Reflections
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines the word Reflections in multiple ways. Two are as follows: “a thought, idea, or opinion formed or a remark made as a result of meditation; consideration of some subject matter, idea, or purpose.” Throughout the human experience we have ample opportunities to reflect on ideas, major life transitions and big decisions, among many other things. Those who are bibliophiles, like us, have enjoyed the pleasure of finding wonderful truth in reading and being able to reflect on it for weeks, months, and even years after it. Some texts cause us joy, while others lead us to conviction—but all of the good lead us to reflection.Doubt in the Spiritual Life
George MacDonald was a Scottish preacher and author, whose writings played a significant role in C.S. Lewis’ conversion. Here is what he says about spiritual doubt:
“[F]or a man may be haunted with doubts, and only grow thereby in faith. Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood. . . . Doubts must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.”
George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons: Second Series, “The Voice of Job”; cited in C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald: An Anthology 365 Readings (New York: HarperOne, 1946), 78).
Better a Broken Neck than a Stiff Neck
This passage from the first book of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, tells of the imagined experience of that place of eternal damnation and the absolute refusal of Satan even in this condition to bend his will to God’s. It encourages me always be on guard for the stiffening of the neck that the prophets decried so heartily.
At once as far as Angel’s ken he views
The dismal Situation waste and wild,
A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great Furnace flam’d, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv’d only to discover sights of woe,
65 Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes—48-49
106 [Satan’s thoughts] All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
110 That Glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and defy his power
Who from the terror of this Arm so late
Doubted his Empire, that were low indeed,
115 That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall.
John Milton, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained ed. Christopher Ricks (New York: New American Library, 1968), 50.
Christ & His Church
I recently came across this beautiful passage where Martin Luther remarks on Christ and His bride, the Church:
“Here this rich and divine bridegroom Christ marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all His goodness. Her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by Him. And she has that righteousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the fact of death and say, ‘If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all His is mine and all mine is His,” as the bride in the Song of Solomon [2:16] says, ‘My beloved is mine and I am his.’ This is what Paul means when he says in 1 Cor. 15[:57], ‘Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ that is, the victory over sin and death, as he also says there, ‘The sting of [22] death is sin, and the power of sin is the law’ [1 Cor.15:56]”
Martin Luther, On Christian Liberty, Trans. W. A. Lambert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 21-22.
Is Synergism Necessarily Semi-Pelagianism?
More often than not, Arminians are characterized as “semi-pelagian”. Is there truth to this? Nathan Finn’s recent blog post on the subject is a helpful orientation:
“It is with great hesitation that I break with my usual practice and blog about a topic related to Calvinism and Arminianism. Anytime someone blogs on this subject, an angel loses its wings. I want to apologize, in advance, to the poor angel who is now grounded because of this post.
Several years ago, I was reading a book by a well-known Reformed theologian with a significant following. In his treatise, he argued that early Arminianism was a revival of semi-Pelagianism; the latter is a heresy that was condemned in the sixth century at the Council of Orange (529). More recently, I was listening to a different Reformed scholar teach on the debate between the Calvinists and Remonstrants that led to the Synod of Dordt in 1618-1619. This second brother made exactly the same argument: Arminianism represents a revival of semi-Pelagianism. Their point, of course, is that Arminianism is at least borderline heretical and that Calvinism, as understood by the scholars in question, is more or less the same thing as the gospel.”
Read the whole article here: Is Synergism Necessarily Semi-Pelagianism?
Andrew Fuller Ridiculed for His Baptism
Eighteenth Century Baptist Andrew Fuller movingly recounts being ridiculed for his baptism:
“Within a day or two after I had been baptized, as I was riding through the fields, I met a company of young men. One of them, especially on my having passed them, called after me, in very abusive language, and cursed me for having been ‘dipped.’ My heart instantly rose in a way of resentment: but, though the fire burned, I held my peace; for, before I uttered a word, I was checked with this passage, which occurred to my mind: ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation.’ I wept, and entreated the Lord to pardon me; feeling quite willing to bear the ridicule of the wicked, and to go even through great tribulation, if at last I might but enter the kingdom.”
John Ryland, D.D., The Work of Faith, the Labour of Love, and the Patience of Hope, illustrated; In the Life and Death of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (Published by Samuel Ethridge, 1812), 17.
Announcement: “Reflections”
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines the word Reflections in multiple ways. Two are as follows: “a thought, idea, or opinion formed or a remark made as a result of meditation; consideration of some subject matter, idea, or purpose.” Throughout the human experience we have ample opportunities to reflect on ideas, major life transitions and big decisions, among many other things. Those who are bibliophiles, like us, have enjoyed the pleasure of finding wonderful truth in reading and being able to reflect on it for weeks, months, and even years after it. Some texts cause us joy, while others lead us to conviction—but all of the good lead us to reflection.
So what does this have to do with the Helwys Society Forum? Here at the HSF, we are committed to the life of the mind. Along with loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, and strength, we are committed also to love Him with the way that we think. For that reason, we know that reading can help largely in this capacity. While we haven’t read everything there is to read, we do run across some wonderful gems of truth from time to time, and we’d like a way to share them with you, our readers.
Enter “Reflections.” With this recent New Year, from time to time, our regular contributors will post “reflections” to our site. Specifically, we will post a short paragraph or two of a book, article, or blog post that we’ve read. Along with the post, we‘ll provide a hyperlink if readers wish to investigate further. We hope to post several of these a week. Readers may find these in the tool bar at the top of our homepage. If nothing else, we hope that this will wet the appetite of you, our readers, to read with us as we seek to know more about theology, spirituality, ministry, and culture.
Resolved
“Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good, and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peaceable, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, meek, modest, submissive, obliging, diligent and industrious, charitable, even, patient, moderate, forgiving, sincere temper; and to do at all times what such a temper would lead me to. Examine strictly every week, whether I have done so.”
Don’t Overlook the Ascension
Ascension means the church is the kind of institution that is simultaneously drawn upward in worship and pushed outward in mission. These are not opposing movements. Unfortunately, too many churches today see it that way. Ascension forbids such a dichotomy. The church does not have to choose whether it will be defined by the depth of its worship life or its faithfulness in mission. Both acts flow from the single reality of ascension. Both have integrity only in that they are connected to one another. Mission is the church’s response to the universal lordship of Christ. When people respond to the gospel–whether through faith and repentance or by bringing every area of life under the lordship of Christ–worship happens. The more authentically missional a church becomes, the more profound will be its life of worship since mission always ends in worship. It flows from the place of the ascended Christ in his heavenly reign, which means mission’s success increases the amount of praise and worship of God in the world. Together the church’s life of mission and worship enact and bear witness on earth to what is already true in heaven.
C. S. Lewis on Curricula
In this quote Lewis clearly shows the importance of every educational decision, especially those concerning curricula. When writing a text book ethics, theology, and politics inevitably become wrapped up in the instruction.
“Their words are that we ‘appear to be saying something very important’ when in reality we are ‘only saying something about our own feelings.’ No schoolboy will be able to resist the suggestion brought to bear upon him by that word only. I do not mean, of course, that he will make any conscious inference from what he reads to a general philosophical theory that all values are subjective and trivial. The very power of Gaius and Titus depends on the fact that they are dealing with a boy: a boy who thinks he is ‘doing’ his ‘English prep’ and has no notion that ethics, theology, and politics are all at stake. It is not a theory they put into his mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all. The authors themselves, I suspect, hardly know what they are doing to the boy, and he cannot know what is being done to him.”
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man: or Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools (1947 repr., New York: Collier Books, 1955), 16-17.
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