The Good Portion

Charity and Its Fruits Lecture V, part two ( This week we continue our discussion of the Jonathan Edwards' classic, Charity and Its Fruits. We have just concluded reading the "Application" portion of Lecture Five. We will continue with the "Doctrine" portion of Lecture Six in next week's reading. The notes below follow Edwards' outline directly, with all direct quotes from the text in italics. My goal is to make each post edifying on its own, even for those who are not reading along with us. I will welcome your questions or comments in the form below.) "Charity suffereth long, and is kind." 1 Cor. 13:4 In last week's reading we learned that "a truly Christian spirit will dispose us freely to do good to others" . What this means is that a truly Christian spirit will seek to do good to the souls of others and will look to their temporal well-being as well. It will do kindness to the good and the bad , to friends and enemies ,...

Paul and I have just returned home from the funeral of a most precious little girl.  Lydia's smile could have lit a room. Now it reflects the glory of God the Savior for all eternity. Perhaps you've noticed the sparsity of my entries here these last two weeks. We've been struggling and praying for appropriate ways to handle what we're dealing with, and when and whether to speak about it. Up until now, for reasons which will become obvious, I've only shared this with a very few trusted friends. Paul made reference to it on his blog several days ago, but with no specifics.  I think it may be time for me to fill in the gaps. What we're dealing with is horrible and ugly - about as ugly as it gets. This all happens on the heels of my mother's death, and has now somehow managed to even overshadow that.  Mother's death, as difficult as it was...well...it made sense. She was 87 years old, and hadn't been well in many years. This, on the other hand, is a m...

Charity and Its Fruits Lecture V, part one (This week we continue our discussion of the Jonathan Edwards' classic, Charity and Its Fruits. We have just concluded reading the "Doctrine" portion of Lecture Four. We will continue with the "Application" portion of this lecture in next week's reading. The notes below follow Edwards' outline directly, with all direct quotes from the text in italics. My goal is to make each post edifying on its own, even for those who are not reading along with us. I will welcome your questions or comments in the form below.) " Charity suffereth long, and is kind ." 1 Cor. 13:4 Our last two readings focused on the first portion of this verse, "Charity suffereth long...." We learned that Christian love inclines us to bear the offenses we receive at the hands of others meekly, without seeking or desiring revenge. This week we will turn our attention to the next phrase, "Charity...is kind". CHA...

Charity and Its Fruits Lecture IV, part two (This week we continue our reading together of the Jonathan Edwards' classic, Charity and Its Fruits. We have just concluded the reading of the "Application" portion of Lecture Four. We will continue with the "Doctrine" portion of this lecture in next week's reading. This is the pattern we will be using for the entirety of the reading. The notes below follow Edwards' outline directly, with all direct quotes from the text in italics. My goal is to make each post edifying on its own, even for those who are not reading along with us. I will welcome your questions or comments in the form below.) "Charity suffereth long, and is kind." - 1 Cor. 13:4 In last week's reading we studied what kinds of injuries a heart full of Christian love will meekly bear,  what this meek long-suffering does and doesn't look like, and how it is that love for God and our neighbor accomplishes this in our hearts.  ...

"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell". - C.S. Lewis

"People love themselves some fear," has become a saying in our household. It accounts for a ridiculously high proportion of the harsh lessons Paul and I have learned in our 78 years of combined life experience. Barely a week goes by when one of us doesn't have occasion to utter it. Our experience has taught us that frightened people are often the most dangerous people, and that the person who tries to deliver them from their fear is often the person at greatest risk of harm. Folks with fears will cling to them, desperately and with all their might, snapping and lashing like trapped animals at those who try to free them. Though we've found our saying useful for identifying what we are dealing with when we happen upon it, it really only reveals a part of the truth - the part at the surface. Underlying that strong attachment to fear is an intense desire for control. Our deepest human fears are all representative of the fact that we have precious little control over our...

Our ladies' study through Jonathan Edwards', Charity and Its Fruits, produced some frank and animated discussion this past Wednesday. The first several weeks of our study focused on the supreme importance of Christian love, and the worthlessness of all our works and sufferings without it (1 Cor. 13:1-3). This week we took our first step into the love passage made world famous by wedding ceremonies and needlepoint samplers. In those common settings it sounds so lofty and romantic - sometimes even trite. In practice, however, there is nothing light, soft, or breezy about Christian love; and this is we've begun to get a taste of already, even though we've only gotten as far as the first adjective: "long-suffering". "Love suffereth long..." 1 Cor. 13: 4, or as some other versions render it, "Love is patient..." Edwards describes at length what long-suffering does and does not look like. As we picked our way through a list of behaviors and att...

Charity and Its Fruits Lecture IV, part one (This week we continue our reading together of the Jonathan Edwards' classic, Charity and Its Fruits. We have just concluded the reading of the "Doctrine" portion of Lecture Four. We will continue with the "Application" portion of this lecture in next week's reading. This is the pattern we will be using for the entirety of the reading. The notes below follow Edwards' outline directly, with all direct quotes from the text in italics. My goal is to make each post edifying on its own, even for those who are not reading along with us. I will welcome your questions or comments in the form below.) "Charity suffereth long, and is kind." - 1 Cor. 13:4 Charity Disposes Us Meekly to Bear the Injuries Received from Others. Having proven in the previous lectures just how essential this Christian love is, and hopefully yearning to see this virtue at work and growing in our lives, Edwards, following the rea...