Quotations for January, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Feast of the Naming & Circumcision of Jesus
When we once begin to form good resolutions, God gives us every opportunity of carrying them out.
... St. John Chrysostom (345?-407), quoted in Catena aurea, v. IV, part 1, Thomas Aquinas, Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1845, p. 67 
(see the book; see also Matt. 25:14-30; Luke 10:40-42; John 1:37-40; 15:2; more at Action, God, Goodness, Opportunity, Repentance, Resolve)
Monday, January 2, 2012
Feast of Basil the Great & Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Teachers, 379 & 389
Commemoration of Seraphim, Monk of Sarov, Mystic, Staretz, 1833
What He was, He laid aside; what He was not, He assumed.
... St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389/390), Oration 37.2, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, v. IVa, John 1-10, Joel C. Elowsky & Thomas C. Oden, InterVarsity Press, 2006, p. 14
(see the book; see also Isa. 53:2-3; Matt. 19:1; John 1:1; 10:38; 2 Cor. 8:9; Phil. 2:5-7; Heb. 2:9; more at Incarnation, Jesus, Trinity)
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Commemoration of Gladys Aylward, Missionary in China, 1970
If, therefore, in doubtful cases, you would discover God’s will, govern yourselves in your search after it by these rules.1. Get the true fear of God upon your hearts; be really afraid of offending him; God will not hide his mind from such a soul...2. Study the word more, and the concerns and interests of the world less. The word is a light to your feet...3. Reduce what you know into practice, and you shall know what is your duty to practise...4. Pray for illumination and direction in the way that you should go; beg the Lord to guide you in straits, and that he would not suffer you to fall into sin...5. And this being done, follow providence so far as it agrees with the word, and no farther. There is no use to be made of providence against the word, but in subserviency to it.
... John Flavel (1628-1691), Divine Conduct [1677], in The Whole Works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel, v. IV, London: J. Mathews, 1799, p. 470
(see the book; see also Ezra 8:21; Ps. 25:14; 86:17; 91:9-11; 111:10; 119:11,105; Mic. 6:9; John 7:17-18; more at Direction, Fear, Guidance, Illumination, Knowledge, Prayer, Providence)
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
It is vitally important to recognize that philosophical pluralism has exerted a dramatic “softening” influence on many people who would disavow radical religious pluralism. It is hard, for instance, to deny the influence of pluralism on evangelical preachers who increasingly reconstruct the “gospel” along the lines of felt needs, knowing that such a presentation will be far better appreciated than one that articulates truth with hard edges (i.e., that insists that certain contrary things are false), or that warns of the wrath to come. How far can such reconstruction go before what is preached is no longer the gospel in any historical or biblical sense?
... D. A. Carson (b. 1946), The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism [1996], Zondervan, 2002, p. 30
(see the book; see also John 8:42-45; 2 Cor. 11:12-15; Gal. 4:16-18; Col. 2:4; 2 Tim. 4:3; 2 Pet. 2:1-3; more at Attitudes, Gospel, Historical, Influence, Philosophy, Preach, Truth)
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Intellect can light up only a small area of the universe. For my part, I should subscribe to the familiar paradox that the more we know, the more we are conscious of our ignorance; the further the intellect has traveled, the smaller it seems relatively to the distance still to be traveled... The intellect does, indeed, take us part of the way; we have no other mode of conveyance; and, in taking us as far as it does, it justifies us in taking the rest on trust... In following the religious account of the universe beyond the point at which it leaves reason behind, and trusting to it as an explanation of the many things that pass our understanding, we are accepting on faith conclusions which are not demonstrated by reason. In other words, we are acting as if a hypothesis were true which, at the moment at which we act upon it, is still a hypothesis and not a truth. Nevertheless, it is, I suggest, knowledge, the knowledge which we possess already and which reason has won for us, that makes it reasonable to do so.
... C. E. M. Joad (1891-1953), The Recovery of Belief, London: Faber and Faber, 1952, p. 19-20
(see the book; see also 1 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 3:17-19; Phil. 3:8; more at Apologetics, Faith, Knowledge, Paradox, Reason, Trust, Truth, Universe)
Friday, January 6, 2012
EPIPHANY
Of late, I have thought much of having the kingdom of Christ advanced in the world; but now I saw I had enough to do within myself. The Lord be merciful to me a sinner, and wash my soul!
