Allen: no need for exhortation to missions

Sunday, June 8, 2025
    Pentecost
    Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath & Wells, Hymnographer, 1711
    Commemoration of Roland Allen, Mission Strategist, 1947
Meditation:
    The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it...
    —1 Thessalonians 1:8 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It seems strange to us that there should be no exhortations to missionary zeal in the Epistles of St. Paul. There is one sentence of approval, “From you sounded out the word of the Lord,” but there is no insistence on the command of Christ to preach the Gospel... The Christians of the Four Provinces were certainly zealous in propagating the faith, and apparently needed no exhortation on the subject... Christians receive the Spirit of Jesus, and the Spirit of Jesus is a missionary spirit, the Spirit of Him Who came into the world to bring back lost souls to the Father. Naturally, when they receive that Spirit they begin to seek to bring back others, even as He did. [Continued tomorrow]
    ... Roland Allen (1869-1947), Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or ours?, London: World Dominion Press, 1927, reprinted, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1962, p. 125-126 (see the book)
    See also 1 Thess. 1:8; Isa. 52:7; 66:19; Acts 1:8; Rom. 10:14-18; 2 Thess. 3:1
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant Your Spirit to energize Your people. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Chadwick: ablaze

Saturday, June 7, 2025
Meditation:
    Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
    —Acts 2:41 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It is fire that prevails. For fifty days the facts of the Gospel were complete, but no conversions were recorded. Pentecost registered three thousand souls. It is the cause that sets men ablaze that wins converts.
    ... Samuel Chadwick (1860-1932), The Way to Pentecost, Hodder and Stoughton, 1932, p. 98-99 (see the book)
    See also Acts 2:41; 1:4-8; 4:5; 13:48; Heb. 12:29; Jude 1:22-23
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, place Your fire in our hearts. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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John: the essential ingredient

Friday, June 6, 2025
    Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945
Meditation:
    Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.
    —Acts 9:31 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Are we [missionaries] not dependent upon [the Holy Ghost] for every spiritual qualification necessary for our work, and for every real success in it? Do we want native pastors, teachers, evangelists, or deacons? It is the Holy Ghost who calls the right men to office, and fits them for the successful discharge of their duties. Do we long to see this people turn from their dumb idols and sins to the living God? It is the Holy Ghost alone that can convince them of sin, reveal Christ to their inmost consciousness, regenerate their souls, and lead them to faith and repentance. Do we wish to build up a holy spiritual Church in this land? Do we wish to see the Churches become self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating? The Holy Ghost is the source of all power and efficiency, whether in the members individually, or in the Church collectively.
    ... Griffith John (1831-1912), Records of the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China, Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1878, p. 39 (see the book)
    See also Acts 9:31; 6:2-3; 14:23; Rom. 8:13-14,28; 1 Cor. 1:22-24; 12:2-3; 2 Cor. 5:20; 2 Tim. 1:14; 1 Pet. 2:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, Your Spirit alone is the source of the church’s strength. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Tillotson: wickedness, then division

Thursday, June 5, 2025
    Feast of Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton, Archbishop of Mainz, Apostle of Germany, Martyr, 754
Meditation:
    You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
    —1 Corinthians 3:3 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Next to the wicked lives of men, nothing is so great a disparagement and weakening to religion, as the divisions of Christians.
    ... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. IX, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CCIX, p. 45 (see the book)
    See also 1 Cor. 3:3; Matt. 12:25; John 17:23; Rom. 15:6; 16:17; 1 Cor. 1:10; 11:18
Quiet time reflection:
    What can I do to heal some division in my church? CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Hudson Taylor: where the pressure lies

Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Meditation:
    We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
    —2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    It doesn’t matter, really, how great the pressure is; it only matters where the pressure lies. See that it never comes between you and the Lord—then, the greater the pressure, the more it presses you to His breast.
    ... J. Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, Moody Publishers, 2009, p. 127 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 1:8-9; 3:5; 4:7-11; 12:7-10
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, increase my reliance on You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Dodd: the adventure

Tuesday, June 3, 2025
    Feast of Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, Teacher, 1910
    Commemoration of Martyrs of Uganda, 1886 & 1978
Meditation:
    For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
    —Colossians 1:19-20 (NIV)
Quotation:
    That appearance on earth as an individual is the crisis in the history both of Christ Himself and of the humanity He saves and leads. The ministry of Jesus, therefore, culminating in His death, is essential to Paul’s whole thought. If in certain aspects of his theology it is the death that bulks most largely—because it seemed to him to be the purest and most moving expression of what the whole life meant—he is quite aware that the ethical impulse given by the example and teaching of Jesus is of the very stuff of the Christian life. He alludes to the Gospel story but sparingly, but those who study his teaching most closely become aware that he is himself acting and speaking all through under the impulse of the life and teaching of Jesus. If he refuses to “know Christ after the flesh,” it means that he will not risk a harking back to the temporary conditions of the Galilean ministry when the Spirit of Christ is clearly leading out into new fields. The issues of that ministry have been gathered up in the new experience of “Christ in me,” and that experience gives a living Christ, who leads ever onward those who will adventure with Him, and not a prophet of the past, whose words might pass into a dead tradition.
    ... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for Today, London: Swarthmore, 1920, reprint, Fount Paperbacks, 1978, p. 92 (see the book)
    See also Col. 1:19-22; Luke 17:20-21; John 6:56; 14:16-17; 17:26; Rom. 8:10; Eph. 1:17; Col. 1:27; 2:2-3; 3:11;
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You lead and I follow. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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Law: living one way and praying another

Monday, June 2, 2025
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”
    —Mark 9:50 (NIV)
Quotation:
    We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.
    ... William Law (1686-1761), Christian Perfection [1726], London: W. Baynes, 1807, p. 273 (see the book)
    See also Mark 9:50; Isa. 1:15-17; 29:13; Matt. 5:13; 15:17-20; 23:25-26; Luke 6:45-46; 14:34-35; Rom. 8:26-27; Tit. 1:15
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, help me to live and pray according to Your will. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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