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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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Numbers

The word “number” (Greek, arithmos ) occurs ten times in Revelation, and the word occurs in climactic sections of the major sections of the book. It occurs first in 5:11, describing the “number” of the angels who join in worship, at the climax of the rippling expansion of praise from…

August 25, 2014

Elam’s Afterlife

After the flood, the sons of Noah repopulated the earth. Shem’s first son was Elam (Genesis 10:22; cf. Genesis 14:1), the ancestor of the Elamite people that lived in the South of present-day Iran, with Susa as their capital. Elam is apparently the firstborn of the Shemites, displaced from that…

August 25, 2014
Science

The Notebook

In his Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science , Richard Yeo further dispels the myth of the lone scientific genius. Early modern science made its advances because of collaboration among researchers. And they used the highest of contemporary high-tech to pass around their research - the notebook. It was…

August 25, 2014

Not Religious

Mehdi Hasan presents evidence in an article in the New Statesman that jihadists aren’t the most devout of Muslims. Often the opposite. “In 2008, a classified briefing note on radicalisation, prepared by MI5’s behavioural science unit, was leaked to the Guardian . It revealed that, ‘far from being religious zealots,…

August 23, 2014

Eternal Matter Matters

Most ancient myths and philosophies, and not a few modern scientific and philosophical theories, posit or assume that matter is eternal. Does that matter? Yes. If matter is eternal, then creation can only be control, limitation, ordering. If matter is eternal, creativity can only be negative. If matter is eternal,…

August 22, 2014

Universal Truth

It’s often suggested today that any argument or claim drawn from revelation is “sectarian.” In order to make a “universal” claim, we need to ground it in something more general than a particular revelation. Christians assume this as much as secularists. Many think we have to move from revelation to…

August 22, 2014

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