Two Kinds of People in the End

This is one of those brief Lewis quotes that has profoundly affected how I view the issue of Hell.  Kind of interesting in light of the current controversy surrounding Rob Bell.... -- DRS

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done', and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'  All that are in Hell, choose it.  Without that self-choice there would be no Hell.  No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.  Those who seek find.  To those who knock it is opened.

The Business of Heaven  May 31, p. 142

Sorry for not posting as much as I'd like to have lately. I've been really busy with family and end of year activities. My computer was down for a few days as well...I'm going to put out a few 'make up' posts probably tomorrow.  -- DRS

A Vital Principle

We do a great disservice to the church when we refer to the pastorate as "the ministry." The use of the definite article implies that we think the ordained pastorate is the only ministry there is. But diakonai is the generic word for service; it lacks specificity until a descriptive adjective is added -- pastoral, social, political, medical, educational, and many others.  We need to recover this vision of the wide diversity of ministries to which God calls his people.
Through the Bible: Through the Year;  p. 320

Benaiah, congratulations on your graduation and blessings on your recital today. -- love Dad 

Boar's Head Tavern Quote I found amusing

N.T. Wright comments on Stephen Hawking’s latest diss on heaven.

Hawking is working with a very low-grade and sub-biblical view of ‘going to heaven.’ Of course, if faced with the fully Christian two-stage view of what happens after death — first, a time ‘with Christ’ in ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise,’and then, when God renews the whole creation, bodily resurrection — he would no doubt dismiss that as incredible. But I wonder if he has ever even stopped to look properly, with his high-octane intellect, at the evidence for Jesus and the resurrection? I doubt it — most people in England haven’t. Until he has, his opinion about all this is worth about the same as mine on nuclear physics, i.e. not much.

Life is not a river but a tree

C.S. Lewis is kind of on a roll here.  These are some of his thoughts from The Business of Heaven that I have always appreciated.  -- drs

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the center: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on the biological level life is not like a river but like a tree.  It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection.  Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good. -- May 20, p. 133

I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists of being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. -- May 21, p.134

The Final Judgement

This one's for you guys K.C. and J.E. 

It will be infallible judgement. If it is favorable we shall have no fear, if unfavorable, no hope, that it is wrong. We shall not only believe, we shall know, know beyond doubt in every fiber of our appalled or delighted being that as the Judge has said, so we are: neither more nor less nor other. We shall perhaps even realize that in some dim fashion we could have known it all along.  We shall know and all creation will know too: our ancestors our parents, our wives or husbands, our children. The unanswerable and (by then) self-evident truth about each will be known to all.
The Business of Heaven, May 19, p.132

the Questions...

The other day Buechner discussed the important questions being in the Bible raises... I thought I'd just share his questions and the scriptures they are derived from.  Just more to think about.  -- drs

* What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? (Matthew 16:26)
* Am I my brother's keeper? (Genesis 4:9)
* If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)
* What is truth? (John 18:38)
* What does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? (Ecclesiastes 1:3)
* Who is my neighbor? (Luke 10:29)
* What shall I do to inherit eternal life? (Luke 10:25)

Questions

On her deathbed, Gertrude Stein is said to have asked, “What is the answer?” Then, after a long silence, “What is the question?” Don’t start looking in the Bible for the answers it gives. Start listening for the questions it asks.

We are much involved, all of us, with questions about things that matter a good deal today but will be forgotten by this time tomorrow – the immediate wheres and whens and hows that face us daily at home and at work – but at the same time we tend to lose track of the questions about things that matter always, life-and-death questions about meaning, purpose and value. To lose track of such deep questions as these is to risk losing track of who we really are in our own depths and where we are really going. There is perhaps no stronger reason for reading the Bible than that somewhere among all those India-paper pages there awaits each reader whoever he is the one question which though for years he may have been pretending not to hear it, is the central question of his own life.

