Gordon, the Luther quote could be used in a godly way, or in a most unhelpful, ungodly way.

It could be used as an excuse for never ever joining with others by an A W Pink type who doesn’t attend any church because none of them are perfect and everyone else is not good enough for me to fellowship with.

I think we evangelicals can be in danger of this attitude.

I think there is also a place to acknowledge what we do have in common with others, even when we have serious reservations about some aspects of their teaching.

Paul Tournier: It is impossible to over-emphasise the immense needs humans have to be listened to. Listen to all our conversations of our world, between nations as well as those between people. They are for the most part, dialogues of the deaf.

Ouch!

Do we listen to what is being said with genuine interest or are we only interested in what we are saying and in being understood?

Just reading in the SMH about the death of Gian Carlo Menotti, Italian composer and the first to write an opera for TV [Amahl and the Night Visitors, written in 1951].

I love this quote about his critics:

They often spoil my breakfast, but never my lunch.

Now, wherever you hear or see this word preached, believed, professed, and lived, do not doubt that the true ecclesia sancta catholica, a Christian holy people must be there, even though their number is very small.

-Martin Luther, Luther’s Works 41:149.

Gordon

This is such an encouraging and comforting truth!!!

cheers Di

There is a nice 365 day set of Luther readings called By Faith Alone available from Laridian.com in the and Daily Reader program.

You can buy the book By Faith Alone from bookstores too.

It is modernised and some may say too much, and may not be completely authentic, but it is a nice way to start the day.

Here’s a bit from my reading for today

When you are challenged about your faith ... respond with humility and fear, as if you were standing before God, answering him ...

Angela Crittle wrote:

Paul Tournier: It is impossible to over-emphasise the immense needs humans have to be listened to. Listen to all our conversations of our world, between nations as well as those between people. They are for the most part, dialogues of the deaf.

Ouch!

Do we listen to what is being said with genuine interest or are we only interested in what we are saying and in being understood?

Angela
I like that quote - what a great observation - it parallels I guess the biblical command to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Tournier’s observation brings to mind how much people and their relationships and actions are affected by sin and the fall. It also brought to my mind for some reason the idea that it is not the evil in the world that is surprising but that there is so much good around us despite the evil. That idea is probably expressed better in a quote somewhere ...

“Furthermore we note how seldom the Evangelists and Apostles make mention of the Eucharist, a fact that has led many to wish they had said more about it. On the other hand they ceaselessly emphasize, even to the point of weariness, the ministry of the Word. It is as if the Spirit had foreseen these coming abuses and errors of the shorn ones which would turn the heart from the Word of power and truth to that futile change of bread and wine, all through life clinging to these outward appearances while rejecting the marvelous light into which we have been called.”

-Martin Luther, Concerning the Ministry.

This comes from 365 daily readings from Luther entitled “By Faith Alone”
which is in the Laridian.com “My Bible” software for PDAs.

The language has been modernised.

Commenting on 1 Peter 1:17

“So if you call God your Father, live your lives as temporary
residents on earth in fear. He is the God who judges all people by
what they have done, and he doesn’t play favourites.”

We teach that God saves only by faith, apart from our works. Why then
does Peter say God judges all people by what they have done?

Here is why: What we have taught - how faith alone justifies us
before God- is unquestionably true because it is so clear in
Scripture that no one can deny it. What the apostle says here, that
God judges according to works, is also true.

We should always remember that where there is no faith, there can be
no good works, and on the other hand, where there are no good works,
there is no faith. Therefore, keep faith and good works connected.
The entire Christian life is embodied by both. The way you live is
important because God will judge you accordingly.

Even though God judges us according to works, it’s still true that
works are only the fruits of faith. This is how we know whether or
not we have faith. So God will judge you on the basis of whether you
have believed or not believed.

Likewise, the only way to judge a liar is by his words. Yet it’s
still obvious that he doesn’t become a liar through his words but
that he was already a liar before he ever told a lie. For the lie
comes into the mouth from the heart.

Works are the fruits and signs of faith. God judges people according
to these fruits. These fruits spring from faith in a way that
publicly indicates whether or not someone has faith in his heart.

God will not judge you by whether you are called a Christian or
whether you have been baptised. He will ask you,"If you are a
Christian, then tell me, where are the fruits that demonstrate your
faith?”

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

However, given that this has become a “Popular culture” forum on the revamped website, please check the powerpoint version of this poem here

Time for another Luther quote:

“By the law is the knowledge of sin’ [Rom 3:20], so the word of grace comes only to those who are distressed by a sense of sin and tempted to despair.”

The Bondage of the will p.168 (translated by J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston, Baker Book House)

“I am just going out. I may be some time”

-Lawrence Oates, about to go out into an Antarctic blizzard, never to return.

“I am just going out. I may be some time”

-Gordon Cheng, about to duck out for a sandwich. Back soon.

D. A. Carson on False Alternatives

So which shall we choose? Experience or truth? The left wing of an airplane, or the right? Love or integrity? Study or service? Evangelism or discipleship? The front wheels of a car, or the rear? Subjective knowledge or objective knowledge? Faith or obedience?

Damn all false antitheses to hell, for they generate false gods, they perpetuate idols, they twist and distort our souls, they launch the church into violent pendulum swings whose oscillations succeed only in dividing brothers and sisters in Christ. The truth is that Jesus Christ is Lord of all—of the truth and of our experience. The Bible insists that we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. (Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, p. 234)

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur

( Gordon Cheng posted: this on 14 June 2007 12:51 PM )

“ I am just going out. I may be some time”

-Gordon Cheng, about to duck out for a sandwich. Back soon.

Gordon,

That must have been SOME HUGE sandwich - as you took over 4 months to get back to this thread. Perhaps it was one of those GIGANTIC metre long ones that they sell for special events. Have you seen the life-size sample on display at some of their stores ?

Cheers, Kevin