Hoskyns: it actually happened

Saturday, July 15, 2023
    Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862
    Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274
Meditation:
    While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
    —Matthew 17:5 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The scandal of the Bible does not lie so much in its claim to record the Word of God, as in its insistence that the Word of God is to be heard in a particular historical happening, in a particular locality—and only there. To put it in a provocative manner: the Bible is theology. It is historical theology. It can reveal its meaning only to those who regard it as the Word of God, and are able to preserve a strict confidence in the universal significance of particular historical occasions.
    ... Sir Edwyn C. Hoskyns (1884-1937), We are the Pharisees, London: SPCK, 1960, p. 58 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 17:5; Gen. 15:9-21; 16:13-14; 17:7-8; Ex. 3:7-8; Num. 13:17-20; Ps. 25:12-13; 37:9-11; Matt. 2:1-2; Luke 2:10-11; 3:1-2; Acts 17:1,14-15; 18:1; 20:1; 25:1-2; 27:1-3; 28:14-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your intervention in history is powerful and gracious. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Keble: Would'st thou the life of souls discern?

Friday, July 14, 2023
    Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866
Meditation:
    Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.
    —1 Thessalonians 4:9-10 (NIV)
Quotation:
Would’st thou the life of souls discern?
    Nor human wisdom nor divine
Helps thee by aught beside to learn:
    Love is life’s only sign.
The spring of the regenerate heart,
The pulse, the glow of every part,
Is the true love of Christ our Lord,
As man embrac’d, as God ador’d.
    ... John Keble (1792-1866), The Christian Year [1827], G. W. Doane, ed., Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1842, p. 159 (see the book)
    See also 1 Thess. 4:9-10; Lev. 19:18; John 13:34-35; 15:17; Rom. 12:10; 1 Cor. 13:4-7; Gal. 5:14; Eph. 5:1-2; Phil. 2:1-2; Heb. 13:1; Jas. 2:8; 1 Pet. 1:22; 1 John 2:5; 4:7
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may Your love course throughout the fellowship. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Brooks: except by Christ

Thursday, July 13, 2023
Meditation:
    As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
    —Romans 4:17 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Only when a man tries to live the divine life can the divine Christ manifest Himself to him. Therefore, the true way for you to find Christ is not to go groping in a thousand books. It is not for you to try evidences about a thousand things that people have believed of Him, but it is for you to undertake so great a life, so devoted a life, so pure a life, so serviceable a life, that you cannot do it except by Christ, and then see whether Christ helps you. See then whether there comes to you the certainty that you are a child of God, and the manifestation of the child of God becomes the most credible, the most certain thing to you in all of history.
    ... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Addresses, Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1895, p. 53 (see the book)
    See also Rom. 4:17; Job 19:25-27; John 11:25-26; Rom. 8:10-11; Col. 1:27; Heb. 11:13-16
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I can only follow You with Your strength. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Moody: daily grace

Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Meditation:
    [The LORD] humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
    —Deuteronomy 8:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    If we would be strong and vigorous, we must go to God daily and get grace. A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough today to last him for the next six months; or take sufficient air into his lungs at once to sustain life for a week to come. We are permitted to draw upon God’s store of grace from day to day, as we need it.
    ... Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899), Sovereign Grace, Chicago, Ill.: Bible Institute Colportage Association, 1891, reprint, Echo Library, 2010, p. 33 (see the book)
    See also Deut. 8:3; Ex. 16:21-23; Job 23:12; Pr. 30:8; Matt. 6:11; Luke 11:3; John 6:35
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, I must seek You daily. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Pink: Christian warfare

Tuesday, July 11, 2023
    Feast of Benedict of Nursia, Father of Western Monasticism, c.550
Meditation:
    For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
    —2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    The Christian is engaged in a warfare. There is a fight before him, hence armour is urgently needed. It is impossible for us to stand against the wiles of the Devil unless we avail ourselves of the provision which God has made for enabling us to stand.
    ... A. W. Pink (1886-1952), Practical Christianity, Sovereign Grace Publishers, Nov 1, 2001, p. 124 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 10:3-4; Mark 16:17-18; Luke 10:19-20; 21:17-19; John 12:31; Rom. 8:38-39; 13:12; 2 Cor. 6:4-10; Eph. 6:10-18; Col. 2:15; 1 Thess. 5:8
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, teach me to use the tools You have provided. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Vidler: the only real servants

Monday, July 10, 2023
Meditation:
I am become a stranger unto my brethren,
    and an alien unto my mother’s children.
For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up;
    and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.
    —Psalm 69:8-9 (KJV)
Quotation:
    We must try to be at one and the same time for the Church and against the Church. They alone can serve her faithfully whose consciences are continually exercised as to whether they ought not, for Christ’s sake, to leave her.
    ... Alec R. Vidler (1899-1991), quoting an unknown German theological student in Essays in Liberality, SCM Press, 1957, p. 27 (see the book)
    See also Ps. 69:8-9; Judges 10:6; Matt. 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; John 2:13-17; 2 Cor. 10:4; 1 Tim. 6:3-5; 2 Pet. 2:1-3; Rev. 3:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You purified Your church. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Bloesch: prayer in the Spirit

Sunday, July 9, 2023
Meditation:
    But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.
    —Jude 1:20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Prayer in the Spirit is socially revolutionary because it prepares the way for the advance of the gospel in society, and the gospel carries with it new social values that contain the seeds for a new society based on the righteousness of the kingdom.
    ... Donald G. Bloesch (1928-2010), The Struggle of Prayer, Harper & Row, 1980, p. 43 (see the book)
    See also Jude 1:20; Zech. 12:10; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6; Eph. 2:22; 6:18
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, through prayer, align me with Your holy will. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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