The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.

Aberystwyth Conference 2024 Session 4 (Morning 2)


David Meredith continued his series on revival, looking very helpfully at Psalm 126. He referred to Alexander Fraser of Tain and his interesting comment following a revival when he was a visiting student in a church in Argyllshire, in a little place called Drumlemble. He was asked how he coped preaching night after night for many weeks given he only had a few sermons. He wrote "I told him that when fishermen come up from England in the south to fish in their northern rivers for trout and salmon, they bring their fine rods and their newest flies, their gear and their gaffes and all the rest. They flail away and flog our rivers and catch little enough. Then the rain comes. And a wee fellow from a village with a rod that's little more than a stick and a line that he has found somewhere, a hook if he is fortunate and a pin if he is not, comes along and does as well as any of them. The truth is, you can do an awful lot with very little when the spate comes."

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