I wonder if we sometimes miss it about Judas, thinking of how some feel he was perhaps a Zealot like Simon the Zealot. He may well have thought his actions would force Jesus to lead rebellion against Rome, and his main sin was in trying to make Jesus something he is not, and not recognizing him for who he is. Not that different than us.
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John Calvin is know to have said, The human heart is a perpetual idol factory.” We’re really good at it.
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My pastor was preaching on Sunday in a similar line to what you are saying. One of his big things is opposing Christian Nationalism. But there were echos of something else in the message. A kind of vague moral generalism. His passage was 2 Corinthians 10:4.
Later reading the remainder of the chapter, I couldn’t help but see how Paul could have some real personal issues that he needs to work out.
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I was being sarcastic. Based on the trajectory of the sermon, I felt like the pastor would really struggle getting through the rest of the chapter.
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Whatever MacDonald would say (or did say among all his writings) - they weren’t cheaply adopted convictions for him. My understanding from reading of his life is that he and his family were quite impoverished at some times - even to the point of wondering what they would be eating. He was not what one today (or then) would call a “successful” preacher. But even so - if he did go through any of these periods feeling neglected by God or suffering such “dark nights” - you wouldn’t know it from most of his writings which seem to just exude joy … joy in seemingly nearly everything. He seems almost spiritually super-human to me in that regard.
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yes–one part I would have a hard time with is losing many of my children and other family to TB.
Tuberculosis caused the death of several family members, including Lilia, Mary Josephine, Grace, Maurice as well as one granddaughter and a daughter-in-law.[40] MacDonald was said to have been particularly affected by the death of Lilia, his eldest.
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It’s a great characteristic to have empathy drive you!
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Wow.
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(86) Vain Vigilance
He seems here to refer to his second coming–concerning the time of which, he refused information; concerning the mode of which, he said it would be unexpected; but concerning the duty of which, he insisted it was to be ready : we must be faithful, and at our work. Do those who say, lo here or lo there are the signs of his coming, think to be too keen for him, and spy his approach? When he tells them to watch lest he find them neglecting their work, they stare this way and that, and watch lest he should succeed in coming like a thief! So throughout: if, instead of speculation, we gave ourselves to obedience, what a difference would soon be seen in the world! Oh, the multitude of so-called religious questions which the Lord would answer with, ‘strive to enter in at the strait gate’! Many eat and drink and talk and teach in his presence; few do the things he says to them! Obedience is the one key of life.
From MacDonald’s sermon: “The Word of Jesus on Prayer”
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It’s interesting to me to contrast MacDonald with one of his own contemporaries: Darwin. The loss of Darwin’s daughter is what, by some accounts, most likely cost him his faith. The wikipedia page describes him as being “a devoted father and uncommonly attentive to his children.” And it would have been sore loss that Anne was his only daughter (2nd child) at the time, even though he would go on to have ten children altogether both sons and daughters - some of which would die, even in infancy and some survive.
MacDonald experienced all that same kind of breath-taking loss (and also went on to have a large surviving family though too). And his faith apparently not only survived, but even thrived through it, or at least at the far end of it. I would love to hear of any more insights contrasting these two men and their divergent experiences on this front.
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Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.
1 John 5:3
He who is having my commands, and is keeping them, that one it is who is loving me, and he who is loving me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
John 14:21 YLT
There are extant laws of love.
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That led me to this fascinating article on bovine tuberculosis caught from milk. Also, prodded by the last few episodes of All Creatures Great and Small, which is a marvelous little series. In the article, it states that in the 19th century, TB killed one in seven people, and was the impetus to pasteurize milk. Funny as we never hear about that in medicine, as we are taught present day disease rather than historic. I bet you had a better idea of it that I, Randy, with your experience in undeveloped countries, and maybe now living in dairy country. Tuberculosis' 19th century rampage tore through Town of Mitchell family
Of interest to our science crowd, the article also states that bovine tuberculosis is actually a mutated human TB that they then give back to us, with the genome being 99.95% the same in both diseases. Evolution at work.
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Huh, wouldna’ thunk it.
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(87) Incompleteness
He that is made in the image of God must know him or be desolate: the child must have the Father! Witness the dissatisfaction, yea desolation of my soul–wretched, alone, unfinished, without him! It cannot act from itself, save in God; acting from what seems itself without God, is no action at all, it is a mere yielding to impulse. All within is disorder and spasm. There is a cry behind me, and a voice before; instincts of betterment tell me I must rise above my present self–perhaps even above all my possible self: I see not how to obey, how to carry them out! I am shut up in a world of consciousness, an unknown I in an unknown world: surely this world of my unwilled, unchosen, compelled existence, cannot be shut out from him, cannot be unknown to him, cannot be impenetrable, impermeable, unpresent to him from whom I am!
From MacDonald’s sermon: “The Word of Jesus on Prayer”
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Speaking of ‘dark nights’ … I think MacDonald is circling close here - if one reads the surrounding material from which the partial paragraph above was excerpted. And yet, @Kendel, he still (so far as I read) seemed never to depart from that hardest of edges: …surely if there is a God in Heaven, he will hear and answer the child that cries out to Him! How could it be any other way?
Oh, George! What must that dreadful silence be then? Is the sufferer mistaken?
Here is one of those places where I would really like to hear Lewis’ commentary - since Lewis was apparently no stranger to such agonizing silence.
Yet I must also here acknowledge that it is disingenuous of me to pretend I am overmuch disturbed by this question in any personal sense at the moment. It is the testimony of percieved silence I am hearing (and trusting) from others that makes me wonder about it at all. Because at the moment, God does not seem silent to me - and I hear loud and clearly (all too clearly sometimes) what I am called toward (and often called out of - or away from). And, to hear MacDonald tell it, God is not satisfied that we should dwell on second-hand ‘experiences’, but that we should each finally know it for ourselves.
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It is a terrible (uncertain) thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And yet he is there. I believe this is the complaint of the Psalmist at times. I hate you God.
People can be real liars too, but holy is the maker of the stars… which has taken on a whole new meaning for me as I recently witnessed the most outstanding image of the cosmic web.
Sure. Faith feels like a luxury in contrast to other people’s stories. But I am also very aware that what brought me closest to that edge (from which I been able to gain distance again) could happen again, maybe be worse. And living in that space, where you feel and see nothing with any certainty is terrible.
But yes, I have the luxury, the ability to focus away from others’ experiences. They don’t go away, either.
It isn’t a simple thing.
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I like this a lot