Jul
24
2013
![Portrait of John Calvin](http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/john-calvin.jpg)
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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5 comments | tags: Baptism, Federal Vision, Reformers, Steve Wilkins | posted in Biblical Theology
Jul
24
2013
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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1 comment | tags: Baptism, Postmillennialism | posted in Bible Matrix, Biblical Theology, Quotes
Jul
5
2013
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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2 comments | tags: Baptism, Covenant Theology, Ecclesiology, Music, Peter Leithart | posted in Bible Matrix, Biblical Theology, Christian Life, Quotes
Jun
13
2013
![TigerTiger](http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/TigerTiger.jpg)
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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4 comments | tags: Baptism, Covenant Theology, Ecclesiology, Federal Vision | posted in Biblical Theology
May
18
2013
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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5 comments | tags: Baptism, Liturgy, Peter Leithart, Revelation, Tabernacle, Temple | posted in Biblical Theology, Quotes
May
11
2013
![DeathofEglon](http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/DeathofEglon.jpg)
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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Comments Off | tags: Baptism, Communion, Corinthians, Covenant curse, Covenant Theology, Doug Wilson, Literary Structure, Melchizedek, Numbers 5 | posted in Bible Matrix, Biblical Theology, Christian Life, Q&A
Apr
4
2013
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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14 comments | tags: Baptism, Doug Wilson, Ecclesiology | posted in Biblical Theology, Quotes
Apr
2
2013
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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Comments Off | tags: Baptism | posted in Christian Life
Mar
20
2013
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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Comments Off | tags: Baptism, Ephesians, Literary Structure, Paul | posted in Bible Matrix, Biblical Theology, The Last Days
Feb
18
2013
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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2 comments | tags: Baptism, Literary Structure, Nazirite, Numbers, Numbers 6 | posted in Bible Matrix, Biblical Theology, The Last Days