by | Jan 31, 2011 | Bible, Church, Preaching, Theology
Isaac, Jacob, and Moses all find their wives through interactions at a well. The parallels are fascinating: So that Isaac does not marry one of “the daughters of the Canaanites, (Gen. 24:3), Abraham sends out his servant to find Isaac a wife, and the servant...
by | Jan 28, 2011 | Bible, Church, Theology, Worship
This post is a continuation of On the Efficacy of the Sacraments and Word, Spirit, and Dry Bones, in which I have been trying to get my head around the differences between Lutheran and Reformed understandings of the relationship between the Holy Spirit, the Word of...
by | Jan 28, 2011 | Bible, Books, Church, Preaching, Theology, Worship
In a previous post, I quoted Charles Hodge’s argument that the Spirit of God alone gives efficacy to the Word and to the sacraments: There is, therefore, a strict analogy, according to the Reformed doctrine, between the Word and the sacraments as a means of...
by | Jan 25, 2011 | Bible, Theology, Worship
In Revelation 5, John sees a vision of Almighty God seated on the throne with a book, sealed with seven seals, on his right hand. An angel issues a call to all of creation, challenging, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”, but “no...
by | Jan 22, 2011 | Books, Church, Theology, Worship
I have been studying up on the sacraments for ordination exams, and, in Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology, I came across an interesting contrast between how Lutheran and Reformed Christians understand the efficacy of the sacraments that I did not previously...