Where common memory is lacking, where people do not share in the same past, there can be no real community. Where community is to be formed, common memory must be created.
Black-market Relationships
Ray Ortlund on Proverbs 1:8-19:
Have you ever felt that envy and resentment deep inside? It is where violence begins. Your heart is lying in wait for blood. When this rage pops up to the surface, observe yourself carefully. You will probably recruit others to your cause. Sin tends to recruit. Watch those thoughts and feelings creeping into conversations with other people. You will want to get others on your side.
Look at [Proverbs 1:14]: “Throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse.” A cause, even a negative cause, provides a group to belong to. It is one way we nurse our grudges, and it feels good. But whenever we gather around grievance rather than Jesus, that is counterfeit community, black-market relationships, and that negativity is in collision with reality. It cannot succeed long-term.
An Unholy Delusion
Joseph Loconte on the Great War:
For the intellectual class as well as the ordinary man on the street, the Great War had defamed the values of the Old World, along with the religious doctrines that helped to underwrite them. Moral advancement, even the idea of morality itself, seemed an illusion. . . . [T]he war to make the world safe for democracy, the holy war to advance Christian ideals, was an unholy delusion.
Snippets from My Readings
I read books about Christianity and science, Christianity and literature, Christianity and philosophy. I couldn’t have remained a Christian without being sure that Christianity made intellectual sense in such fields.
To re-enchant this generation with the animating ideals that made Western civilization great.
To me my ambition is primarily to be a man of God. To do this I must know how to preach, pray, and live. Everything else must bow to that or go.
We Confuse Prayers with Wishes
Lord, teach us to pray!
That request sounds odd to our modern ears. Why would anyone need instruction in prayer?
Ahh, but that question betrays our misunderstanding. Most often, we confuse prayer with wishes, hopes, sighs, laments, and pouring out of feelings. No. Prayer is different. Prayer is finding a way to talk to God. For that to happen, we need Christ, the Christ of the Bible.
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