Taking Thoughts Captive
We are not quite a full week into this Lenten season—a time of cutting away things that hold us back in our Christian lives and of taking up new habits that will draw us closer to God and conform us more closely to the image of Christ. Both the negative (cutting away) and positive (taking up) aspects of Lent require us to break old habits and form new ones.
miscellany [ mis-uh-ley-nee], noun 1. a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items 2. a miscellaneous collection of literary compositions or pieces by several authors, dealing with various topics, assembled in a volume or book
Only one quote and one article this week...I've let both simmer for a while but would like to share them.
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
miscellany [ mis-uh-ley-nee], noun 1. a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items 2. a miscellaneous collection of literary compositions or pieces by several authors, dealing with various topics, assembled in a volume or book
It's been a long while since I posted any miscellanies...until recently, it had been a long time since I posted anything. Miscellanies are back as a list of the most interesting things I came across in the previous week that I think are worth reading and considering, as informed, historic Christians. With pithy re-introductions aside, here is this week's list.
We find ourselves again this year in the (seemingly) awkward season of pre-Lent: the three weeks whose Sundays on the church calendar have very strange sounding names (Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima) and which are not familiar to many growing up in a post Vatican II world. For those of us who follow the historic, ancient church calendar, these Sundays form a turning point and time of preparation for the austerity of Lent.
To hear the voice of the Spirit speaking, you have to know what the Spirit has said. In other words, to know what God is saying now, you have to also know what God has said in the past. Scripture is this living record of God's acts and pronouncements. God has already told us that He is yesterday, today, and forever the same. Unlike us, God does not reinvent Himself over and over again. He is who He is. He is who He was and who He will be. They are not new or different but the same.
Pr. Peters writes about Rome, but the same is true of all who diverge from sola scriptura, whether Roman Catholic, Charismatic/Pentecostal, or liberal/progressive mainline Protestants. This is surely worth a careful read.
miscellany [ mis-uh-ley-nee], noun 1. a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items 2. a miscellaneous collection of literary compositions or pieces by several authors, dealing with various topics, assembled in a volume or book
It's been awhile since I noted anything truly worth sharing, but this week is truly an exception. I'm going to share a single article in hopes that you will read and re-read it. It is pointed, thought-provoking, and spot on (in my opinion). Pr. Peters has done the church another great service with this piece.
miscellany [ mis-uh-ley-nee], noun 1. a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items 2. a miscellaneous collection of literary compositions or pieces by several authors, dealing with various topics, assembled in a volume or book
Real Worship. This is a reposting of an article originally written in 2011. In my opinion, as a retired Air Force chaplain, it is one of the best short pieces I've ever read that focuses us on the realities and importance of worship in an ultimate sense—think about gathering to worship this Sunday after our building had been bombed into oblivion. Would you bother getting out of bed to do it? If you truly believe that we meet our Lord in a real, unique way that is unlike any other time of the week you definitely would. Unfortunately, many American Christians don't have this understanding of worship, and we are impoverished as a result.