All Blog Posts (298)

Dear Friends,

This is not a regular Blog, but I'd like to solicit everyone's opinions about upgrading this site to the next Ning Platform.

This site is currently running on a platform called Ning 2.0, but, a couple of years ago, Ning released it's latest platform, Ning 3.0. So far, I've ignored their pleas to upgrade.

From a users perspective, it will make little difference to the ordinary users of this site. It will work pretty much as before. There will be no impact on…

The scriptures proclaims that:

"The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech; …

HOW TO FIND YOUR FAVORITE GEORGE FOX QUOTE IN THE DIGITAL QUAKER COLLECTION, SO THAT YOU CAN CITE IT IN SOMETHING YOU'RE WRITING, PONDER IT, TAKE WARNING OR ENCOURAGEMENT FROM IT, OR JUST BASK IN ITS WISDOM, GOODNESS, AND BEAUTY:

Step 1: Say, for example, that you recall that somewhere George Fox wrote the phrase, "in this thick night of darkness that may be felt," and you want to find its source. Go to…

“He must increase, but I must decrease,” said John the Baptist of Jesus (John 3:30 NRSV). Can you imagine having that be your own seven-word graduation speech when you leave seminary? Five years into your post-graduate career, can you imagine yourself saying, with Paul, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20)? If a serious soul comes to you for counsel, will you be able to credibly say “we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John…

Hear the word of the LORD...give ear unto the law of our God...To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?...When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?...Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth...when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment,…

In Part II I looked at Fox's exposition concerning three estates and three teachers wherein he declared that by following the serpent's teaching, mankind entered the fallen estate. By following Jesus Christ's teaching, we are brought up out of the fall into the state of Adam and Eve before the fall and into a higher state in Christ Jesus who never fell.

In Part III I am continuing to explore the answer to the question, "How are we to encounter this divine influence upon the heart that…

In Part I, I looked at some of the writings of Paul and considered what they had to say concerning man's problem and God's solution (salvation) to that problem. I noted Paul's statement that man's problem is death and God's solution is an influence on the heart that brings life. I asked the question, "How are we to encounter this divine influence upon the heart (i.e. God's grace)?

In part II, I want to examine a passage from the Works of Fox, which pertains to the answer to this…

Friends, I've just been informed that Arthur died at 10 o'clock last night, Fourth Month 7, 2020. He was comfortable, the attending physician said. May he forever enjoy "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."

In his recent post, The Felt Need Of Salvation That Drives Many To Seek A Savior, John Jeremiah Edminster opened a subject that is replete with contradiction. If you browse the shelves of bookstores or look on the internet, you will find a widely varying body of theologies purporting to be supported by cited scripture, the texts of which often have little or no…

And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants…

The following first appeared on Reddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/Quakers/comments/ettifg/the_bush_is_still_burning/. I am slightly revising the original post and incorporating some of the comments. To see the original, follow the link above.

One of the enduring Bible stories of my youth is the story of Moses and the burning bush. That story came to me…

In an appended comment to Steven Davison's excellent post, I write of the felt need of salvation that drives many to seek a Savior and find one in Jesus Christ; I also describe what I think inhibits such a search. I invite responses. Reclaiming the Christ

From the Journal of Job Scott (1751-1793): a thumbnail-sketch anticipation of his book-length essay On the Knowledge of the One Lord, the Only True God, which was published posthumously and may be found in his Works, in the Digital Quaker Collection (…

Jesus Christ was our first love. We were true believers then, not proud, but filled with joy and excitement of who the Lord Jesus was and the mystery of his words.

In the days of our childhood, we loved Jesus, though the excitement of Santa Claus played the center part of that mystery. Jesus was distant and beautiful like the stars. He was a baby and we knew little of him. Even so, we knew there was something precious in the swaddling clothes.

Why do mysteries die out when…

For many deceivers have come forth into the world, who do not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such is the deceiver and the antichrist. Look to yourselves, so as not to lose what we have done but receive your full reward. Whoever breaks forward and does not abide by the teaching of the Christ does not have God; the one who abides by his teaching has the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not take him into your…

He who expects to arrive at . . . the union of the soul with God, by means of consolation and   comfort, will find himself mistaken. For, having sinned, we must expect to suffer, and be in some measure purified, before we can be in any degree fitted for a union with God, or permitted to taste the joy of his presence. Be ye patient, therefore, under all the sufferings which your Father is pleased to send you. If your love to him be pure, you will not seek him less in suffering than in…

Of the 21 chapters in John’s Gospel, chapter 11 has been for decades the least interesting to me. It was its scattered quality that put me off: too many characters, most of them contributing only snippets; vignettes that seemed to go nowhere; dialogue that just didn’t connect or flow; inexplicable actions and reactions. Where was the throughline? I asked myself: the coherent theme that took shape with each succeeding verse.

As a narrative, this chapter seemed more like a script out of…

This material first appeared on This Was the True Light.

In Catholic Quakerism, chapter III, The Quaker Conception of Christian Community and Church Order, Lewis Benson stated:

Of the two basic presuppositions in Fox's conception of…

MIGHT WE BECOME AS OBEDIENT AS JESUS?

On First Day, 6/24/2019, I was privileged to be among the seventeen Friends who heard Australian Friend David Johnson (_A Quaker Prayer Life_, Inner Light Books, 2013; _Jesus, Christ and Servant of God_, Inner Light Books, 2017) lead an intense after-meeting discussion, at West Richmond (IN) Friends Meeting, on what the Gospel of John has to say about the relation of Jesus Christ to God, His _Abba_.

Friend David had us go around the room,…

[S]o great a sense came upon me of the veil of darkness that was over the priests and professors of christianity, that I was moved to give forth the following, as an awakening warning to them:

BLINDNESS hath happened to the professed christians of the letter now-a-days, as blindness happened to the Jews; who professed the letter, but owned not the life, which the letter speaks of: as the christians now, to whom this blindness hath happened, who profess the…