All Blog Posts (330)

Blessed Friends, I write of encouragement. This morning in Meeting for Worship (I went to late Meeting) I heard two speakers. One who spoke of individual determination and another who spoke of community. Categorizing the two philosophies I see one as darkness, the other light.

Emil Brunner said something like this, God calls us to Him individually but we are meant to be in communion. Brunner associates individualism with Rousseau and others of spiritual impoverishment including…

"God spoke that was the speaker to Adam and Eve in paradise." (Sermon VI) That George Fox repeated this revelation of the Spirit often in several of his sermons attests to its importance. He exhorts us to hear the voice of the Teacher, the Christ in us, and to remain with him.

My custom for preparation for worship is to pray my reading is profitable to my worship and prayer. In the moments before proceeding this morning I saw that the voice I heard was the voice George Fox heard was…

I have run into a number of issues and causes over the years put forth as being things "we should be involved in." I have first-hand experience of being "involved in" a number of such worthy causes. But it is not the worthy causes that form the foundation of righteousness.

Many will come to me on that day saying, "Lord, Lord, did we not..." [and there follows a list of worthy issues and causes]. I will say to them, "Depart from me you workers of iniquity, I never knew…

Meeting for Worship, Fourth Month, 3, Year of our Lord 2016. 

I sat at the library table with a worn Journal of George Fox, a That Thy Candles May Always Be Burning, and a worn Good News Bible to read as my preparation for Worship. Sitting at the table one looks into the Meeting room proper.

Usually when I finish my reading I quietly join the others in worship, but this morning was different. A man and his teenage daughter came into the library. He sat in the chair to my left…

Only a few weeks ago I wrote that I felt encouraged about the direction I perceived the Meeting going in--at least early Meeting.

Last First Day I was moved by the Lord to speak of salvation; that salvation wasn't for those who had gained it, but for those who were in need of it. That had been a startling opening to me. As I spoke one woman left; the others remained but the atmosphere was charged. I left with but one handshake, and when I got home I asked our Lord Jesus, "Is it time…

Saturday, during our reading and discussion of Fox's Journal (See Works of Fox, Vol. 1, pp. 83-86)  an opening began growing in my mind concerning Fox's temptation.

"All things come by nature," said the tempter. And, as is usually the case, the lie is coated with enough "fact" to make it easy to swallow the poison. 

First of all we need to establish a working definition of what nature is. My definition, that which was opened to me, is nature is the vehicle by which God works.…

I wrote in the margin of my Good News Bible, "I can see G.F. reading this first verse and understanding it in a way different from what he had heard of it in the church." The verse I refer to is Hebrews 9.

The entire chapter was, in fact, opened to me this morning as it had never before been. And my first thought was, this is the chapter that the Spirit opened to George Fox concerning churches and what they are and what they are not. And because I was quickened reading the words, I…

Did I detect this morning the Lord's working in the hearts of early Meeting attenders? Praise to our Lord if it is true. What reason would I have to question? No one walked out when I spoke! A couple of women made stirrings to do so, but I looked directly at the one and all I can say, in the manner of George Fox, is the Lord's power came over all. Neither did anyone attempt to refute my message. Praise God. Lastly, I glimpsed the cover of the book one of the more vocal refuters had with her…

We in the United States are fortunate to live in a wealthy and technologically advanced society, where many of us enjoy a standard of living far above that of poorer countries, or our own country a century ago. Even a "poor college student" like myself has indoor plumbing, refrigeration, use of a washing machine, clean water, electricity and internet access. One might have expected that people so fortunate would be free to turn their attention to matters beyond material possessions, and that…

In his booklet “A Revolutionary Gospel,” Lewis Benson writes of three stages of work that seventeenth-century Friends undertook: the first in the sequence was turning people to Christ through preaching the Word (the substance of vocal ministry), which reached to the witness of God in others (convincing/convicting of sin); the second stage was settling and establishing the newly convinced, which entailed repentance and amendment of life; and the third was building on this newly laid…

For information on joining the monthly, Saturday, Fox Reading Conference Calls, watch for the monthly listing at http://nffquaker.org/events.

On the 1-9-2016 conference call we read and considered text from The Works of Fox, 1831, pp-75-77. (Note: this material is also available in C.D. format from www.foundationpublicationsnffusa.org/.) We covered such topics…

Every serious Christian should read Lewis Benson's A Universal Christian Faith (formerly Catholic Quakerism) because it solves the problem of "I know what God requires but I don't have the power to carry it out." Who has not felt the tension between what the Bible spells out as Christian behavior and one's own moral impotence?



This inability to do right is the human condition apart from the direct guidance of God. And, though many Christians believe they get this…

A group of us were considering Fox's epistle 24, which contains the following passage:

And so, our unity and fellowship with vain man are lost, and all his evil ways are now turned into enmity; and all his profession is now found to be deceit, and in all his fairest pretences lodgeth cruelty; and the bottom and ground of all his knowledge of God and Christ is found sandy, and cannot endure the tempest. For being brought off from that foundation, and having suffered the loss…

I have wondered for some time how to properly understand the story told in Genesis 2-3 of Adam and Eve's disobedience. While I still don't completely grasp it, I felt moved to share some recent thoughts on its meaning.

Although I have heard the story taken as an account of the creation of humankind, I believe it is too inconsistent with our knowledge of archaeology and paleontology to be a literally true record. Rather, I see it as an allegory or parable that portrays a truth about…

A small number of us gathered by conference call to read and discuss the Works of Fox, beginning with Vol. 1. So this time we began with Fox's account of his early years of how the Lord prepared and fitted him for the work to which he was called. We read as far as Fox's account of the deep trouble and despair he had to undergo before coming to that opening of "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition...

Our discussion centered on the universality of the human…

God created us in love. He loves us. He loves His creation. If it's true man believes he can alter the human genome, thereby creating a new being, the question must be this: is he creating in love what he aspires to create?

If you examine human history from ancient times to the present you will see "that there [is] an ocean of darkness and death. . . " (George Fox, 1647; p. 19 Journal of George Fox) beginning with Cain and going on to the Assyerians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites…

I went to late Meeting for Worship today. As before, the Lord sent me. It was time, He let me know. 

Yesterday, I wrote a blog, which I read to the Meeting. You can read it if you go to www.thereligioussocietycafe.com. Title: God's Teaching. It originated from my readings in Leviticus (thus far). As I stated to the Meeting, I am always in the Spirit. I had written a blog a year or so ago about living a Spirit ordered life, and the…

If we died with him, we shall live with him;

if we endure, we shall reign with him.

If we deny him, he will deny us.

If we are faithless, he keeps faith,

   for he cannot deny himself (2 Tim. 2:11-13).

These simple, beautiful lines are preceded by the Apostle's guarantee: "Here are words you may trust." It seems likely that he's informing us that the words are inspired, and therefore trustworthy. In addition, the breadth and depth of understanding,…

From 6.27.2009

Full of anxiety. I am late to worship and worry about interruption.

Let me be still.

Honor Him

Love Him

Obey Him

See what gifts He gives you in return.

And do these gifts not bring you joy?

And do you not want to shout to the world His greatness?

Do you not want to share with the world your joy?

Addendum to the above worship poem. The gifts I refer to are not material gifts, lest a material…