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Jesus Creed

The Warning Passages of Hebrews, which have vexed both ordinary Christians and professional scholars for centuries, have four elements: the audience, the sin, the exhortation, and the consequences. Our blog today will look at the exhortation. In my own journey, this topic was more critical than I realized, and it is more important than many…

Kris and I returned our son’s dog, Slater, today. On our return, Kris and I couldn’t resist a trip through Middlebury Indiana, a place surrounded with Amish. When our kids were grade schoolers, we spent an afternoon with Milton and Lizzie Yoder in Middlebury in their home. When I met Milt, he asked me pretty…

I am reflecting here in a series of posts on how “I changed my mind” about Calvinism and adopted a more Ariminian view of whether or not the Christian can throw away redemption. This journey took through the book of Hebrews, where I suggested we can find four elements to each Warning Passage. Today I…

One of the courses I taught at Trinity, NT 612, included a survey of the book of Hebrews. And, once or twice I taught Advanced Exegesis and we marched through the entirety of the Greek text of Hebrews. The courses energized me deeply, and I must say that by and large the students were alert…

When I got to Trinity in the Fall of 1976, the first thing I noticed was how tightly the theological discussion was ratcheted. These folks knew what they were talking about, and they knew biblical texts and theological discussions, and the history of the Church. It took some work just to be conversant. It was…

More than a few pastors are struggling with what they are called to be and do. I thought this short piece by John Frye, who has authored a book on Jesus as Pastor, is an articulate statement (except for the stuff about me). All this from one who loves pastoring and pastors. One who wants…

Tomorrow I will begin a series of posts I will call Post-Calvinism, and I will begin with my journey into and out of Calvinistic theology. I know weekends are harder to stay up with reading blogs, but I’m hoping by Monday we can all be caught up.

It is customary for the theologians to define the Church as a gathering where the Word is preached and the Sacraments performed. These are the two marks of the Church. My own take on the discussion is that this isn’t enough. If Kingdom morphs into Ecclesia, then we need to add a third “mark”: a…

The Apostle Paul’s view of Ecclesia is consistent with Jesus’ view of Kingdom (Basileia). For Paul, Kingdom is primarily Eternity or the Final Future Kingdom (see 1 C or 15:24), though he does use it in a way that makes me think he sees the Ecclesia as the primary manifestation of the Kingdom in the…

I am sorting through some bibliography and can’t find a definitive comprehensive study of promise in the NT. Walt Kaiser made a case for its centrality in the OT, but I’m not seeing anything significant in NT studies. Newer NT theologies, Strecker and Stuhlmacher, don’t even have it as a topic in their references that…
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