Truth

The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them. —Psalm 111:2

This verse is inscribed over the entrance to Cavendish Hall, the physic's lab at Cambridge University. It was put there in the day when there was an easy correspondence between science and scripture. It's an invitation to take delight in the world around us and study the mighty works of God, a perspective that’s largely lost these days. 

God's works, however, go beyond natural creation. Honor, beauty, righteousness, grace, compassion, justice, and faithfulness—all virtues are the work of His hands (111:3-9), created to stand "forever and ever," and embodied in Jesus who is "the truth" (John 14:6).

"What is truth?" Pilate asked, when truth was standing right in front of him. If he had taken the time to listen to what Jesus had to say he would have found what he was looking for (John 14:6).

Where should the unknown treasures of the truth

Lie, but there whence the truth comes out the most—

In the Son of man, folded in love and ruth (compassion).

—George MacDonald

David Roper

5.15.17

Dressing for Success

Washington Irving describes a fellow–fisherman: “One of our party had equalled the Don (Quixote) in the fulness of his being attired capapie (head to foot) for the enterprise. He wore a broad–skirted fustian coat, perplexed with half a hundred pockets; a pair of stout shoes and leathern gaiters; a basket slung on one side for fish; a patent rod, a landing net, and a score of other inconveniences only to be found in the true angler’s armory. Thus harnessed for the field, he was as great a matter of stare and wonderment among the country folk, who had never seen a regular angler, as was the steel-clad hero of La Mancha among the goatherds of the Sierra Morena.”

You can almost always spot tourists fishing an Idaho trout stream: They look like they just stepped out of an Orvis summer catalogue. The locals, by comparison look downright prosaic, a quirky observation that set me to thinking.

I have to get dressed every morning; the Fall mandates it. I stare into my closet and ask myself, “What should I wear?” 

There are no biblical parameters to guide me, beyond being modest in one’s apparel, but it occurs to me that whatever I put on I shouldn't want to be an object of "stare and wonderment."

Advertisements entice us to be noticed, but we have a different motivation: to be “clothed with humility,” (1 Peter 5:5), one practical application of which is the desire to blend in and not attract attention to ourselves. Augustine counseled his students, “Do not attract attention by the way you dress. Endeavor to impress by your manner of life, not by the clothes you wear.”

One practical result of this idea is that we become less preoccupied with ourselves and how we look and thus may begin to think more highly of others than we do of ourselves (Philippians 2:3). George MacDonald put the same idea in his typically delightful way: “The wearer of Grandmother’s (Wisdom’s) clothes seldom thinks about how he or she looks, but thinks how handsome other people are” (The Golden Key).

David Roper

4.11.7

The Ripening Self

But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.—1 Peter 5:10

Charles Simeon, the 19^th century English preacher, in his early years of ministry, was a harsh and self-assertive man. One day he was visiting a friend, Henry Venn, who was pastor in a nearby village. When he left to go home, Venn's daughters complained to their father about his manner.

Venn took the girls to the backyard and said, “Pick me one of those peaches, he said. It was early summer, and the peaches were green. The girls asked why he wanted green, unripe fruit. Venn replied, "Well, my dears, it is green now, and we must wait; but a little more sun, and a few more showers, and the peach will be ripe and sweet. So it is with Mr. Simeon.”

Simeon, in due time, came to know himself and his arrogance. The warmth of God’s love and the “showers” of opposition, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, disappointment, and frustration that he experienced became the means by which he “grew downward in humility and upward in adoration” as he put it. He became a gentle, humble man.

So the God of all grace works his enchantment on all his children, humbling the proud and exalting the humble, to make them ripe and sweet. Our task is to take hold of God’s grace to endure our afflictions with patience and tranquility, meeting our troubles without growing weary or running away.

In time he will “perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you.” us. “Take courage, and wait for the Lord” (Ps. 26:14).

David Roper