Jul 24 2013

Talmuds of the Reformed

Jean flipped one page back and realized he had contradicted himself once again. This was tricky stuff, working out salvation, but at least he was showing his workings. “Oh well,” he thought. “One day they will invent word processors.”

In a post called Baptism Is Not Faith, Shane Lems points out where the Federal Vision guys depart from the “historic Reformed/Presbyterian confessions.” He writes:
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Jul 24 2013

Letter from America

Most of the feedback I get is criticism, which is helpful for me — so it’s great to hear from someone who has been helped in some way!

From Pamela in the upper midwest, USA:

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Jul 5 2013

Supernatural

or A Kingdom Mind

The best part of the Avengers movie for me was the infighting among the super heroes, and how the conflict disappeared once they had a common enemy. Each hero was unique, with his or her special skills. As in any relationship, marriage, community or committee, the differences are misinterpreted as sources of conflict and competition instead of complementary strengths. Once the heroes were out on the ground, the comical infighting (and misuse of gifts) ceased, and they started operating like the well-tuned orchestra they were designed to be.

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Jun 13 2013

The Whole Cherry Tree

or “Nothing to see here, citizens. Go to your homes.”

Emeth Hesed blogged recently about “heads of households” meetings…

Since moving to the Land of the Free, I have enjoyed how well women are treated here. I can see that America really is a country with a Christian heritage even if it’s not a Christian nation anymore. But attending the church where my husband grew up, I have never felt so disenfranchised in my life. I have never felt so cut off from the covenant I was baptized into, from the rightful inheritance God has promised me.

Emeth makes some great points but the thing that strikes me about these “intramural” Presbyterian debates is the failure to identify the real villain.

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May 18 2013

Baptism for the Dead

or A Ripsnorter Ritual

Ritual is powerful stuff. Much of modern evangelicalism prides itself in rejecting liturgy and being “open to the Spirit,” and then turns this “openness” into an uninspired (and very uninspiring) human formula, in place of the inspired Divine one. Instead of following a pattern found in every part of the Bible (worship is literary architecture), we are stuck with either erroneous traditions or off-the-cuff rambles which, although “open to inspiration,” somehow sound exactly the same each week. Human beings love repetition in every area of life, and ritual is a prime method of teaching truth and holiness.

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May 11 2013

Q&A: Discerning the Body

What is the referent of “body of Christ” in 1 Corinthians 11:29?

“For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

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Apr 4 2013

Gospel Proximity

A Guest Post by Chris Oswald, a pastor in the St. Louis, Missouri area

Gospel Proximity: Credo- and Paedobaptism and Pneumatological Signage

In the shadow of a tall bookshelf containing all 144,000 Douglas Wilson books, next to the covenantal family sing-a-long piano which held the covenantal tea set on a covenantal doily, I sat on a covenantal couch trying to explain our credo-baptist position to some dear Christian friends who wished to join our church without getting wet.

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Apr 2 2013

It Ain’t Sesame Street

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn’t belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

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Mar 20 2013

Ephesians 4

Part 1   |   Part 2   |   Part 3

We have arrived the central cycle, the “Pentecost” of the epistle. Here’s how it looks so far:

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Feb 18 2013

Rise A Knight

or What Was A Nazirite?

“A defiled Nazirite is an Adam or an Eve who has failed at holy war and thus cannot enter into God’s rest.”

Since I rave on about structure so much (and how wrong it is that we moderns regard it as merely an ornamental option rather than as the label on the tin) the fractalicious* Covenant structure of Numbers 6 should give us some clues as to what the Nazirite vow actually was in the big picture.

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