2 Timothy 1:14
From Fox News: Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols and baseball’s other greats have barely begun spring training, but a mathematician from New Jersey already knows what kind of season they’ll have. And if you’re a Mets fan, never mind what Yogi Berra said. It’s over and it ain’t even started yet. The Amazin’ Mets will come [...]
Why is it that often we do not realize what we have until it is gone or taken from us? I suspect one answer to this perplexing question is that it is a product of alienation that our sin and self-centeredness has caused, an alienation that often exists between God and us and between humans. I know that when I was a young man, I thought I had better things to do and think about other than my parents and their experiences. I simply didn’t realize how impoverishing that was.
Here Paul talks about the essence and nature of Christian love, how believers should act toward one another. The specific context is whether believers should eat meat sacrificed to idols. But the general issue that Paul addresses here is what should believers do with their Christian freedom? As usual, Paul counsels us to look out for the other person before we seek to satisfy our own desires.
I think Augustine’s experience is representative of many people’s experience of coming to know God’s truth. It certainly is of mine. As a young man, Augustine was obsessed with proving things empirically and refused to accept the validity of knowledge based on beliefs. But as he tells us here, God slowly and gently led him to the realization that a good deal of our knowledge is second hand, which perforce cannot be believed and appropriated without an act of faith. As he reminds us, we cannot even know directly about our parents’ lives before we are born. We have to take them at their word when they tell us about themselves. The insight into this truth apparently laid the groundwork for his acceptance of God’s truth contained in Scripture. May this help you in your own Lenten journey.
There is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission into these [Methodist] societies: “a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.” But wherever this is really fixed in the soul it will be shown by its fruits. It is therefore expected of all who [...]
