Thoughts on God and life from a Christian perspective
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I thought this was a pretty good quote for the New Year.
“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
- Gen. Eric Shinseki, former U.S. Army chief of staff
Here is a Christmas quote from John Donne, one of my favorite poets (along with a bit of a mystery below). These were the opening sentences of a sermon Donne preached on Luke 2:29-30 at St. Paul’s on Christmas Day in 1626.
The whole life of Christ was a continual passion; others die martyrs, but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha (where he was crucified) even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for, to his tenderness then, the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after; and the manger as uneasy at first, as his cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day.” (John Donne, “Sermon Number 11. Preached at St. Pauls upon Christmas Day. 1626.” The Sermons of John Donne, edited by Evelyn M. Simpson and George R. Potter [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962], Volume 7, p. 279.)
Note: I have noticed the following lines attached to this quote online and elsewhere:
“From the creche to the cross is an inseparable line. Christmas only points forward to Good Friday and Easter. It can have no meaning apart from that, where the Son of God displayed his glory by his death.”
These are good lines, but they should not be attributed to Donne. I cross-checked Donne’s sermon in both the Simpson/Potter work cited above, as well as in Alford. (The Works of John Donne; by John Donne, Henry Alford; pp. 57-58) The additional lines do not show up in either work.
As far as I can tell, the lines were first attached to the quote in Joseph Skip Ryan’s book, That You May Believe (p. 50). Ryan credits The Book of Uncommon Prayer, edited by Constance Pollock and Daniel Pollock. The quote from Donne appears in Pollock’s book under the title, Epiphany (p. 49), but it does not have the added lines.
More recently, Ryan’s chapter was picked up in Nancy Guthrie’s new advent book, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, where the full quote including the additional lines are reproduced (pp. 20-21). This is an excellent book which is getting a lot of well-deserved attention, and most of the quotes popping up online with the additional lines reference Guthrie’s book.
So, where did these mysterious lines come from, and how did they get attached to Donne’s quote? I am guessing the additional lines were probably written by Ryan and were meant to follow Donne’s quote as commentary, but were mistakenly included within the quotation marks instead. If anyone can shed further light on this, I would be interested to know.
Related post: 7 Great Books to Read at Christmas
Do you have a habit of procrastinating? Here is the best advice on procrastination I have read.
“No unwelcome tasks become any the less unwelcome by putting them off till tomorrow. It is only when they are behind us and done, that we begin to find that there is a sweetness to be tasted afterwards, and that the remembrance of unwelcome duties unhesitatingly done is welcome and pleasant. Accomplished, they are full of blessing, and there is a smile on their faces as they leave us. Undone, they stand threatening and disturbing our tranquility, and hindering our communion with God. If there be lying before you any bit of work from which you shrink, go straight up to it, and do it at once. The only way to get rid of it is to do it.”
-Alexander MacLaren (1826–1910), Scottish preacher
HT: C.J. Mahaney
Tim Keller comments on the two brothers in the parable of the prodigal son.
“There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord. One is by breaking all the moral laws and setting your own course, and one is by keeping all the moral laws and being very, very good.”
- Tim Keller, The Prodigal God
HT: Challies: Book Review - The Prodigal God by Tim Keller
Related posts:
• Melody in F (The Prodigal Son)
• Parable of the Prodigal Puppy
Here are ten great quotes (also known as “Adrianisms”) from the late Adrian Rogers, former pastor at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, TN.
- Just because it doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense.
- Most people want to serve God, but only in an advisory capacity.
- If Satan can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.
- Sin is not just breaking God’s laws; it is breaking His heart.
- We ought to be living as if Jesus died yesterday, rose this morning, and is coming back this afternoon.
- Has it ever occurred to you that nothing occurs to God?
- It’s what you sow that multiplies, not what you keep in the barn.
- If you have a Bible that’s falling apart, you’ll have a life that’s not.
- I wouldn’t trust the best fifteen minutes I ever lived to get me into heaven.
- God grades on the Cross not on the curve.
Do you have any favorite Adrian Rogers quotes?
A vacation consists of:
Two weeks that are
too short, after which you are
too tired
to go back
to work, but
too broke
to afford not
to. (Source unknown)
2 true. What say you?
