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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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Philosophy

Pure Thought

There should be - probably there is - an anthropological study of Western philosophy as a highly rarefied form of dirt avoidance. Plato with his “pure and unadulterated” access to truth; Descartes’ clear and distinct ideas; Kant’s purity of reason. I’m thinking of a history of philosophy that reads Plato…

August 25, 2005
Literature

Shakespeare the historicist

J.L. Simmons notes that Shakespeare consistently depicts Rome “as a pagan world in which the characters must perforce operate with no reference beyond the Earthly City.” As a result, “all attempts to rise above the restrictions of man and his imperfect society, are tragically affected by the absence of revelation…

August 25, 2005
Literature

Political Gratitude in Shakespeare’s Roman Plays

Some discarded fragments from a paper that got too long. As early as Xenophon, ingratitude has seen as a cause of sedition, and during the middle ages the social and political context of feudalism strengthened this link. Xenophon wrote, “And they [the Persians] bring one another to trial also charged…

August 24, 2005
Literature

Political Gratitude in Shakespeare’s Roman Plays

Some discarded fragments from a paper that got too long. As early as Xenophon, ingratitude has seen as a cause of sedition, and during the middle ages the social and political context of feudalism strengthened this link. Xenophon wrote, “And they [the Persians] bring one another to trial also charged…

August 24, 2005

Sermon Outline, August 28

INTRODUCTION In the first chapters of Ephesians, Paul describes God’s eternal plan for the human race and for the world. He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, and He has now intervened in the history of death and sin to rescue us, to exalt us…

August 23, 2005
Theology

Necessity of Anthropomorphism

Bavinck argues that without anthropomorphism, we have only skepticism and agnosticism: “Those . . . who contest our right to use anthropomorphisms, thereby in princiuple deny the possibility that God in fact reveals himself in his creatures, are logically bound to proceed to the denial of creation, and are finally…

August 23, 2005

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