Bonevac: the incoherence of liberalism

Saturday, March 11, 2023
Meditation:
    When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
    —John 6:16-21 (NIV)
Quotation:
    I remember my Anthropology of Religion professor... urging us to ask not whether Jesus walked on water but what the gospel writer wanted to communicate by writing that Jesus walked on water... The professor’s answer, that the writer wanted to convey Jesus’ mastery over nature, and the dependence of the world of nature on something beyond it, seemed to conflict with his dismissal of Jesus’ actually walking on water. If Jesus didn’t, or couldn’t, walk on water, then what are we to make of the symbolic claim that nature depends on something beyond it? To maintain the dependence of nature in the face of Jesus’ inability to walk on water, command the wind and the waves, heal the sick, etc., is not contradictory, but it is epistemically undercutting in the sense that it involves asserting a thesis while denying the possibility of any evidence for it. That epistemic incoherence lies at the heart of the naturalistic, sym bolic interpretation of Christianity that many leaders of the _____ Church currently embrace.
    ... Daniel A. Bonevac, from “Are You a Religious Extremist? Religion and the Academy,” in The Truth That Makes Them Free, Donald G. Davis, Jr., ed., Austin, Texas: Christian Faculty Network, 2011, p. 34 (see the book)
    See also John 6:16-21; Ps. 107:28-29; Matt. 8:24-27; 12:39-40; 14:22-33; 28:18; Mark 1:27; 4:37-41; 6:45-52; John 5:37-40; 10:25-26; 12:37
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, am I too susceptible to the futile thinking of this age? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bloesch: throwing ourselves on the mercy

Friday, March 10, 2023
Meditation:
    While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.
    —Acts 10:44-45 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The very act of throwing ourselves on the mercy of God brings forth the confidence that God looks with favor on our request, since this act could only arise from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
    ... Donald G. Bloesch (1928-2010), The Struggle of Prayer, Harper & Row, 1980, p. 47-48 (see the book)
    See also Acts 10:44-45; Joel 2:28-32; Luke 2:25-26; Acts 2:14-18,21,33; Rom. 8:26; Gal. 4:6; Eph. 2:18; 6:18; Tit. 3:4-7; Jude 1:20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, am I demonstrating Your grace in my life? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Forsyth: importunity in prayer

Thursday, March 9, 2023
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
    —Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Does not Christ set more value upon importunity than on submission? “Knock, and it shall be opened.” I would refer also not only to the parable of the unjust judge, but to the incident of the Syrophenician woman, where her wit, faith, and importunity together did actually change our Lord’s intention and break His custom. There is Paul beseeching the Lord thrice for a boon; and urging us to be instant, insistent, continual in prayer. We have Jacob wrestling. We have Abraham pleading, yea, haggling, with God for Sodom. We have Moses interceding for Israel and asking God to blot his name out of the book of life, if that were needful to save Israel. We have Job facing God, withstanding Him, almost bearding Him, and extracting revelation. And we have Christ’s own struggle with the Father in Gethsemane.
    It is a wrestle on the greatest scale—all manhood taxed as in some great war, or some great nego tiation of State. And the effect is exhaustion often. No, the result of true prayer is not always peace.
    ... P. T. Forsyth (1848-1921), The Soul of Prayer [1916], Regent College Publishing, 2002, p. 101-102 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 7:7-8; Gen. 18:20-33; 32:24-29; Ex. 32:31-34; Deut. 1:45; Matt. 10:34; 26:36-44; Mark 7:25-30; Luke 2:36-38; 11:5-8; 18:1-8; 2 Cor. 12:7-9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your will brings fulfillment at the end. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Studdert Kennedy: the whole in God

Wednesday, March 8, 2023
    Commemoration of Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, Priest, Poet, 1929
Meditation:
[David, before the whole assembly:]
“Praise be to you, O LORD,
    God of our father Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting.
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
    and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
    for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
    you are exalted as head over all.
Wealth and honor come from you;
    you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
    to exalt and give strength to all.”
    —1 Chronicles 29:10-12 (NIV)
Quotation:
    This making of your peace with God is not, and never can be, a mere matter of emotional surrender, however honest and sincere. It must be an act of the whole man, feeling, thinking, and doing, in every department of his life, in obedience to a great governing and controlling principle. It must be the response of the whole man to his whole world. God must be at least as big as the world if He is to be God at all. Religion applies either to everything or to nothing, and no department of life can be left outside of God. Whatever appears to be beyond His control must, to the religious man, become either a problem to solve or an obstacle to be overcome, and whatever is essentially opposed to Him must become an evil to be destroyed. The soul that has really made its peace with God simply cannot tolerate anything or anybody as being permanently outside of Him.
    ... G. A. Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929), The Wicket Gate, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1923, p. 22-23 (see the book)
    See also 1 Chr. 29:10-12; Ps. 1:1-2; 73:25; 85:8; Isa. 11:6-9; 25:6-8; Matt. 11:27; John 16:33; Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:19-20
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, am I holding something outside Your will? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Beecher: incomplete confession

Tuesday, March 7, 2023
    Feast of Perpetua, Felicity & their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203
Meditation:
    Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
    Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
    Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
    —John 9:39-41 (NIV)
Quotation:
    A man will confess sins in general; but those sins which he would not have his neighbor know for his right hand, which bow him down with shame like a wind-stricken bulrush, those he passes over in his prayer. Men are willing to be thought sinful in disposition; but in special acts they are disposed to praise themselves. They therefore confess their depravity and defend their conduct. They are wrong in general, but right in particular.
    ... Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), Life Thoughts: gathered from the extemporaneous discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, Edna Dean Proctor, ed., Sheldon, 1860, p. 23 (see the book)
    See also John 9:39-41; Ps. 19:12; 139:23-24; Lam. 3:40; Hag. 1:5; Matt. 7:1-2; Rom. 10:3; 11:19-21; 1 Cor. 11:31; Gal. 6:3-5; Jas. 1:26
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, bar all excuses from my lips. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Buechner: chance?

Monday, March 6, 2023
Meditation:
The lot is cast into the lap,
    but its every decision is from the LORD.
    —Proverbs 16:33 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God’s things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak—even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe that there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys.
    ... Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), Listening to Your Life, HarperCollins, 1992, p. 4 (see the book)
    See also Pr. 16:33; Ex. 3:1-5; 1 Kings 19:11-13; Luke 10:30-32; Acts 1:26; Rom. 8:28; Jas. 4:13-15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your purpose fills all things. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Luther: faith not an illusion

Sunday, March 5, 2023
Meditation:
    And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
    —Romans 8:11 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Faith is not that human illusion and dream that some people think it is. When they hear and talk a lot about faith and yet see that no moral improvement and no good works result from it, they fall into error and say, “Faith is not enough. You must do works if you want to be virtuous and get to heaven.” The result is that, when they hear the Gospel, they stumble and make for themselves with their own powers a concept in their hearts which says, “I believe.” This concept they hold to be true faith. But since it is a human fabrication and thought and not an experience of the heart, it accomplishes nothing, and there follows no improvement.
    ... Martin Luther (1483-1546), “Preface to the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans”, par. 13 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 8:6-11; Matt. 7:21-23; Rom. 7:18-23; 8:6-11; 1 Cor. 13:2; Gal. 3:14; Eph. 2:8-10; 1 Tim. 1:3-11; 1 John 5:3-5
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit alone gives true life. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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