Recent Reading

I've been reading "The Christ of the Indian Road" by E. Stanley Jones off and on for the last few months and came across something this morning that called to mind Philippians 4:8. Verses 4-9 read:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

This is a passage that God continues to bring to my mouth for my sake and for the sake of others because of the anxiety that comes with living, but I often stop at verse seven before all of the "whatevers". Here's what I read this morning:

In the language of Matthew Arnold, "Jesus is an Ultimate."

Start in at the thing that you know is worth-while and follow it back to its final form and see where it lands you. For instance, love is a worth-while thing in life. We ought to love. Then trace love back to its ultimate kind and you will not be far from Him who loved as never man loved. If purity is a good thing, then start with it and go on back and see what kind of ultimate purity it brings you to, and you will find yourself looking into the eyes of Him who was "the Purest among the mighty and the Mightiest among the pure." If self-sacrifice is life's most noble quality, then run it back to its finest type and you will find yourself gazing upon a cross.

I have to admit that verse eight has often been a tool for me to reorient my thinking so that I would stop thinking about things that were not noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. I have seen the verse as a simple form of behavior modification through thought reorientation. While I believe that it has been helpful as such, the words of E. Stanley Jones bring me to something altogether different.

His recommendation to pursue the good back to its root to find the ultimate is, I believe, a huge part of what Paul intended the readers in Philippi to understand. "These things" are a good pursuit in themselves as they will lead to right living, but "these things" are also a magnifier of the person of God. If we will delve into what it is that makes things noble, right, pure..., at the core will be a greater revelation of the character and heart of God.

There are several other things that I hope to share from this book over the coming weeks that are extremely relevant to today's Christianity. It amazes me how some of the issues that E. Stanley Jones wrote about in 1925 still speak a prophetic word to the Church today.