Allen: guided by the Holy Spirit

Saturday, October 8, 2022
Meditation:
    [Letter to the Gentile believers:] It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.
    —Acts 15:28-29 (NIV)
Quotation:
    In arriving at a decision in a question of doubt, the apostles in the Acts were guided solely by their sense of the Spirit behind the action, not by any speculations as to consequences which might ensue.
    And so they found the truth. Gradually the results of the action manifested themselves, and, seeing them, they perceived what they had really done, and learnt the meaning of the truth revealed in the action. But if, from fear of the consequences, they had checked or forbidden the action, they would have lost this revelation. They would have missed the way to truth.
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Pentecost and the World, London: Oxford University Press, 1917, included in The Ministry of the Spirit, David M. Paton, ed., London: World Dominion Press, 1960, p. 50 (see the book)
    See also Acts 15:28; John 16:13; Acts 2:17,18; 8:29; 13:2-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Spirit of God, may You alone be my guide. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Calvin: Christian freedom

Friday, October 7, 2022
Meditation:
    So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.
    —1 Corinthians 10:31-33 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Christian freedom, in my opinion, consists of three parts. The first: that the consciences of believers, in seeking assurance of their justification before God, should rise above and advance beyond the law, forgetting all law righteousness... The second part, dependent upon the first, is that consciences observe the law, not as if constrained by the necessity of the law, but that freed from the law’s yoke they willingly obey God’s will... The third part of Christian freedom lies in this: regarding outward things that are of themselves “indifferent,” we are not bound before God by any religious obligation preventing us from sometimes using them and other times not using them, indifferently... Accordingly, it is perversely interpreted both by those who allege it as an excuse for their desires that they may abuse God’s good gifts to their own lust and by those who think that freedom does not exist unless it is used before men, and consequently, in using it have no regard for weaker brethren... Nothing is plainer than this rule: that we should use our freedom if it results in the edification of our neighbor, but if it does not help our neighbor, then we should forego it.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. II, tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, III.xix.2,4,7,9,12, p. 63 ff (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 10:27-33; Rom. 2:14-15; 8:20-21; 14:22-23; 1 Cor. 8:7-13; Gal. 5:13-14; 1 Pet. 3:15-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may the freedom I enjoy be a blessing to all those around me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Fenelon: God's love

Thursday, October 6, 2022
    Feast of William Tyndale, Translator of the Scriptures, Martyr, 1536
Meditation:
    Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?
    —Hebrews 12:7 (NIV)
Quotation:
    God never strikes but in love, nor takes away save to give again. I pray Him to comfort you, to preserve your health, and to turn your heart wholly to Himself. Blessed is he who lives in faith, trusts to none save God, and uses this world as though he were already beyond it.
    ... François Fénelon (1651-1715), Spiritual Letters of Archbishop Fénelon. Letters to men, London: Rivingtons, 1877, p. 259 (see the book)
    See also Heb. 12:5-7; Job 42:12; Ps. 119:75; Pr. 13:24; Jas. 1:12; 5:11
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant me the faith to endure. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tolstoy: freedom

Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Meditation:
    Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
    —2 Corinthians 3:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A Christian cannot help being free, because in the pursuit and attainment of his object, no one can either hinder or retard him.
    ... Lyof N. Tolstoy (1828-1910), The Kingdom of God is Within You [1894], in The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi, v. XIV, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1899, p. 196 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 3:17; Isa. 61:1-3; John 8:32-36; Rom. 7:6; 8:1-2; Gal. 3:25; 5:1,13; 1 Pet. 2:16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your redemption is freely available. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Francis of Assisi: prayer

Tuesday, October 4, 2022
    Feast of Francis of Assisi, Friar, Deacon, Founder of the Friars Minor, 1226
Meditation:
    In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
    —Romans 6:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    May the fiery and sweet strength of Thy love, I pray Thee, O my Lord, absorb my soul, and make all things under heaven as nothing unto me, that for the love of Thy love I may die, as Thou didst deign to die for love of mine. Amen.
    ... St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), The Writings of Saint Francis of Assisi, Paschal Robinson, tr., Dolphin Press, 1906, p. 144 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 6:8-11; Ex. 3:2; Isa. 6:6-7; Dan. 7:13-14; Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16; Acts 2:3; 1 Pet. 2:24; 1 John 3:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may You purge sin from my heart. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: curing people of Christianity

Monday, October 3, 2022
    Commemoration of William Morris, Artist, Writer, 1896
    Commemoration of George Kennedy Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker, 1958
Meditation:
It is better to take refuge in the LORD
    than to trust in princes.
    —Psalm 118:9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    We know that one school of psychology already regards religion as a neurosis. When this particular neurosis becomes inconvenient to the government, what is to hinder the government from proceeding to ‘cure’ it? Such ‘cure’ will, of course, be compulsory; but under the Humanitarian theory it will not be called by the shocking name of Persecution. No one will blame us for being Christians, no one will hate us, no one revile us. The new Nero will approach us with the silky manners of a doctor, and though all will be in fact [compulsory], all will go on within the unemotional therapeutic sphere where words like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, or ‘freedom’ and ‘slavery’ are never heard. And thus when the command is given, every prominent Christian in the land may vanish overnight into Institutions for the Treatment of the Ideologically Unso und, and it will rest with the expert gaolers to say when (if ever) they are to emerge. But it will not be persecution. Even if the treatment is painful, even if it is life-long, even if it is fatal, that will be only a regrettable accident, the intention was purely therapeutic.
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”, in God in the Dock [1970], ed. Walter Hooper, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994, p. 293 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 118:9; John 8:43-45; Matt. 24:12-13; Acts 7:51-58; Rom. 1:18-19; 1 Cor. 1:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I have confidence in You alone. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Lewis: an instrument of tyranny

Sunday, October 2, 2022
Meditation:
It is better to take refuge in the LORD
    than to trust in man.
    —Psalm 118:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The practical problem of Christian politics is not that of drawing up schemes for a Christian society, but that of living as innocently as we can with unbelieving fellow-subjects under unbelieving rulers who will never be perfectly wise and good and who will sometimes be very wicked and very foolish. And when they are wicked, the Humanitarian theory of punishment will put in their hands a finer instrument of tyranny than wickedness ever had before. For if crime and disease are to be regarded as the same thing, it follows that any state of mind which our masters choose to call ‘disease’ can be treated as crime, and compulsorily cured. It will be vain to plead that states of mind which displease the government need not always involve moral turpitude and do not therefore always deserve forfeiture of liberty. For our masters will not be using the concepts of Desert and Punishment but those of disease and cure. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”, in God in the Dock [1970], ed. Walter Hooper, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994, p. 292-293 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 118:8; Acts 17:21; 1 Cor. 1:21-24; 2 Tim. 4:3-4
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may Your law prevail throughout the world. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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