the Reformed Faith. It is not that part is denied and the rest affirmed; but all is denied, because all is affirmed merely as useful or symbolic and not as true.
    ... J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), What is Faith? [1925], The Macmillan Company, 1925, reprint Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1962, p. 34 (see the book)
    See also Luke 24:9-11; Acts 8:18-24; 2 Tim. 4:3
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word is true. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Thomas a Kempis: love free from self-interest

Friday, February 11, 2022
Meditation:
    Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him...
    —Job 13:15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Those who love Him for His own sake and not for any comfort of their own, bless Him in all trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if He should never give them consolation, yet they would continue to praise Him and wish always to give Him thanks. What power there is in pure love for Jesus—love that is free from all self-interest and self-love!
    ... Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), Of the Imitation of Christ [1418], Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1877, II.xi., p. 104 (see the book)
    See also Job 13:15; Ps. 23:4; Rom. 8:38-39
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are my life’s treasure. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Gossip: gateways to the heart

Thursday, February 10, 2022
    Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543
Meditation:
Sacrifice and offering you did not desire
    but my ears you have opened;
burnt offerings and sin offerings
    you did not require.
    —Psalm 40:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A basic trouble is that most Churches limit themselves unnecessarily by addressing their message almost exclusively to those who are open to religious impressions through the intellect, whereas ... there are at least four other gateways—the emotions, the imagination, the aesthetic feeling, and the will, through which they can be reached.
    ... A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924, p. 216 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 40:6-8; Jer. 36:7; Luke 12:11-12; John 7:16-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You speak to me through all things. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: variety in the servants

Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Meditation:
    But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
    —1 Corinthians 12:18 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Every complexion of the inward man, when sanctified by humility, and suffering itself to be tuned, and struck, and moved by the Holy Spirit of God, according to its particular frame and turn, helps mightily to increase that harmony of divine praise, thanksgiving, and adoration, which must arise from different instruments, sounds, and voices. To condemn this variety in the servants of God, or to be angry at those who have not served him, in the way that we have chosen for ourselves, is but too plain a sign, that we have not enough renounced the elements of selfishness, pride, and anger.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), Christian Regeneration [1739], in Works of Rev. William Law, v. V, London: G. Moreton, 1893, p. 172-173 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 12:4-6,14-18; Eph. 4:17; Phil. 2:3; 1 Pet. 5:5; 1 John 2:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I trust Your hand in the composition of the Body. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Merton: Christ in the unexpected

Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Meditation:
    Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
    —Mark 9:35 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Christian life ... is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places. And these discoveries are sometimes most profitable when you find Him in something you had tended to overlook or even despise.
    ... Thomas Merton (1915-1968), The Journals of Thomas Merton, HarperCollins, 1996, p. 563 (see the book)
    See also Mark 9:35; Matt. 25:37-40; Luke 9:47-48; 2 Cor. 2:10-11; Eph. 3:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are revealing Your presence. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Coleridge: Romans

Monday, February 7, 2022
Meditation:
    Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
    —2 Peter 3:15-16 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I think St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans the most profound work in existence; and I hardly believe that the writings of the old Stoics, now lost, could have been deeper... You will smile, after this, if I say that I think I understand St. Paul; and I think so, because, really and truly, I recognize a cogent consecutiveness in the argument—the only evidence I know that you understand any book.
    ... Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Table Talk, 2nd ed., London: John Murray, 1836, p. 237 (see the book)
    See also 2 Pet. 3:15-16; Matt. 22:29; Rom. 8:1-2; Heb. 5:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, open my mind to the understanding of Your word. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Wand: from authority to persuasion

Sunday, February 6, 2022
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
    —Matthew 13:33 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Almost everywhere political secularization was accompanied at length by a general decrease in religious observance. Theological matters ceased to be, if they had ever genuinely been, the main interest of the people. This does not mean that religion died out: far from it. But it became the interest, not of the whole, but of a section of the people. The Church, instead of being a recognized ruling authority, became what its Founder said it was, a little yeast in a large lump of dough. In some countries it barely maintained the right to exist; in others it had to adapt its methods to new conditions. But wherever possible it has continued openly to pursue the same ends, and has not ceased to declare what it believes to be the will of God even in the political sphere. Indeed, we may recognize a gain in the new situation. What it could once do by authority, it now seeks to do by persuasion.
    ... J. W. C. Wand (1885-1977), The Church Today, Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 31-32 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 13:33; Isa. 42:6-7; 60:1-3; Acts 26:25-29; 2 Cor. 5:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, enable Your church to proclaim Your truth boldly. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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