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Sacramental Theology

The Gospel according to the Sacraments (Part 3): One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism

In the first post of this series, I proposed that the sacraments of baptism and communion are the nexus point for the evangelical and ecumenical movements. In the following post , I proposed a new orientation for ecumenism – a conciliarity of the cross – with the necessary confession of…

by Michael SpalioneJanuary 2, 2018
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Baptism

Christian Mission and Cultural Transformation

“Contextualization” is now, and has been for a long time, the buzzword for the day. 1 Missionary effort in non-Western countries is all about “contextualization” — making our communication of the Gospel, if not the Gospel itself, fit into the culture to whom we from the West speak. 2 There…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 28, 2017
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Sacramental Theology

The Gospel According to the Sacraments, Part 2

In my previous post , I highlighted the sacraments as the point of convergence between evangelicalism and ecumenism arguing that baptism and communion are presented in the New Testament as signs of the gospel that simultaneously enact and remember union with Christ and the unity of Christ’s body. I concluded…

by Michael SpalioneDecember 27, 2017
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Baptism

Baptism and Contextualization: Part 2

Click HERE for Part I of this series. What does baptism have to do with culture? As I said in the previous essay, the short answer is “everything!” To begin with, baptism is baptism into Jesus’ death (Romans 6:3). Paul explains this as the crucifixion of the “old man” (“old…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 21, 2017
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Advent

Twin Nativities

In the accounts of our Lord’s nativity and early childhood, so familiar to us from many years of Advent and Christmas services, we often fail to recognize in them the gentle intimations of a greater nativity that is yet to come. The attentive ear, however, can discover in these passages…

by Alastair RobertsDecember 19, 2017
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Advent

Daughters of Zion

Isaiah warns that Yahweh is coming to remove Judah’s leaders in every area of social, economic and political life so completely that there will be no one left to lead besides children (3:4) and women (v. 12). As Isaiah goes on, however, it becomes clear that the women of Judah…

by Peter LeithartDecember 14, 2017

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Theology

Feuerbach’s inversion

What theologians was Feuerbach reading? If God is to be transcendent, he said, “the human, considered as such, is depreciated . . . . To enrich God, man must become poor; that God may be all in all, man must be nothing.” He certainly wasn’t reading Paul, or if he…

October 9, 2006
Philosophy

Cognitive Metaphor

Steven Pinker (TNR, October 9) has a field day demolishing George Lakoff’s recent Whose Freedom? Lakoff attacks conservatives’ use of freedom to justify their political agenda and argues that liberals can regain political power by reframing political debate using new metaphors. Along the way, Pinker also scores some points against…

October 9, 2006
Theology

Papal evangelism

After noting the political import of the Pope’s recent speech (eg, its implicit warning against including Turks in the European Union - in which context the citation of Manuel II Paleologus, who spent his life fighting Turks, was particularly apt), David Nirenberg (TNR, October 9) concludes that Benedict XIV’s speech…

October 9, 2006
Philosophy

Nothing outside the text?

John Frame distinguishes between facts as states of affairs and facts as statements concerning those states of affairs: “It would not be true to say that facts in the sense of states of affairs are identical with our interpretations of them, but facts in the sense of statements of fact…

October 9, 2006

Sermon Outline

With lots of help from Gary Burge’s NIV Application Commentary . . . . INTRODUCTION The world around us seems to solid and permanent. We can hardly imagine what life would be like without well-stocked grocery shelves, autumn elections, air travel, electricity, running water, and all the amenities of modern…

October 9, 2006

Eucharistic meditation

1 John 2:5: Whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. As we saw in the…

October 8, 2006

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