All Blog Posts (207)

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…

When George Fox emerged on the scene, something new appeared in Christendom. The message Fox was commanded to preach laid an unheard of foundation for one’s life in God. So unheard of that it was often labeled “the Quaker’s new gospel.” The scriptures record the voice of God saying on the Mount of Transfiguration, “This is my son, my chosen one. Hear him.” Fox maintained by argument and convincing demonstration that the builders of the churches of his day began by rejecting God’s cornerstone…

Yesterday I wrote in my notebook this question: Can you imagine living in a place where there is no deception? I answered: That place would be God's Kingdom. I thought of it because in my brief, silent settling prior to worship, I saw this world as the deception it is. How did I surmise it's deception? Because of the worshiping of all its attributes.

This morning the Lord blazed my mind with His Spirit and opened to me that the deception is beliving this world is substance. The reason…

But Peter answered and said to Him, "Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away." Jesus said to him, "Truly I say to you that this very night, before a cock crows, you shall deny Me three times." Peter said to Him, "Even if I must die with You, I will not deny You." (Matt. 26:33-35)

Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a certain servant-girl came to him and said, "You too were with Jesus the Galilean." But he denied it…

This is the title of a workshop I would like to give soon. After reading Terry H.S. Wallace's None Were So Clear: Prophetic Quaker Faith and the Ministry of Lewis Benson and Catholic Quakerism by Lewis Benson, I am in the process of creating a workshop for New England Yearly Meeting Friends on the importance of the historical prophetic voice and what the prophetic voice means to Friends, and beyond, today. I've drafted some ideas about this workshop, and would appreciate…

How are we to know the difference between true and false religion? religions, subsets of religions, and anti-religions abound, each one claiming to be the best. Over all, the banner of tolerance and respect is held high, in a manner that amounts to an admission of defeat. Since we can’t agree on the truth, proclaim one and all, we may as well resign ourselves to a life without it. This attitude has it’s good points; it is far better than wars fought by fanatics. But it is far from what we…

Fox repeats this call over and over: "Keep your testimony...for your worship in the spirit and in the truth, that Christ Jesus hath set up" (Works, 8:34); "keep up your testimony in the light, power, and spirit of God, for the worship that Christ set up above sixteen hundred years since, in spirit and in truth,...which is a worship that cannot be shaken." (8:84) This is a testimony that the Quakers had before the peace testimony was formulated in 1660, and I think in Fox's mind it was the…