Knox Chamblin & Flannery O’Connor

Looking toward Philippians 3 Sunday:

A couple of months ago, while preparing to teach on Philippians, I dug out a book written by a family friend. Knox Chamblin’s book “Paul & the Self: Apostolic Teaching for Personal Wholeness”

My sweet daughter (who certifiably rocked it as the Kindergarten leader at VBS this week) is not quite named after Dr. Chamblin’s mother Olivia, but almost.

Anyway, in his chapter entitled “The Conquest of Pride” Chamblin has these great quotes:
“Whatever confidence Paul may have felt on account of his past is demolished in an awful moment of disillusionment.”
&
“Paul’s recognition of his guilt doesn’t leave him engulfed in self-pity, nor does his renunciation of the past leave him frozen in inactivity. On the contrary, the grace that crushes his pride renews and redirects his zeal.”

Then, in celebrating the way that Christ has conquered our pride, Dr. Chamblin quotes Isaac Watts and Miss Flannery.

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died;
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

“Mr. Head stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought himself a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam.”
–Flannery O’Connor