Listening to Your Life, May 17, p.124

The Importance of The Church

I'm recognizing that I've been reading Through The Bible: Through The Year by John Stott for at least a year now.  This is the introduction from Week 37: The Church in Jerusalem and I remember thinking the first time I read it that Stott's getting kind of cranky in his old age.  This might not sit too well with the current spirit of the age but his point is worth considering. -- drs  


Although I believe that my readers come from different churches or denominations,...we are all committed to the church. At least, I hope we are. I hope that none of my readers is that grotesque anomaly -- an unchurched Christian -- for the New Testament knows nothing of such a monster!  No, we are not only committed to Christ, we are committed to the body of Christ. Indeed, we cannot be one without the other. For the church lies at the center of the purpose of God. God's purpose, conceived in a past eternity, being worked out in history, to be perfected in a future eternity, is not just to save isolated individuals and so perpetuate our loneliness, but rather to call out a people for himself and to build his church. Indeed, Christ died for us not only to redeem us from sin but to purify for himself a people who are enthusiastic for good works (Titus 2:14). So, then, the reason we are committed to the church is that God is.

Hate

I've always believed that the real opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. Sounds like Buechner has a similar take. -- drs

Hate is as all-absorbing as love, as irrational, and in it's own way as satisfying. As lovers thrive on the presence of the beloved, haters revel in encounters with the one they hate. They confirm him in all his darkest suspicions. They add fuel to all his most burning animosities. The anticipation of them makes the hating heart pound. The memory of them can be as sweet as young love.

The major difference between hating and loving is perhaps that whereas to love somebody is to be fulfilled and enriched by the experience, to hate somebody is to be diminished and drained by it. Lovers, by losing themselves in their loving, find themselves, become themselves. Haters simply lose themselves. Theirs is the ultimately consuming passion.

Listening to Your Life, May 15, p.123

Love and Fear

Don’t you love devotions that catch you with cleverness and make you laugh at the insight? -- drs

Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things – ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity.

The Business of Heaven, May 13, p. 127

Conversion of a Saint

How can the conversion of St. Augustine not be the choice bit of the day? It’s amazing to see how God was at work and how this one conversion had such long lasting ramifications.  -- drs

Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Ephesians 5:14

A perverse will produces lust. Lust yielded to becomes a habit. A habit not resisted becomes a necessity. These were like links of a chain hanging one upon the other, and they bound me hand and foot.  I had two wills: one old, and one new; one carnal, one spiritual.  Their conflict wasted my soul. I was like a sleepy man unable to get up.

 

My introspection dredged up all the misery of my soul and piled it up in full view of my heart. A tremendous emotional storm arose and there was a deluge of tears.

And then I heard a voice of a boy or a girl from the nearby house saying, “Take up and read!” Holding back my tears, I got up, interpreting the child’s words as a command from God to open the Bible and read the first passage I should see.  I snatched it up, opened it, and silently read the first thing I saw.  “Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissention and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Romans 13:13-14).

I had no desire, no need to read further. In the instant that sentence ended, it was as if a peaceful light shone in my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished.   – Augustine: Confessions

A Personal Response

You give us great variety in our religious experiences, Lord God, but this saint’s account inspires me. If you can work in him, you can work in me. Change me. Make me your own.

Near to the Heart of God   May 12

Predictions of the Second Coming

We must never speak to simple, excitable people about 'the Day' without emphasizing again and again the utter impossibility of prediction. We must try to show them that that impossibility is an essential part of the doctrine.  If you do not believe Our Lord's words, why do you believe in his return at all? And if you do believe them must you not put away from you, utterly and forever, any hope of dating that return? His teaching on the subject quite clearly consists of three propositions; (1) That he will certainly return; (2) That we cannot possibly find out when; (3) And that therefore we must always be ready for Him.
The Business of Heaven,  May 11, p. 125

Meddling

How can you think of saying, "Friend, let me help you get rid of the speck in your eye," when you can't see past the log in your own eye?  -- Matthew 7:4, NLT

We are also tempted to be distressed by the sins and failings of others. We try to fix things. This excites us so much that it keeps us from praying. Worst of all, we trick ourselves into believing we are doing the Lord's work! Good intentions have led to terrible mistakes. Spiritual security comes when we stop being anxious about others and begin to watch after ourselves.

Try to focus on the best in others and the worst in ourselves. This will blind us to their defects. Eventually, we may even think of them as better than ourselves.