... David Brainerd (1718-1747), entry for April 8, 1743, Memoirs of the Rev. David Brainerd, New Haven: S. Converse, 1822, p. 96
(see the book; see also Ezra 9:6; Ps. 40:11-12; Luke 5:8; 7:6-9; 18:10-14; 1 Cor. 1:11-13; more at Kingdom, Thought, World)
Saturday, January 7, 2012
If we do not pray, we fail to realize that we are in the presence of God.
... Karl Barth (1886-1968), Prayer, Westminster John Knox Press, 2002, p. 15
(see the book; see also Matt. 28:19-20; Luke 18:1; Rom. 8:26; 2 Cor. 1:19-20; Phil. 4:6; 2 Tim. 2:13; Heb. 4:16; 10:19-22; more at Failure, Prayer, Presence of God)
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Commemoration of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming, martyrs, Ecuador, 1956
Forgive me for being so ordinary while claiming to know so extraordinary a God.
... Jim Elliot (1927-1956), The Journals of Jim Elliot, ed. Elisabeth Elliot, Revell, 1990, p. 98
(see the book; see also Job 42:2-6; Ps. 39:4-5; Luke 11:52; Rom. 11:33-34; 12:16; 1 Cor. 1:28-29; 2 Cor. 12:9; more at Forgiveness, God, Knowledge, Prayers)
Monday, January 9, 2012
But when does flesh receive the bread which He calls His flesh? The faithful know and receive the Body of Christ if they labor to be the body of Christ; and they become the body of Christ if they study to live by the Spirit of Christ: for that which lives by the Spirit of Christ is the body of Christ.
... St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel according to St. John, vol. i, Marcus Dods, ed., as vol. x of The Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Edinbugh: T & T Clark, 1873, tract. XXVI.13, p. 376
(see the book; see also Rom. 8:14; John 6:41-59; Rom. 8:29-30; 1 Cor. 12:12; 2 Tim. 2:15; more at Body of Christ, Communion, Faith, Historical, Holy Spirit, Life)
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Almost everywhere political secularization was accompanied at length by a general decrease in religious observance. Theological matters ceased to be, if they had ever genuinely been, the main interest of the people. This does not mean that religion died out: far from it. But it became the interest, not of the whole, but of a section of the people. The Church, instead of being a recognized ruling authority, became what its Founder said it was, a little yeast in a large lump of dough. In some countries it barely maintained the right to exist; in others it had to adapt its methods to new conditions. But wherever possible it has continued openly to pursue the same ends, and has not ceased to declare what it believes to be the will of God even in the political sphere. Indeed, we may recognize a gain in the new situation. What it could once do by authority, it now seeks to do by persuasion.
... J. W. C. Wand (1885-1977), The Church Today, Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1960, p. 31-32
(see the book; see also Matt. 13:33; Isa. 42:6-7; 60:1-3; Acts 26:25-29; 2 Cor. 5:11; more at Attitudes, Church, Culture, Historical, Theology, Will of God)
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915
The displacement of ‘the Son of Man’ by ‘man’ [according to the recommendation of textual critics] has only a superficial plausibility in logic. The healing of the palsy by Jesus does not prove that man generically can forgive sins. The man who does the visible miracle in confirmation of his claim to do the invisible is to be taken at his word: but it is no more true that man generically can speak the word of forgiveness with divine effect than that man generically can effectively bid the lame walk. The only question raised, and the only question settled, is one concerning the power claimed by Jesus; and it is settled, not by bringing Jesus under the general category of humanity, but by an act of Jesus Himself which was as impossible for men in general as the forgiveness of sins. It is not any man, but only He who has the right to think of Himself as the Son of Man, who can forgive sins upon the earth.
... James Denney (1856-1917), Jesus and the Gospel: Christianity justified in the mind of Christ, New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908, p. 275
(see the book; see also Matt. 9:2-8; 11:5,21; Mark 2:1-12; more at Action, Forgiveness, Jesus, Man, Miracle, Question, Sin, Thought)
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167
Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689
The religion of a hundred years ago or of two thousand years ago does not seem quaint, for men can speak to each other about their knowledge of God, unhindered by the barriers of centuries.
... Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), The Knowledge of God, Harper & Brothers, 1939, p. 107
(see the book; see also Ps. 22:30-31; John 8:58; Rom. 1:17; 5:19; Heb. 11:4; more at Knowing God, Religion, Truth)
Friday, January 13, 2012
Feast of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher, 367
Commemoration of Kentigern (Mungo), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde & Cumbria, 603
We proclaim ... that the Father is eternal and the Son eternal, and demonstrate that the Son is God of all with an absolute, not a limited, preexistence; that these bold assaults of... blasphemous logic—He was born out of nothing, and He was not before He was born—are powerless against Him; that His eternity is consistent with sonship, and His sonship with eternity; that there was in Him no unique exemption from birth but a birth from everlasting, for, while birth implies a Father, Divinity is inseparable from eternity.
... St. Hilary (ca. 300-367?), On the Trinity, in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, second series, v. IX, Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, ed., New York: Christian Literature Company, 1902, p. 50
(see the book; see also John 8:14; 1:1,32-33; 8:58; 13:3; 1 Cor. 8:5-6; Phil. 2:5-7; Col. 2:2-3; 1 Pet. 3:18-19; more at Eternity, Everlasting, Father, God, Logic, Son)
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915
In reality (spiritual reality) it is much too simple to think that God offers his grace to man and man accepts or refuses. When God has graciously chosen a man his grace continues even though the man does not do what God has decided. On the other hand, this persistence of election... does not entail a negation of man’s will. God pursues this man, conducts him through his whole life, in order to bring about the consent of this man’s will to what God has decided.
... Jacques Ellul (1912-1994), The Judgment of Jonah, tr. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1971, p. 24
(see the book; see also Jonah 1:1-2; Isa. 45:4; John 15:16; 17:6; Acts 9:15-16; Eph. 1:4-5; 2:10; more at God, Grace, Man, Predestination)
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Lord, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and blind us to the mote that is in our brother’s. Let us feel our offences with our hands, make them great and bright before us like the sun, make us eat them and drink them for our diet. Blind us to the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry and measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own eyes and in all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same time with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our integrity: touch us with fire from the altar, that we may be up and doing to rebuild our city: in the name and by the method of him in whose words of prayer we now conclude.
... Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), from “Prayers Written for Family Use at Vailima”, in The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, v. IV, London: T. & A. Constable for Longmans Green & Co., 1896, p. 387
(see the book; see also Luke 6:41-42; Ps. 127:1; Mark 9:35; Luke 9:48; 14:8-11; more at Abasement, Affection, Altar, Blindness, Cleanse, Courage, Fire, Grace, Memory, Prayers)
Monday, January 16, 2012
It is further objected that [Jesus] hath left us no example of that, which by many is esteemed the only religious state of life; viz. perfect retirement from the world, for the more devout serving of God, and freeing us from the temptations of the world, such as is that of monks and hermits; this, perhaps, may seem to some a great oversight and omission: but our Lord in great wisdom thought fit to give us a pattern of a quite different sort of life, which was, not to fly the conversation of men, and to live in a monastery or a wilderness, but to do good among men, to live in the world with great freedom, and with great innocency. He did, indeed, sometimes retire himself for the more free and private exercise of devotion, as we ought to do; but he passed his life chiefly in the conversation of men, that they might have all the benefit that was possible of his instruction and example. We read, that “he was carried into the wilderness to be tempted;” but not that he lived there to avoid temptation. He hath given us an example of denying the world, without leaving it.
