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Advent

Advent and Christmas Music Recommendations

Inspired by our recent podcast on Christmas and Advent music recommendations, we offer here a list of excellent recordings that are sure to enrich your Advent and Christmas season. Praetorius: Mass for Christmas Morning Paul McCreesh with the Gabrieli Consort and Players Amazon | Spotify | Apple Music 2. Christmas…

by John Ahern and Paul BuckleyDecember 23, 2020
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Advent

Between the Altar and the City: Isaiah 65:17-25

In the year 1483 in the city of Nuremberg, the leaders of the renowned Saint Lawrence Church were seeking to redesign their altar, and above the table where the priests presided over the eucharist, they wanted new art installed above the prestigious Krell altar. What they decided on took everyone…

by Casey BedellDecember 22, 2020
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Advent

Why We're the Real Seventh Day Adventists

The consequences of disobedience start with exile from the garden of God and the Tree of Yahweh, but they do not end there. They cascade down through the structure of the dynastic order. Everything which had previously been given in the Kingdom of Elohim is either taken back or curtailed…

by Jerry BowyerDecember 18, 2020
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Biblical Studies

Psalm 23: A Lesson in Reading Biblical Poetry

Parallelism: A Course Correction If you have ever studied Hebrew poetry, you have probably heard its basic poetic feature described as “parallelism.” Hebrew poetry is not metered, it does not rhyme, it does not employ many of the common poetical tropes, but its distinctive (and almost universal) feature is commonly…

by Ryan HandermannDecember 15, 2020
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Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 17 and the Separation of Powers

In The Crown and the Courts , David C. Flatto traces the development of the idea of judicial independence in Jewish commentaries on the Scriptures – particularly Deuteronomy 17 – from the Second Temple and early rabbinic periods. These periods roughly span 400 BC to 300 AD. Flatto does not…

by James R. RogersDecember 11, 2020
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Advent

Zechariah and John: A Story in Names

A curious feature of the Infancy Narratives in the Gospel of Luke is the naming of John the Baptist. When the angel appears to Zechariah, he is instructed to give his promised son the name John (Luke 1:13). On the day of John’s circumcision, Luke tells us that “they [presumably…

by Rhys LavertyDecember 8, 2020

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Chalcedon and Cyril

Meyendorff ( Christ in Eastern Christian Thought ) does a good job of showing not only the compatibility of Chalcedon with Cyrillian Christology, but that Chalcedon is essentially Cyrillian. The logic is this: Chalcedon insisted on a single hypostasis in Christ. The humanity has no separate subsistence, no existence apart…

December 8, 2008
History

New Things

Norman Baynes opened his 1929 Raleigh lecture to the British Academy reflecting on the difficulty of making sense of Constantine. Constantine’s life and work don’t just raise historical problems (making sense of the evidence) but a problem of the philosophy of history: “To my mind, at least, all attempts to…

December 8, 2008

Babylon fallen

Gregory Beale notes frequent allusions to Isaiah 41-48 in the opening chapter of Revelation. “Alpha and Omega” rings on the “first and last” of Isaiah 41:4. John announces from the start that he’s prophesying about the fall of another Babylon, a third exodus.

December 8, 2008

Cur Deus Homo?

A further, pithier refinement of a post from yesterday: Why did God become man? He became man to kill man. Why did God become man? He became man to raise us from the dead.

December 8, 2008

Structure in Revelation 1

Revelation 1:4-8, the opening to John’s “apocalyptic” letter, is chiastically organized: A. From One who is, was, shall be B. From seven Spirits C. From Jesus Christ D. To Him who loved us and released by blood E. And made us kings and priests D’. To Him be glory and…

December 8, 2008

Sermon Notes, Third Advent

INTRODUCTION As Pastor Sumpter pointed out last week, Israel’s calendar was part of her pedagogy. But Paul says that we are now full-grown sons (Galatians 4:1-7) and appears to associate observing days and seasons with reversion to childhood (Galatians 4:10-11; Colossians 2:16-17, 20-21). Is recognizing a church calendar an act…

December 8, 2008

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