The church in OT times
I’m sure Mark Horne is right in his post Israel was not (all of) the Church over at the new Biblical Horizons Blog.
It’s not a long post, so I won’t summarise it – I’d do it a dis-service. Just go and read it.
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Christian Life
Assert. Defeat. Destroy.
Exodus 7-15, there is a pattern.
Egypt asserts her might as the enemy of God and his people (7-11)
God defeats Egypt (12-13)
God destroys his defeated enemy (14-15)
That’s a pattern that recurs.
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Infant Baptism
I’ve been enjoying reading all of James Cary’s posts on the subject of baptism. His most recent post on infant baptism is paticularly fine and worth reading. It’s refreshing to read some clarity on this.
There are now about 5 posts on this subject, all worth a read.
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Environmentalism as Religion, part 2
Linking my two previous posts. That is:
Really we shouldn’t be surprised by the way we treat the environment. Here is the heart of human sin
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Romans 1: A Fair Exchange
Romans 1:18-32: We, the human race, have suppressed the knowledge of God that we all have. We all have it because God has made his existence, deity and power known in his creation. The creation is his conscious handwriting intended to communicate to us. We have done so effectively, such that Paul can say we all knew God. The problem is not ignorance, it is culpable suppression of what we know.
God’s temporal judgement for this is to hand us over to self-harming sin. The human-race is constantly attempting to self-destruct; Romans 1 interprets this as God taking off the reins.
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The gospel is not a joke
I find Genesis 19:14 one of the most sobering, and scary, verses in the whole Bible.
“So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, ‘Up! Get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city.’ But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.”
Tragic
But surely that’s just the Old Testament, right?
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Biblical Theology of Jonah 1
Yes, I’m back in Jonah 1 again!
What happens if we take the view that Jonah represents Israel?
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Living with tensions between how you'd like things done and how they are done
I found David Field’s recent post on how they, as a family, applied their thinking on infant baptism immensely helpful.
Specifically, it’s worth asking:
- If we know Jesus will get there in the end, do we need to be impatient with others? Especially given Jesus is patient with us.
- Is baptism a purely personal thing (something “I have to do” because of “my relationship with Christ”) or is it about church membership?
- When we are in the position of needing to find a church to attend, it will never perfectly fit our ideal church in every respect. So what do we let go of for the sake of other things we value?
Thanks for sharing your thought with us, David.
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Luke 21, Ephesians 2 and the equality of men and women
I was asked one very specific question after my last sermon on Luke 21.
I developed one implication that the temple was to come to an end, which is the implication developed in Ephesians 2. The era of Jewish national privilege has closed, so that in the new creation none of us will have a second class spot – specifically, no Gentiles will be penalised for being Gentile.
After the service I was asked why, if this is the case, I still hold that there will be a distinction in the roles taken by men and women in church life.
/a
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Questions on the exegesis of Luke 21
In November and December 2007, I preached a series of 3 sermons on Luke chapter 21. You can read the transcripts on this site, should you wish to.
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