My title refers to that common saying, "He is so heavenly minded that he is of no earthly good." It can be turned around to, "Only the heavenly minded are of earthly good" - rightly understood, of course.
Yesterday, I posted a link to an Ascension Day sermon by Bishop Wright. What he has to say is quite good. However, in the second paragraph, when he says the collect for Ascension, and the whole vision of the Christian faith that he thinks the collect encourages, is "profoundly unbiblical," I think his concern that we believers be of "earthly good" misleads him. The collect mirrors Paul's words in Colossians iii:
1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
I think what the bishop did was read the collect through the lens of his good sensitivity for a Christian faith that recognizes the earthly implications of the message of the Kingdom and temporarily - I'm sure - forgot that the Scriptures do speak of heavenly mindedness in the same kind of language as the collect. From what I know of the bishop, he would agree that a heavenly mindedness - properly understood and practiced - is necessary for the earthly good of the work of the Kingdom of Christ. It is because our hearts and minds so love our ascended Lord and the kingdom he has already begun that we want to live out the life of that kingdom now, where we already are - with all its earthly implications - and not give into the idea that the life of the kingdom is only for the age to come.
We have here a lesson for us all: beware how we read.
Yesterday, I posted a link to an Ascension Day sermon by Bishop Wright. What he has to say is quite good. However, in the second paragraph, when he says the collect for Ascension, and the whole vision of the Christian faith that he thinks the collect encourages, is "profoundly unbiblical," I think his concern that we believers be of "earthly good" misleads him. The collect mirrors Paul's words in Colossians iii:
1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
I think what the bishop did was read the collect through the lens of his good sensitivity for a Christian faith that recognizes the earthly implications of the message of the Kingdom and temporarily - I'm sure - forgot that the Scriptures do speak of heavenly mindedness in the same kind of language as the collect. From what I know of the bishop, he would agree that a heavenly mindedness - properly understood and practiced - is necessary for the earthly good of the work of the Kingdom of Christ. It is because our hearts and minds so love our ascended Lord and the kingdom he has already begun that we want to live out the life of that kingdom now, where we already are - with all its earthly implications - and not give into the idea that the life of the kingdom is only for the age to come.
We have here a lesson for us all: beware how we read.
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