As someone who has dwelt long in the land of experiential pietism, to speak of “the heart” is code for the inner part of a person’s nature that no one can affect except God himself. God gives a good heart allow an evil heart and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
But for the [...]
Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder [...]
Not only is what follows a good response to those who want to revise history and claim there was no real conflict between Jesus and his proto-rabbinic contemporaries (Sanders, Vermes), but it has plenty of application to the temptations that beset Christian denominations.
Here again Sanders is justified in reacting against overstatements by too many New [...]
I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed [...]
And therefore, when the faithful, believing theses words and not doubting that they are addressed by the Lord to themselves (that they were in fact spoken only to them is proved by phrases in the context such as, “is given for you, is shed for you, is the new covenant,” which are all entirely alien [...]
I remember (imperfectly, I’m sure) that line from the protagonist in a John Grisham movie adaptation. The young lawyer sat across the table from an older lawyer. The older lawyer was defending a health insurance company that had deliberately refused their obligations to the point that a young man was now fatally sick. The young [...]
This conversation reminded me of an episode of Buffy. To be clear, the portrayal of magic on the show is problematic (along with many other things), but I find it interesting that the writers dabbled in similar principles about good and evil in magic.
In this scenario Willow is a powerful magic user who has become [...]
Romans 2
+ Romans 2.1-5 Jews are just as much provoking wrath as Gentiles are, so Jews have no reason to believe they are better. JEWS ARE IN NO POSITION TO JUDGE THE NATIONS
= Romans 2.6-11 God judges both Jews and Gentiles impartially so Jews don’t get special favors.
= Romans 2.12-16 Jesus will judge both Jews [...]
He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the [...]
Paul’s argument that Israel has not kept the Law does not begin in Romans 2.17 or even in Romans 2.1. Romans 1.18ff has Scriptural allusions that show that Israel’s sin is involved in the sin of the Greeks. The Gentiles are not off, “by themselves,” going off on their own way. They are going off [...]
Continuing
A clear Romans-like trajectory has been revealed (from the secret thoughts of a priest, no less). The banality and universality of small evil will be “solved” by the appearance of Real and Pure Evil which can be dealt with in a final confrontation (I hope).
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Now, I do not agree with much that remained unclear to the Reformers: consubstantiation; Christ completing His work in hell; baptismal regeneration, which they all clearly held — the putting away of original sin by infant baptism. For the Reformers I bless God unfeignedly, but they are in no way a rule of faith for [...]
We know the passage well:
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, [...]
And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier [...]
How was Esau revealed as a “reprobate”–i.e. predestined to not be the firstborn and carrier of the Abrahamic promise?
He and his brother were moved to wrestle with one another and God told Rebekah their mother that this signified the same.
Clever! But what if we are cessationists who don’t expect to judge by prophecy?
Then Esau’s reprobation [...]
If regeneration is taken in the Protestant scholastic sense, “baptismal regeneration” is absurd, since it would mean that each and every person baptized was eternally elect and eternally saved. Obviously, the earlier Reformed theologians who spoke freely of “baptismal regeneration” did not have this kind of monstrosity in mind. Instead, their understanding of regeneration was [...]
The bride’s description of her lover is a description of a statue: He has a head of gold (v. 11), hands of gold adorned with beryl (v. 14), an abdomen of ivory with sapphires (v. 14), and legs of alabaster set in pedestals of gold (v. 15). This conjures up the temple and the [...]
Presbyterian doctrine teaches what the Bible says about God sovereign control over history and his unconditional choice (election) to bring some people to everlasting glory while allowing others to remain in unbelief and be punished for their sins (Ephesians 1.11; Romans 9.14-24; Proverbs 16.4; 21.1).
This doctrine guards against any form of human pride or legalism [...]
I’ll leave you to chew over why Mark bothers to mention that before being liberated the demon-possessed man was always “bruising himself with stones” (5:5). (Genesis 3:15; Judges 5:26; 9:53; etc).
via Mark on Mark | Emmanuel Evangelical Church.
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I’m surprised I’ve never heard King compared to Ray Bradbury
It is refreshing to see a more Bram Stoker approach (so far) then the “vampires as enemy bike gang” approach which I have loved since watching The Lost Boys and Whedon used. I wonder if King will give the vampire ghostly properties (bodies could become mist [...]
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