This concern for the rights and liberties and welfare of the backward peoples is rooted in the Christian ethic of read more

This concern for the rights and liberties and welfare of the backward peoples is rooted in the Christian ethic of justice and of the duty to help and protect the weak, upon the Christian valuation of man as of spiritual dignity and worth, as made for freedom, as a potential child of God. These principles have no validity unless the Christian view of man be true.

Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and read more

Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though "the commandments of God be not grievous", yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy.

God sometimes marvelously raiseth the souls of his saints with some close and near approaches unto them -- gives them read more

God sometimes marvelously raiseth the souls of his saints with some close and near approaches unto them -- gives them a sense of His eternal love, a taste of the embraces of His Son and the inhabitation of the Spirit, without the least intervening disturbance; and then this is their assurance. But this life is not a season to be always taking wages in; our work is not yet done; we are not always to abide in this mount; we must down again into the battle -- fight again, cry again, complain again. Shall the soul be thought now to have lost its assurance? Not at all. It had before assurance with joy, triumph, and exultation; it hath it now, or may have, with wrestling, cries, tears, and supplications. And a man's assurance may be as good, as true, when he lies on the earth with a sense of sin, as when he is carried up to the third heaven with a sense of love and foretaste of glory.

Unless we know the difference between flowers and weeds, we are not fit to take care of a garden. It read more

Unless we know the difference between flowers and weeds, we are not fit to take care of a garden. It is not enough to have truth planted in our minds. We must learn and labor to keep the ground clear of thorns and briars, follies and perversities, which have a wicked propensity to choke the word of life.

Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 All love in general hath an assimilating efficacy; it casts read more

Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 All love in general hath an assimilating efficacy; it casts the mind into the mould of the thing beloved... Every approach unto God by ardent love and delight is transfiguring.

Suppose Christianity is not a religion but a way of life, a falling in love with God, and, through Him, read more

Suppose Christianity is not a religion but a way of life, a falling in love with God, and, through Him, a falling in love with our fellows. Of course, such a way is hard and costly, but it is also joyous and rewarding even in the here-and-now. People who follow that Way know beyond all possible argument that they are in harmony with the purpose of God, that Christ is with them and in them as they set about His work in our disordered world. If anyone thinks this is perilous and revolutionary teaching, so much the better. That is exactly what they thought of the teaching of Jesus Christ. The light He brought to bear upon human affairs is almost unbearably brilliant: but it is the light of Truth, and in that light human problems can be solved.

The New Testament is uniformly consistent in seeing something as being wrong in man himself... These analyses of man are read more

The New Testament is uniformly consistent in seeing something as being wrong in man himself... These analyses of man are based on man's responsibility for his evil actions; they are not saying that it is simply his motions that have gone astray: it is man's will that is the central problem.

Continued from yesterday: This is Paul's meaning. The state of slavery described in Romans 7 is a slavery to read more

Continued from yesterday: This is Paul's meaning. The state of slavery described in Romans 7 is a slavery to wrong desires; not merely to "flesh" in the abstract, as implying our material nature and environment, but to the "mind of the flesh" -- the lower nature and environment made a part of one's conscious self. What the Law could not do, God has done by the gift of the Spirit of Christ: He has given the victory to the higher self. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." (II Cor. 3:17) "The Law of the Spirit -- the law of a life in communion with Christ Jesus -- has made me free from the law of sin and death." (Rom. 8:2) Whereas life was a hopeless struggle, it now becomes a struggle in which the handicap is removed, and victory already secured in principle, because God has come into the life. The Law was external; it was the taskmaster set over against the troubled and fettered will of man. The Spirit is within, the mind of the Spirit is the mind of the man himself, and from within works out a growing perfection of life which satisfies the real longing of the soul. In the full sense freedom is still an object of hope; but the liberty already attained makes possible the building up of a Christian morality.

Man does not live for himself alone in this mortal body, in order to work on its account, but also read more

Man does not live for himself alone in this mortal body, in order to work on its account, but also for all men on earth; nay, he lives only for others, and not for himself. For it is to this end that he brings his own body into subjection, that he may be able to serve others more sincerely and more freely... Thus it is impossible that he should take his ease in this life, and not work for the good of his neighbors, since he must needs speak, act, and converse among men, just as Christ... had His conversation among men... It is the part of a Christian to take care of his own body for the very purpose that by its soundness and wellbeing he may be enabled to labor... for the aid of those who are in want, that thus the stronger member may serve the weaker member, and we may be children of God, and busy for one another, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ.