Foreplay
God moves in a mysterious way. Very often, in the midst of hardship, we don't understand why God is "so far off." Why does He come, and then seemingly go? We know that we are pilgrims on earth, groaning for Christ's final return when all creation will be made new. Perhaps this is God's foreplay. He is preparing to return, and indwell the earth. In that day, Christ will know his bride.
From Peter Leithart's exposition of the Song of Songs:
"Why didn’t the Son come in the flesh just outside Eden? The erotic theology of the Song of Songs provides a possible hint. Throughout the Song, the lovers admire each other’s bodies and express their longing desires to be together. Union comes at the end of reciprocal arousal. ”Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” the bride says at the outset. ”How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful you are!” says the bridegroom. But the bride doesn’t get her winekiss until later, until he takes her to his “house of wine” (2:4) and until his enters the locked garden and drinks of the wine, milk, and honey of her lips and mouth (4:11-5:1). A period of intensifying desire precedes tasting and touching; distance, approach, distance, approach, repeated again and again before consummation.
The history of Israel is God’s foreplay with His bride, bringing her to a pitch of desire before He takes flesh and dwells with her. Perhaps too this provides a way of describing the frenzy of Messianic excitement that Israel was undergoing in the first century.
God waits to send His Son because He is a good lover."
Philosophical (and Theological) Classifications
"Philosophical classifications are not like labels for political parties that people officially join; at best, they point to a salient feature that systems that differ in many other ways have in common. Such groupings fail to rise to the level of natural kinds; they are closer to what Wittgenstein thought of as concepts based upon family resemblances. They should be understood as handy devices for abbreviated referenced rather than as the product of a deep analysis of a philosophical tendency.
Charles Landesman, Skepticism – The Central Issues, 2.
Lowly, not servile
"Manly persons are disgusted, and suspect hypocrisy when they hear a preacher talking molasses. Let us be bold and outspoken, and never address our hearers as if we were asking a favour of them, or as if they would oblige the Redeemer by allowing Him to save them. We are bound to be lowly, but our office as ambassadors should prevent our being servile" (Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 344).
HT: Blog & Mablog
Cicero on Treachery
No treachery is more insidious than that which is hidden under a pretence of loyalty, or under the name of kinship. For against an open adversary you could be on your guard and thus easily avoid him; but this hidden evil, within the house and family, not only arises before you are aware but even overwhelms you before you can catch sight of it and investigate it.
Cicero, In Verr., 2.1.13
Cicero on Property Tax
When constant wars made the Roman treasury run short, our forefathers often used to levy a property tax. Every effort must be made to prevent a repetition of this; and all possible precautions must be taken to ensure that such a step will never be needed. What I am going to say now will refer to the world in general and not specifically to Rome, because when I am making ominous forecasts I would rather that they were directed towards other countries and not our own. But if any government should find itself under the necessity of levying a tax on property, the utmost care has to be devoted to making it clear to the entire population that this simply has to be done because no alternative exists short of complete national collapse.
Cicero, On the Good Life, On Duties, Book II
The Village Blacksmith
Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling, -- rejoicing -- sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.
~ BY Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A House of Singing
"I don't remember that I ever have passed that house," he said, "without hearing some one singing. Does it go on all the time?"
Yes, unless mother is sick."
"And what is it all about?"
"Oh just joy! Gladness that we are alive, that we have things to do that we like, and praising the Lord."
"Umph!" Said Mr. Pryor.
"It's just letting out what our hearts are full of, "I told him. "Don't you know that song: 'Tis the old time religion
And you cannot keep it still?' "
-Laddie
Lordship of Jesus Christ
This world belongs to our Saviour, and we have been given custodial charge of it. We are responsible to him for how we use it. The problem of sin includes not only questions of personal morality but also the careless use of Christ's environment. A host of matters, in the personal, political and social arenas, are transformed when we see Christ's mediatorial kingship in this way.
-Robert Letham,
The Work of Christ - Contours of Christian Theology, 208.