... John Tillotson (1630-1694), Works of Dr. John Tillotson, v. VIII, London: J. F. Dove, for R. Priestley, 1820, Sermon CXC, p. 274
(see the book; see also 1 Pet. 4:1; Matt. 4:1,12-17; Luke 4:1-2,14-15; 22:27; John 13:15; 2 Cor. 8:9; Eph. 5:1-2; Heb. 12:3; 1 Pet. 2:21; 1 John 2:6; more at Devotion, Example, Instruction, Jesus, Man, Temptation)
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Feast of Antony of Egypt, Abbot, 356
Commemoration of Charles Gore, Bishop, Teacher, Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, 1932
We do not know if it is God’s will that this or that person should recover from sickness, or this or that calamity should be averted. God is wiser than we are. We do not know whether it is God’s will that we should have rain that is so necessary for our crops. There are things like these that lie in a region of uncertainty into which the intelligence of man cannot penetrate. So then as the object of prayer is not to bring the divine will down to the human, but to lift the human up into correspondence with the divine, for all these uncertain things we can pray indeed, but uncertainly—‘If it be possible, let this or that come to pass; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done.’
... Charles Gore (1853-1932), The Sermon on the Mount [1910], London: John Murray, 1905, p. 141
(see the book; see also Matt. 26:42; 6:9-10; John 4:34; 6:38-40; more at God, Knowledge, Prayer, Rain, Sickness, Uncertainty, Will of God)
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Feast of the Confession of Saint Peter the Apostle
Commemoration of Amy Carmichael, Founder of the Dohnavur Fellowship, 1951
Tune Thou my harp;There is not, Lord, could never be,The skill in me.
Tune Thou my harp,That it may play Thy melody,Thy harmony.
Tune Thou my harp;O Spirit, breathe Thy thought through meAs pleaseth Thee.
... Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), Rose from Brier [1933], London: SPCK, 1950, p. 128-129
(see the book; see also Rev. 14:2-3; Ps. 57:8-9; Eph. 5:19-20; Col. 3:16; more at Harmony, Music, Spirit, Thought)
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Commemoration of Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, 1095
The holiness of God, the wrath of God, and the health of the creation are inseparably united. Not only is it right for God to display anger at sin, but I find it impossible to understand how He could do otherwise.God’s wrath is His utter intolerance of whatever degrades or destroys.
... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), Man: The Dwelling Place of God, Harrisburg, Penn.: Christian Publications, Inc., 1966, p. 111
(see the book; see also Isa. 13:9; Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7; Deut. 6:14-15; Nahum 1:2-6; Eph. 1:4; Heb. 12:14; 1 Pet. 1:15-16; more at Creation, God, Holiness, Intolerance, Sin)
Friday, January 20, 2012
Commemoration of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Writer, Hermit, Mystic, 1349
The commandment of God is, that we love Our Lord in all our heart, in all our soul, in all our thought. In all our heart; that is, in all our understanding without erring. In all our soul; that is, in all our will without gainsaying. In all our thought; that is, that we think on Him without forgetting. In this manner is very love and true, that is work of man’s will. For love is a willful stirring of our thoughts unto God, so that it receive nothing that is against the love of Jesus Christ, and therewith that it be lasting in sweetness of devotion; and that is the perfection of this life.
... Richard Rolle (1290?-1349), The Commandments, in English Spirituality in the Age of Wyclif, David Lyle Jeffrey, tr., Regent College Publishing, 1988, 73:8-9
(see the book; see also Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37-38; Mark 12:29-33; Rom. 8:6-7; Heb. 10:16-17; 1 John 5:2-5; more at Commandment, Devotion, Forget, God, Heart, Jesus, Love, Perfection, Soul, Thought, Truth, Understanding)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Feast of Agnes, Child Martyr at Rome, 304
By giving humans freedom of will, the Creator has chosen to limit His own power. He risked the daring experiment of giving us the freedom to make good or bad decisions, to live decent or evil lives, because God does not want the forced obedience of slaves. Instead, He covets the voluntary love and obedience of sons who love Him for Himself.
... Catherine Marshall (1914-1983), Beyond Our Selves, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961, p. 26
(see the book; see also Isa. 1:18-20; Gen. 1:27; Ps. 19:13; 1 Cor. 8:2-3; 2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 5:1; 1 John 4:16; more at Free will, Freedom, Slave, Son)
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Whatever gifts we possess belong to the Body, and are useful only as they are used in the common life of the Church. All this is made very plain in the New Testament Epistles, for in them we are taught that in each local Christian community is a fellowship in which every member is to live in humility and in love to the brethren. Yet no local church is to live to itself. Again and again, local churches are reminded of their close relationship to one another, in life, work, worship, pain, and death. Not that such a relationship is to be regarded either as a matter of convenience or as a question of organization. On the contrary, this intimate relationship is seen as the direct outcome of the saving work of Christ. This unity with one another, and of local churches with each other, is the unity which belongs to the Body of Christ, arising from the unity of God Himself, uttered in the dying and rising again of Jesus, and now expressed in the order and structure of the Church.
