Good Friday Good Friday in my heart! Fear and affright! My thoughts are the disciples when they fled, My words read more

Good Friday Good Friday in my heart! Fear and affright! My thoughts are the disciples when they fled, My words the words that priest and soldier said, My deed the spear to desecrate the dead. And day, Thy death therein, is changed to night. Then Easter in my heart sends up the sun. My thoughts are Mary, when she turned to see, My words are Peter, answering, 'Lov'st thou me?' My deeds are all Thine own drawn close to Thee. And night and day, since thou dost rise, are one.

Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof, and the worshiping read more

Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof, and the worshiping heart needs none.

By a man's reaction to Jesus Christ, that man stands revealed. By his reaction to Jesus Christ his houl is read more

By a man's reaction to Jesus Christ, that man stands revealed. By his reaction to Jesus Christ his houl is laid bare. If he regards Christ with love, even with wistful yearning, for him there is hope; but if in Christ he sees nothing lovely he has condemned himself. He who was sent in love has become to the man, judgment.

I am unable to see how a man can find the hand of God in secular history unless he has read more

I am unable to see how a man can find the hand of God in secular history unless he has first found an assurance of it in his personal experience.

A basic principle in the interpretation of the Bible is that one must first ask what a given Scripture was read more

A basic principle in the interpretation of the Bible is that one must first ask what a given Scripture was intended to mean to the people for whom it was originally written; only then is the interpreter free to ask what meaning it has for Christians today. Failure to ask this primary question and to investigate the historical setting of Scripture have prevented many Christians from coming to a correct understanding of some parts of the Bible. Nowhere is this more true than in respect to the last book in the Bible. Here, there has been a singular lack of appreciation for the historical background of the book; the book has been interpreted as if it were primarily written for the day in which the expositor lives (which is usually thought to be the end time), rather than in terms of what it meant to the first-century Christians of the Roman province of Asia for whom it was originally written. This has resulted in all sorts of grotesque and fantastic conclusions of which the author of the Revelation and its early recipients never would have dreamed.

Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379 As long as I live, read more

Feast of Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, & his sister Macrina, Teachers, c.394 & c.379 As long as I live, I will never appeal for money for the mission of God in this world. This is a degradation of God and of ourselves, which has pauperized us in every way over the centuries. God has no need, and if the mission is God's, then we do not ask for help to give God a boost; therefore we do not appeal for funds. We allow people to take a share in God's work, and this is a very different thing.

The world, indeed, seems to be weary of the just, righteous, holy ways of God, and of that exactness in read more

The world, indeed, seems to be weary of the just, righteous, holy ways of God, and of that exactness in walking according to His institutions and commands which it will be one day known that He doth require. But the way to put a stop to this declension is not by accommodating the commands of God to the corrupt courses and ways of men. The truths of God and the holiness of His precepts must be pleaded and defended, though the world dislike them here and perish hereafter. His law must not be made to lackey after the wills of men, nor be dissolved by vain interpretations, because they complain they cannot -- indeed, because they will not -- comply with it. Our Lord Jesus Christ came not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, and to supply men with spiritual strength to fulfill them also. It is evil to break the least commandment; but there is a great aggravation of that evil in them that shall teach men so to do.

Christianity does not remove you from the world and its problems; it makes you fit to live in it, triumphantly read more

Christianity does not remove you from the world and its problems; it makes you fit to live in it, triumphantly and usefully.

Feast of Michael & All Angels The nominal Christian, then, will see Jesus as a name, a representative, a read more

Feast of Michael & All Angels The nominal Christian, then, will see Jesus as a name, a representative, a symbol, a personification, a prototype, a figure, a model, an exemplar for something else. The nominal Christian pays homage to something about Jesus, rather than worshipping the man himself. For this reason, nominal Christians will extol the moral teachings of Jesus, the faith of Jesus, the personality of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the world view of Jesus, the self-understanding of Jesus, etc. None of these worships Jesus as the Christ, but only something about him, something peripheral to the actual flesh-and-blood man. This is why when the almighty God came into the world in Jesus, he came as the lowest of the low, as weakness itself, as a complete and utter nothing, in order that men would be forced into the crucial decision about him alone and would not be able to worship anything about him.