All Blog Posts (214)

The main challenge to this vision of a holy church is the church’s own sinfulness...Luther’s understanding of the church as simul justus et peccatore, or “simultaneously justified and a sinner,” is helpful for describing the paradox of the church’s “now and not yet” struggle with sin. Luther’s perspective affirms the reality of the sin of the church, yet also allows that God’s sanctification is in fact at work and progressively enacting real change in the hearts, minds, and actions…

The christians were called a "city set on a hill, the light of the world, and the salt of the earth;" but when they forsook the power of God, and their faith stood in words and men, and not in the power; then their walls fell down, though the power in itself stood; and they lost their hill, their saltness, and their shining. (Works of Fox, Vol. II, p.172)

...[Jesus] began asking His disciples, saying, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they…

The fellowship of the cross of Christ…is not of man, nor by man; for it is in the everlasting power of God; therefore, no longer do you keep in fellowship, but as you keep in the cross of Christ (Works, 8:67).

“Restoring the Church of the Cross" is the title of the eighth lecture in the series Rediscovering the Teaching of George Fox given by Lewis Benson in 1982 at Moorestown (N.J.) Meeting. In this lecture, Benson explores the meaning and relevance of these…

Power perfected in Weakness.

II Corinthians 12:9a.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you because my power is perfected in weakness.” (NIV)

These blog posts have never “risen” to the level of scholarship; though I hoped what was written might at least be orderly.  It was my intention after following Paul through the accounts in Acts to address his epistles in chronological order in which they were written (as best discerned by scholarship or tradition). …

When we listen to this world--man's voice--we are out of the power. Jesus, the Gospel, is the power; the strong right hand of God.

Tailoring Quaker religion to the culture (world) is to alter it--change it, make it different. So, it is no longer that which you inherited; it's not an inheritance at all; it's a bill of goods (fraud).

Quakers (churches everywhere) are conforming to the world. …

[Note: This blog post first appeared on my  website, This Was The True Light and is reblogged here. If you are not a member of the New Foundation Fellowship website and would like to leave a comment, you can do so on my website.]

I recently read a comment on another blog wherein the commentator maintained that Quakers are overly-spiritual, to put it nicely.…

God's ordained worship in spirit and truth means to praise, glorify, adore, thank, revere, love Him.

Meditation is to contemplate God.

In order to worship God one must know Him. 

If we substitute meditation for worship, we're saying we don't know God.

The Question is, why don't we know God? 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness...

Thus begins one of the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, and I suspect that most people can complete the sentence. While this is proclaimed throughout Christendom, seldom do you encounter any indication of how the "...for you shall be filled" portion is to come about. For the most part, it has become "one of those things that can't be done in this lifetime." There is more time and space…

Before beginning a verbatim account of Paul’s sermon, the scripture writer provides some background information about Paul’s situation in Athens: While waiting for two helpers to join him, Paul assesses the spiritual condition of the city and finds its idolatry distressing. He goes to the synagogue to reason with both Jews and Gentiles, and argues in the marketplace with whoever is willing. He preaches the gospel of Jesus and the resurrection, and the philosophers are privately critical and…

In the preface to Christianity and Civilisation, first delivered as Gifford Lectures in 1947, the Swiss theologian Emil Brunner sought “to formulate and to justify [his] conviction that only Christianity is capable of furnishing the basis of a civilisation which can rightly be described as human”(v). A civilization is largely determined by the prevailing answers that its various cultures give to basic questions about being, truth, time, man’s place in the universe, meaning, justice,…

If you work full time, and also have family obligations, it may be difficult to find even an hour a week in which to sit down, be quiet, and listen to God. He wants all our attention, and for us to listen with our whole hearts and beings. How does this accord with a busy life in which we fulfill our responsibilities to ourselves and others?

God looks at our hearts and our intentions. There is a potential distraction more severe than daily life: our divided loyalty. If we…

Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes…

There is an interesting and ongoing conversation/debate going on concerning a post I made on QuakerQuaker. If you wish to see this you can go to http://www.quakerquaker.org/profiles/blogs/true-christians-how-do-you-know-them?xg_source=activity . The title of the post is the same as the title of this post. The full text of the excerpt that I put up on…

I wonder if heaven is like this: everyone plays games and no one cheats. No one even thinks about cheating. Cheating doesn’t exist.

And there are championship games but there are no prostitutes involved, no human trafficking; no sexual perversions at all. These ideas don’t exist in anyone’s mind.

There’s no anger over anything. No one has to be reminded not to be angry or reminded to be kind because anger and unkindness don’t exist in the hearts and minds of those who live in…

First, they must be made alive by Christ, [who] is alive and liveth forevermore … and quickened by him, before they…can be ministers of the spirit, [and] be able to receive heavenly and spiritual things….So, all must be called by Christ…out of the world…and receive his power, spirit and grace and truth and faith [before] they can preach Christ…. They must see him and know him and hear his voice, and have spiritual things from him …and they must all receive their gifts from him…

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life [Jn. 3:14-15].

For Friends, the historic event of the cross is only a part of the fulfillment of God’s plan; the actual atonement takes place within the human heart. Though the cross shows a fulfillment of the prophets and the Law, Friends claim that the fulfillment of the prophets’ words and…

Prior to attending Norristown Meeting I sat for preparation for meeting for worship. Starting with the brief prayer that my reading be profitable to worship that morning, I found myself unable to give way and instead waited. Here's why: the Lord opened to me my anger. In that moment of opening, He gave me words. This blog are the words.

Many who self-identify as Quaker are unaware that Quakers are Christian; so when a Quaker comes in the midst of them and speaks the things of…

Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I…

All Christians affirm that they must listen to God. About 35 years ago, early in my own journey, I soon discovered that “listening to God” did not mean the same thing to every Christian I met. This plethora of assumptions—and the many different doctrines it produced—confused me until I felt there was no escape. All I could do was hang on, read the Bible, pray, go to church and hope that someday I would be liberated from the burden of this confusion.

I recall certain…