... Ambrose Reeves (1899-1980), Bishop of Johannesburg [1956], Church and Race in South Africa, David M. Paton, London: SCM Press, 1958, p. 31
(see the book; see also Rom. 12:4-5; 1:11-12; 15:5-7; Gal. 6:10; 1 Pet. 2:17; 1 John 1:3; more at Body of Christ, Church, Gifts, Humility, Jesus, Love, Unity)
Monday, January 23, 2012
Commemoration of Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, spiritual writer, 1893
What sort of Christians are we that go about asking for the things of this life first, thinking that it shall make us prosperous to be Christians, and then a little higher asking for the things that pertain to the eternal prosperity, when the Great Master, who leaves us the great law, in whom our Christian life is spiritually set forth, has as His great symbol the cross, the cross, the sign of consecration and obedience? It is not simply suffering too. Christ does not stand primarily for suffering. Suffering is an accident. It does not matter whether you and I suffer. “Not enjoyment and not sorrow” is our life, not sorrow any more than enjoyment, but obedience and duty. If duty brings sorrow, let it bring sorrow. It did bring sorrow to the Christ.
... Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Addresses, Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1895, p. 16
(see the book; see also John 8:31-36; 4:34; 6:38; Acts 4:19-20; Rom. 8:1-2; more at Christ, Cross, Duty, Obedience, Prosperity, Simplicity, Sorrow, Suffer)
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Feast of François de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, Teacher, 1622
... if you lie to God’s Holy Spirit, you can scarcely wonder that He refuses you His comfort.
... François de Sales (1567-1622), Introduction to the Devout Life [1609], London: Rivingtons, 1876, IV.xiv, p. 334
(see the book; see also Eccl. 12:14; Matt. 6:5; Mark 4:22; Luke 8:16-17; 12:2; Rom. 8:26; 1 Cor. 4:5; more at Comfort, Holy Spirit, Truth)
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Feast of the Conversion of Paul
Any theory which asserts universal salvation in Christ must involve not only the potential notion of “anonymous faith” but also some doctrine of a future state in which those whose religion has not made them “anonymous Christians”, and those who have professed and lived by no faith at all (a category often conveniently ignored in this context), are presented over and over again with the chance of faith in Christ. Such a theory is not only without scriptural warrant; it cuts clean across all that Scripture teaches about the historical nature of Christianity. Those who are saved at the last are those who are genuinely in Christ in this life.
... Michael Sadgrove (b. 1950) & N. T. Wright (b. 1948), “Jesus Christ the Only Saviour”, in The Lord Christ [1980], John Stott, ed., vol. 1 of Obeying Christ in a Changing World, John Stott, gen. ed., 3 vol., London: Fountain, 1977, p. 78
(see the book; see also Matt. 7:13-14; Pr. 4:26-27; Isa. 30:20-21; John 15:18-20; 16:33; Rom. 8:1; 9:30-32; 1 Cor. 15:22-23; more at Christ, Faith, Future, Life, Religion, Salvation, Scripture)
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Feast of Timothy and Titus, Companions of Paul
Commemoration of Dorothy Kerin, Founder of the Burrswood Healing Community, 1963
It is atonement that makes repentance, not repentance that makes atonement. Repentance comes because the Father of love has proved Himself a ‘Holy Father.’ He has closed the rent that sin had made; He offers a pardon that is a pardon, and that is absolutely free.
