TFTD - March 2016

[Resource Manager]

26 March 2016

"How different is the Hope of Israel! Instead of a vague consolation for the hour of death it presents us with a tangible idea which has its foundations in the history of the past, its signs in the events of the present, and in its consummation it will transform this earth on which we dwell."

- Islip Collyer
Conviction and Conduct

[Resource Manager]

27 March 2016

 

"Men are always tending to find, not how they may serve God, but how God may serve them; and in so doing they make God less real than themselves. They make themselves the centre of their lives, and God is only a shadow on the periphery. The modern form of this heresy makes Him a God of benevolence only, a kind of personified kindliness who exists to give men what they want; and if they do not get it they say, “Is God among us or no?” So much does this idea pervade the atmosphere of our time that we may be influenced by it. Once accept that view, we have undermined belief in an ultimate standard of righteousness; we have ceased really to believe in God as essentially other than ourselves; and we are on the way which leads to disbelief in God even in name. There is no room for such an outlook where there is faith in God as the reality on whom we depend for life, the God who is not to be put to the test by men because His will is supreme, the God who alone is to be worshipped because He is the Lord and there is no other."

 

- L.G. Sargent

Strength Against Temptation (1949)  

[Resource Manager]

28 March 2016

 

"Our natural sight is concerned with what we can see, and perhaps touch, in the present, here and now. The sight of faith is such that it enables us to bring the future into the present and to see the invisible. So real is the experience that it can be spoken of as having "substance" and "evidence" and this experience influences all our subsequent action. We live now in the light of that future, seeing the promises and greeting them from afar, meanwhile confessing that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth (Hebrews 11:13)."

 

- J.A. Balchin

Desiring a Better Country (1979)

[Resource Manager]

29 March 2016

 

"The "new man" has several synonyms. These synonyms have been conveniently gathered together by Dr. Thomas in Elpis Israel. They include "a clean heart and a right spirit", "a new spirit", a "heart of flesh", the "inward man", "new creature", "the new man created in righteousness and true holiness", "renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him" and the "hidden man of the heart."

 

- John Carter

Delight in God’s Law

[Resource Manager]

30 March 2016

 

"It could well be that Paul’s "Faithful the saying" is an echo of a Hebrew prayer which traditionally followed the recital of the words, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One": "True and firm, established and enduring, right and faithful, beloved and precious, desirable and pleasant, revered and mighty, well-ordered and acceptable, good and beautiful is your word unto us for ever."

 

- Alfred Nicholls

Letters to Timothy and Titus

[Resource Manager]

31 March 2016

 

"One of the marvellous characteristics of the teaching of Jesus was the way in which he took hold of daily opportunities to demonstrate the truth. Disciples had to observe him in action and think about the things he said and did. They had to let him take them through any number of timely experiences and allow those experiences to teach them about him and about themselves. In this dynamic educational process disciples also had to learn to have complete confidence in the teacher. If they did, they grew in understanding and faith. And as they grew, the truth that became theirs was born out of the very process of living and was not merely a matter of academic knowledge."

 

- James Harper

Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees (1979)