If I Do That... (Soren Kierkegaard)
The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.Peace Forever,Firacub.
Children (Eberhard Arnold)
It is children who lead us to the gospel… We are not worthy to educate them. Our lips are unclean; our dedication is not wholehearted. Our truthfulness is partial; our love divided. Our kindness is not without motives. We ourselves are not yet free of lovelessness, possessiveness, and selfishness… Only wise men and saints, only those who stand as children before God, are really fit to live and work with children.Peace Forever,Firacub.
To Jesus in the Spring (Jane Tyson Clement)
Oh, break the chrysalis of doubt!Plough up the clods of thick despairAnd split the buds of ignorance,And cleanse the winter-heavy air.Create a tumult in our hearts!Drive us to seek what we have lost,Until the flame of faith againHas seared us with Thy Pentecost.Peace Forever,Firacub.
Reconciliation (J. A. Comenius [1592-1670])
Strife - in philosophy, religion, and politics - has certainly gained so much ground that it is impossible for us to reconcile with one another. But it is possible to find reconciliation...by means of the foundation of all things, which is God. For he does not cease to be the same for all men irrespective of our differences, and his earth bears us all, even if we preferred to see that the ground would cleave asunder beneath our enemies.The sun sends his rays upon us directly, paying no heed that we look askance at one another. The rose smells sweetly to both the Jew and the Christian - and to the Muslim too. And so God is God of all, and whatever he says, he says in the same manner to all that are ready to listen. If then we look to our own rules, books, and works, which we have made ourselves and which differ in many thousands of ways, we are irreconcilable. But if with due attention and honor we accept God’s ideas regarding our lives... reconciliation is easy.Peace Forever,Firacub.
The Universal Struggle (C. F. Blumhardt)
Every individual who seeks the truth faces a struggle. Each of us has some sort of devil raging within, wanting to deaden and destroy something in us. We are all in danger of thinking we are doing God a service, when in fact we are just following our own will. That is why, over and again, we must tell ourselves: “Keep a tight rein on yourself! Stand by the truth when it dawns on you, even if it hurts, even when it denies everything the world has accepted as true until now!”God’s kingdom comes through struggle and tribulation, the defiant challenging of the whole age. It is advancing, and people have no taste for it. But in the end Jesus Christ—the Truth, the Life, and the Way—will win. So let us be comforted; for the will of the Almighty shall prevail in our own time, as surely as in the time of the apostles.Peace Forever,Firacub.
Like Fire (Peter Riedemann)
A fire goes out before it really ignites if one puts too much wood on it, as those who work with it know. But once it really flares, the more wood one puts on it, the better it burns, so that even houses and whole forests are burned. When there is no more wood, however, it dies and grows cold. It is the same with love. When it is first kindled in a person, small troubles and temptations smother and hinder it. But when it really burns, having kindled the person's eagerness for God, the more temptations and tribulation meet it, the more it flares, until it overcomes and consumes all injustice and wickedness.Peace Forever,Firacub.