... P. T. Forsyth (1848-1921), from “God as Holy Father,” in Homiletic Review, v. XXXIII, I. K. Funk & D. S. Gregory, eds., New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1897, p. 236
(see the book; see also Heb. 7:27; Matt. 5:48; John 17:11; Rom. 2:4; Gal. 4:4-5; Col. 1:19-20; 1 Pet. 1:15-17; more at Atonement, Father, Forgiveness, Repentance, Sin)
Friday, January 27, 2012
To be chosen by God so often means at one and the same time a crown of joy and a cross of sorrow. The piercing truth is that God does not choose a person for ease and comfort and selfish joy but for a task that will take all that head and heart and hand can bring to it. God chooses us in order to use us.
... William Barclay (1907-1978), The Gospel of Luke, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956, p. 8
(see the book; see also Acts 10:41; Deut. 7:6; Isa. 42:1-4; Luke 1:39-45; John 15:16; Acts 1:8; 9:15; more at Choices, Cross, God, Heart, Joy, Selfish, Sorrow, Task)
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Feast of Thomas Aquinas, Priest, Teacher of the Faith, 1274
If all the predestined knew they were predestined, then all those not predestined would know they were not predestined from the very fact that they did not know if they were predestined. This would, in some way, lead them to despair. Now, considering those who are predestined, security is the mother of negligence; and if the predestined were certain about their predestination, they would be secure about their salvation. Consequently, they would not exercise so great care in avoiding evil. Hence, it has been wisely ordained by God’s providence that men should be ignorant of their predestination or reprobation.
... Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274), Truth, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1994, p. 281-282
(see the book; see also Eccl. 9:1; John 3:3; 6:47; Acts 2:38; Phil. 2:12; more at Attitudes, Despair, Evil, God, Knowledge, Predestination, Providence, Salvation, Security)
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Nothing will help you as much in meeting people, no matter how far out they are or how caught up in the modern awfulness, than for them to perceive in you the attitude “we are both sinners.” This does not mean that we minimize sin, but we can still exhibit that we understand him because we stand in the same place. We can say “us” rather than just “you.” To project shock as though we are better slams the door shut. Each of us does not need to look beyond himself to know that men and women are sinners.
... Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984), No Little People, Downer Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1974, reprint, Crossway, 2003, p. 46
(see the book; see also Rom. 11:32; Luke 18:10-14; Rom. 2:1; 3:23; Gal. 3:22; 1 John 1:8; more at Attitudes, Knowledge, People, Perception, Sinner, Sympathy)
Monday, January 30, 2012
Commemoration of Lesslie Newbigin, Bishop, Missionary, Teacher, 1998
If we accept the authority of the Bible, then we understand ourselves as being in via, not possessors of eternal truth, but part of a living tradition of discipleship, on the way to the truth that will be perfectly known on the day when the Author of the story brings it to its end and consummation.
... Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), Truth and Authority in Modernity, Gracewing Publishing, 1996, p. 70
(see the book; see also 2 Thess. 2:15; Matt. 13:52; John 21:15-17; Acts 20:27; 1 Cor. 11:23; 15:3-5; 2 Tim. 2:15; more at Authenticity, Bible, Disciple, Everlasting, Tradition, Truth)
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Commemoration of John Bosco, Priest, Founder of the Salesian Teaching Order, 1888
Meanwhile it is a great consolation to us to look forward, as I think we are authorized to do, to a time when not only the knowledge of the Gospel will be greatly extended, but also, the influence of the Gospel on Christians’ hearts, and tempers, and lives—“the knowledge and love of God,” and the “fruits of his Spirit,”—will be still much more increased;—when those who are Christians in name, will be much less disposed to content themselves with the name,—much more careful to be Christians in principle and in conduct, than the far greater part of them are now:—when Christians, generally, will not look, as they are apt to do now, on the Apostles and others of the early Church whom it is usual to distinguish by the title of Saint, as possessing a degree and a kind of Christian excellence which it would be vain and presumptuous for ordinary Christians to think of equalling. (Continued tomorrow)
... Richard Whately (1787-1863), A View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State [1829], Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1857, p. 158-159
(see the book; see also 1 Cor. 15:23-24; Isa. 65:17; Dan. 12:10; 1 Cor. 2:13-16; 1 Thess. 1:6; Heb. 8:10-12; Rev. 20:1-7; more at Gospel, Heart, Influence, Knowledge, Life, Saint)
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