“Happy Thanksgiving! Let’s hear it for a people (Wampanoag Indians) who embraced a few undocumented immigrants (Pilgrims) over a meal!”
“Suffering is the stripping of our hope in finite things, therefore we do not put our ultimate hope in anything finite.”
Faith is trust manifested in action.
“Rest is an act of defiance.”
— Walter Brueggemann
[Psalm 16](Psalm 16) stands as a gleaming promise. And it has this line: “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.’” That’s the attitude I want to have.
“The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).
I delight in assertions that eternal life is a real thing.
“You want it all, but you can’t have it.”
— Plato, as tweeted by Mike McHargue. Methinks it apocryphal and more likely a pop lyric. Nevertheless, I like it. Maybe he is summarizing Plato with a lyric.
“The Lord also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.”
— David, Psalm 9:9. A motto for foster care.
“The Lord has made Himself known.”
— David, Psalm 9:16. Would that it were that simple. But perhaps it is.
“I am going to judge my circumstances by Jesus’ love, not Jesus’ love by my circumstances.”
“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You.”
— Psalm 5:4
I fail to comprehend how a theistic determinist, aka a Calvinist, can read this and say that God always predestines wicked behavior.
“I lay down and slept; I wakened again, for the Lord sustains me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people Who have set themselves against me round about.”
— Psalm 3:5-6
Reading through the Psalms is going to provide ample fodder for prayer—and encouragement and peace, I think, especially as I construe all the enemies involved as demons or anxieties or skeptics. Not that I will wish harm upon the skeptics as the psalmists wish about their enemies; but I will, as indicated in the above quotation, not be afraid of them.
“There would be no cults without the use of out-of-context proof-texts.”
How do good things in the ekklesia end up going bad? Often the road to corruption is paved with stones of well-intended pragmatism. Virtue is not always practical, nor profitable. Love is not pragmatic. There is no love column on a profit-loss statement or a balance sheet. Love cannot be analyzed. Love can be entered in to. Doing what is right does not always have an immediate practical outcome of benefit. When a spirit of pragmatism enters a community (especially regarding money) little incremental steps are taken choosing the practical and the profitable over the virtuous and honorable. Those little bricks of making pragmatism our God, pave the highway to corruption. Pragmatism wants to assure that a course of action turns out well for me/mine and ours. Love wants to make sure it turns out well for others, even if it costs me/us.
“Your brain cannot do fear and gratitude simultaneously. If you’re in fear… go to a state of gratefulness” (Sue Krautkramer).
“Everywhere in the Bible you see God saying that his aim is his own glory, see love. For only this will satisfy our souls.”
And you could always say: Well, I could have given that money to the missionary. And that is true. Every ice cream cone you buy you could have been sent to somewhere else. But I am thinking: Would you have? Has it gotten in the way of heartfelt calling to do a good thing?
— John Piper, “What Luxuries in My Life Are Sinful?”
“The Lord gave me sixty-two years of joy and prosperity; will I curse him if the last five years are hard?”
— Eileen Anderson, Harps Unhung, xvii, as [quoted by John Piper]((https://twitter.com/johnpiper/status/519895769592393728)
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law” (Galatians 3:13a).
Jesus be like, “S’alright. I got this.” And boom, with his execution, fulfills the requirements of the Law once and for all so that we don’t have to worry about it.
No, really. Paul writes that He bought us off a lender who was on our backs. You don’t need to do anything to inherit eternal life. He paid your ticket.
“Paul wanted [Timothy] to go with him; and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek” (Acts 16:3). Now that’s dedication.
“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
— William Makepeace Thackeray, as quoted by Laurence Hutton as quoted by The Boston Herald, cited here in my journal with some emphasis on the “whatever” part
“And He made no distinction between us and them” (Acts 15:9a). May we who claim to follow Him follow suit.
“Who is there among you who is wise and intelligent? Then let him by his noble living show forth his [good] works with the [unobtrusive] humility [which is the proper attribute] of true wisdom…But the wisdom from above is first of all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). [It is willing to] yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is wholehearted and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned (free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity). And the harvest of righteousness (of conformity to God’s will in thought and deed) is [the fruit of the seed] sown in peace by those who work for and make peace [in themselves and in others, that peace which means concord, agreement, and harmony between individuals, with undisturbedness, in a peaceful mind free from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts]” (James 3:13,17-18, AMP).
Thank You, God, for reinforcing the lesson: If you think you’re wise, you’d better be able to prove it with deeds.
“When informed that someone has achieved an American synthesis of Led Zeppelin and Yes, all I can do is hold my ears and say gosh.”
— Robert Christgau, of Boston (1976), in a capsule review makes me laugh out loud
“Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (Jesus, as reported in John 20:29).
I’ve always taken this saying of Jesus, along with several other beatitudes, as being some kind of moral judgment, in this case, that folks who trust Jesus without having to see Him are better people than those who need to see Him to believe. But that’s not what He is saying: Instead, it’s that the more credulous among us are happier, to be envied, as the Amplified Bible puts it. It’s true: If I didn’t feel impelled to study and intellectualize and apologize God, I’d be a much happier man.