Here is my favorite part in Charles Williams’ fantasy novel, War in Heaven (chapter 12, p. 187). Read it carefully. It is worth pondering.
The Archdeacon made no answer for a minute or two. Then he said, “I will not bargain anymore for anything, if I can help it. How can one bargain for anything that is worthwhile? And what else is worth bargaining for?”
“If one bargained for nothing, would everything be worthwhile?” Kenneth said, but more as a dream than a question.
(Charles Williams was a contemporary of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and a member of the Inklings. He wrote seven strange but wonderful novels, as well as some poetry and some theological works.)
Who knew? Lewis wrote the following to a child in response to a question about Reepicheep:
I love real mice. There are lots in my rooms in College but I have never set a trap. When I sit up late working they poke their heads out from behind the curtains as if they were saying, “Hi! Time for you to go to bed. We want to come out and play.” (from A Reader’s Guide to Prince Caspian, by Leland Ryken and Marjorie Lamp Mead)
No wonder Lewis portrays mice so positively in the Narnia Chronicles: Reepicheep and his warrior mice friends; the mice who freed Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; etc. So, do you like mice? (HT: Out Walking)
Click here for Countdown to Caspian posts.
Click here for more Narnia and Caspian related posts.
Click here for Narnia sermon series.
Earl Palmer shares about the following exchange by letter between C. S. Lewis and a non-believer in his article, Evangelism Takes Time.
______________________________________________________________
A man who liked C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters went on to read Mere Christianity and was infuriated. He wrote the author a scathing letter. Lewis’s response, in longhand, shows a master evangelist at work:
Yes, I’m not surprised that a man who agreed with me in Screwtape … might disagree with me when I wrote about religion. We can hardly discuss the whole matter by post, can we? I’ll only make one shot. When people object, as you do, that if Jesus was God as well as man, then he had an unfair advantage which deprives him for them of all value, it seems to me as if a man struggling in the water should refuse a rope thrown to him by another who had one foot on the bank, saying, “Oh, but you have an unfair advantage.” It is because of that advantage that he can help. But all good wishes. We must just differ; in charity I hope. You must not be angry with me for believing, you know; I’m not angry with you.
What impresses me about that exchange is the light touch. Lewis acknowledges the man’s complaint; he gives him one thing to think about—and he stops. He steps back as if to say, “Your move,” which opens the way for the man to write again. Evangelism, like sanctification, takes time. Therefore, we must take the time it takes.
______________________________________________________________
What do you think? Do we sometimes rush evangelism? Should we take a more patient approach?
I received Tim Keller’s The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism last night as a late birthday present. I have read many good reviews of this book which provides reasons for faith in God and have been looking forward to reading it. I got a kick out of the opening quote in the book, as did my boys — who are big Star Wars fans themselves.
I find your lack of faith—disturbing. (Darth Vader)
Related posts:
C. J. Mahaney on dissatisfaction in preaching:
I think we should remain dissatisfied with our preaching, so that we are always motivated to grow in our preaching. But I think there is a difference between being dissatisfied and being discouraged. For me, when I’m discouraged, normally that reveals the presence of pride, that to some degree in my preaching I was attempting to impress rather than serve.
This is from a panel session at the T4G’08 Together For the Gospel Conference that is taking place Tuesday-Thursday this week in Louisville, Kentucky. All talks from the conference are available for free listening or download here: Free Audio Downloads from Together for the Gospel.
Vox Day waxes eloquent on the New Atheists:
This trio of New Atheists, this Unholy Trinity, is a collection of faux-intellectual frauds utilizing pseudoscientific sleight of hand in order to falsely claim that religious faith is inherently dangerous and has no place in the modern world. I am saying that they are wrong, they are reliably, verifiably and factually incorrect. Richard Dawkins is wrong. Daniel C. Dennett is wrong. Christopher Hitchens is drunk, and he’s wrong. Michel Onfray is French, and he’s wrong. Sam Harris is so superlatively wrong that it will require the development of esoteric mathematics operating simultaneously in multiple dimensions to fully comprehend the orders of magnitude of his wrongness.” (Vox Day; The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, pp. 13-14)
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