Phillips: Christianity is not a religion

Saturday, June 4, 2022
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
    —Matthew 5:48 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Suppose Christianity is not a religion at all but a way of life, a falling in love with God, and through Him, a falling in love with our fellows. Of course such a way is hard and costly, but it is also joyous and rewarding even in the here-and-now. People who follow that Way know beyond all possible argument that they are in harmony with the Purpose of God, that Christ is with them and in them as they set about His work in our disordered world.
    If anyone thinks this is perilous and revolutionary teaching, so much the better. That is exactly what they thought of the teaching of Jesus Christ. The light He brought to bear upon human affairs is almost unbearably brilliant, but it is the light of Truth, and in that light human problems can be solved.
    ... J. B. Phillips (1906-1982), When God was Man, London: Lutterworth Press:, 1954, p. 26 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 5; 6; Luke 6:22-23; 15:10; John 16:33; 1 Thess. 5:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your word is a revolution in my life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Fenelon: reservations from God

Friday, June 3, 2022
    Feast of Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, Teacher, 1910
    Commemoration of Martyrs of Uganda, 1886 & 1978
Meditation:
    Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
    —1 Corinthians 5:7-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If we look carefully within ourselves, we shall find that there are certain limits beyond which we refuse to go in offering ourselves to [God]. We hover around these reservations, making believe not to see them, for fear of self-reproach... The more we shrink from giving up any such reserved point, the more certain it is that it needs to be given up. If we were not fast bound by it, we should not make so many efforts to persuade ourselves that we are free.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Selections from Fénelon, ed. Mary Wilder Tileston, Boston: Roberts Bros., 1879, p. 61-62 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 5:7-8; Ps. 51:17; 69:30-31; Rom. 12:1; Phil. 2:17; Heb. 13:15-16; 1 Pet. 2:4-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, show me what I must yield to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Schaeffer: the serious business of sin

Thursday, June 2, 2022
Meditation:
    “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
    —Isaiah 6:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Sin is sin, and we must not call it less than sin. It is not an act of love to explain sin away as a psychological determinism or sociological conditioning, for it is real and must be dealt with. Men need a Savior. Therefore, Christians in our generation must resist relativistic and deterministic thinking. If men are going to find a real solution to the problem of who they are, they must come to terms with the fact that they need a Savior because they are sinners in the presence of a holy God. Sin is serious business.
    ... Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984), No Little People, Downer Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1974, reprint, Crossway, 2003, p. 45 (see the book)
    See also Isa. 6:5; Matt. 5:48; Luke 16:15; Rom. 14:23; Heb. 2:2-3; 12:14
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I confess that I do not hate my sins as much as I ought to. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dodd: the pedagogue

Wednesday, June 1, 2022
    Feast of Justin, Martyr at Rome, c.165
    Commemoration of Angela de Merici, Founder of the Institute of St. Ursula, 1540
Meditation:
    So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
    —Galatians 3:24 (NIV)
Quotation:
    “The Law,” he says, “was our ‘pedagogue’, until Christ should come.” Those words have been interpreted as though they described the Law as a preparatory education, continued at a higher stage by Christ. That, however, is not quite what Paul meant. The “pedagogue” in Greek society was not a schoolmaster, he did not give lessons... He was a slave who accompanied a boy to school, and both waited upon him and exercised a supervision which interfered with the boy’s freedom of action. He is, in fact, a figure in the little allegory which Paul gives us to illustrate the position of the People of God before Christ came. There was a boy left heir to a great estate. He was a minor, and so must have guardians and trustees. He was as helpless in their hands as if he had been a slave. He must live on the allowance they gave him, and follow their wishes from day to day. They gave him a “pedagogue” to keep him out of mischief. He could not please himself, or realize his own purposes and ambitions. Yet all the time he was the heir; the estate was his, and no one else’s. Just so the People of God, the Divine Commonwealth, was cramped and fettered by ignorance and evil times. It remained in uneasy expectation of one day coming into active existence. At last the heir came of age: guardians and trustees abdicated their powers, and the grown man possessed in full realization all that was his. So now the fettered life of the Divine Commonwealth bursts its bonds and comes into active existence... The intervention of law was not a reversal of God’s original and eternal purpose of pure love and grace towards men, it only subserved that purpose, while it seemed to contradict it, just as the presence of the “pedagogus” might seem to the high-spirited young heir quite contrary to the rights secured to him by his father’s will.
    ... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for Today, London: Swarthmore, 1920, reprint, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 79-80 (see the book)
    See also Gal. 3:21-24; Lev. 25:42; Matt. 5:17-18; John 8:32-35; Rom. 3:20-22; 7:7-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your will is now revealed. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Eckhart: bearing failings with patience

Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Meditation:
    No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
    —1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If you have failings, ask God often whether it be His honour and pleasure to take them away from you; for without Him you can do nothing. If he takes them away, thank Him; but if He does not do that, you will bear it no more, however, as the defect of a sin, but as a great trial with which you are to gain merit and practice patience. You should be content, whether or not He accords you His gift.
    ... Meister Eckhart (1260?-1327?), Works of Meister Eckhart, London: J. M. Watkins, 1924, p. 39 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 10:13; 15:10; 2 Cor. 12:7-10; 1 Pet. 1:6-7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the patience to bear my trials. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Augustine: the object of our desires

Monday, May 30, 2022
    Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906
    Commemoration of Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431
    Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933
Meditation:
    I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.
    —Leviticus 26:12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God Himself, who is the Author of virtue, shall there [in the city of God] be its reward; for, as there is nothing greater or better, He has promised Himself. What else was meant by His word through the prophet, “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people,” than, I shall be their satisfaction, I shall be all that men honorably desire,—life, and health, and nourishment, and plenty, and glory, and honor, and peace, and all good things? This, too, is the right interpretation of the saying of the apostle, “That God may be all in all.” He shall be the end of our desires who shall be seen without end, loved without cloy, praised without weariness.
    ... St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), The City of God, v. II, Marcus Dods, ed., as vol. 2 of The Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Edinbugh: T & T Clark, 1871, XXII.30, p. 541 (see the book)
    See also Lev. 26:12; Joel 2:27; 1 Cor. 12:6; 15:28; Col. 3:11; Heb. 11:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You are the sole object of our hope. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Kraemer: What is the Church for?

Sunday, May 29, 2022
Meditation:
    Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.
    —Ephesians 3:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The underlying questions are always: What is the Church? What is the Church for? If that is not kept in mind, the lay ministry, about which so much is being said at present, remains on the level of a many-sided activity in which the self-assertion of the laity threatens to be more evident than a new manifestation of the Church in modern society. The responsible participation of the laity in the discharge of the Church’s divine calling is not primarily a matter of idealism and enthusiasm or organizational efficiency, but a new grasp and commitment to the meaning of God’s redemptive purpose with mankind and with the world in the past, the present, and the future: a purpose which has its foundation and inexhaustible content in Christ.
    ... Hendrik Kraemer (1888-1965), A Theology of the Laity, London: Lutterworth Press, 1958, p. 91 (see the book)
    See also Eph. 3:8-9; John 6:44-45; 1 Cor. 3:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, all parts of the Church point back to You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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