--Teresa of Avila: The Life of Teresa of Jesus

Near to the Heart of God: May 8

John Stott's daily Trinitarian Prayer

I have myself found it helpful for many years, at the very beginning of each day, to recite the following trinitarian liturgy, which begins with praise and ends in prayer:

Almighty and everlasting God,
Creator and Sustainer of the universe, I worship you.
Lord Jesus Christ,
Savior and Lord of the world, I worship you.
Holy Spirt,
Sanctifier of the people of God, I worship you.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.
Heavenly Father, I pray that this day
I may live in your presence and please you more and more.
Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that this day
I may take up my cross and follow you.
Holy Spirit, I pray that this day your fruit may ripen in
my life -- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Holy, blessed and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God,
Have mercy upon me.
Amen.

Through the Bible: Through the Year  p. 296

The Gospel World -- Buechner

In the world of the fairy tale, the wicked sisters are dressed as if for a Palm Beach wedding, and in the world of the Gospel it is the killjoys, the phonies, the nitpickers, the holier-than-thous, the loveless and cheerless and the irrelevant who more often than not wear the fancy clothes and go riding around in sleek little European jobs marked Pharisee, Corps Diplomatique, Legislature, Clergy. It is the ravening wolves who wear sheep's clothing. And the good ones, the potentially good anyway, the ones who stand a chance of being saved by God because they know they don't stand a chance of being saved by anybody else?  They go around looking like the town whore, the village drunk, the crook from the IRS, because that is who they are.  When Jesus is asked who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven, he reaches into the crowd and pulls out a child with a cheek full of bubble gum and eyes full of whatever a child's eyes are full of and says unless you can become like that, don't bother to ask.
Listening to Your Life  May 5, p. 115

Sermon Quotes

"You do more than you have to because God gave you more than you deserved."

"The church is a place of broken people who are recklessly loved by God." -- Richard Foster?

The Resurrection of Our Bodies

At death, matter which has been organic begins to flow away into the inorganic, to be finally scattered and used (some of it) by other organisms.  The resurrection of Lazarus involves the reverse process. The general resurrection involves the reverse process universalized -- a rush of matter towards organization at the call of spirits which require it.  It is presumably a foolish fancy (not justified by the words of Scripture) that each spirit should recover those particular units of matter which he ruled before.  For one thing, the[re] would not be enough to go round: we all live in secondhand suits and there are doubtless atoms in my chin which have served many another man, many a dog, many and eel, many a dinosaur.  Nor does the unity of our bodies, even in this present life, consist in retaining the same particles.  My form remains one, though the matter in it changes continually.  I am, in that respect, like a curve in a waterfall.

The Business of Heaven May, 4   p. 109

Precious Friendship

Friendship has value in this life and the next. Almost no happiness can exist without friendship. To be human we need someone with whom we can laugh and express our thoughts.  We need to share our concerns and insights. "If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!" (Ecclesiastes 4:10)

Friendship increases the joys of well-being and lessens the sorrows of misfortune by dividing and sharing them. Tullius said that friends are present even when they are absent, rich though poor, strong though weak, and even alive when dead.

Friendship is on the edge of love and knowledge of God.  It is a simple step from true friendship with another person to friendship with God.  Jesus said, "I no longer call you servants.... I have called you friends" (John 15:15).  All the best qualities of friendship begin in Christ, advance through Christ, and are perfected in Christ.  -- Aelred of Rievaulx: Spiritual Friendship

Near to the Heart of God,  May 3 

The Promise of the Spirit

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses... to the ends of the earth. -- Acts 1:8

... in asking about a restoration of the kingdom, it is clear that the apostles were still dreaming of a political liberation from Rome.  But in his reply Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit giving them power to witness.  The kingdom of God is his rule in the lives of  his people.  It is spread by witnesses, not soldiers, through the gospel of peace, not a declaration of war.

Through the Bible Through the Year  p. 291

'Good Works'

This one made my wife laugh out loud when I read it to her. Congratulations on your confirmation day Rosie... I love you. -- Dad

'Good Works' in the plural is an expression much more familiar to modern Christendom than 'good work'. Good works are chiefly alms-giving or 'helping' in the parish. They are quite separate from one's 'work'. And good works need not be good work, as anyone can see by inspecting some of the objects made to be sold at bazaars for charitable purposes.

The Buisness of Heaven  May 1, p. 116