Torrey Gazette is the combined work of everyday Christians blogging on books, family, art, and theology. So pull up a seat and join us. Family Table rules apply. Shouting is totally acceptable.
Baptism serves as a constant reminder that God chooses that which is weak in the world to shame the strong (1 Cor. 1:27). Whereas the priesthood of the old covenant was available only to a select few based on blood. The waters of baptism open the priesthood to all serving as testament forever that water truly is thicker than blood.
A personal apologia that is not inherently meant for outside readers. It is for me. It is what I have determined the Scriptures to require. A cry that the church should recognize, support, and encourage. The declaration that something is "lawful" does not make it righteous. And only a fool would declare that the recent string of deaths at the hands of police officers has been righteous.
The church cannot afford to sit back and assume that their heavenly citizenship opts them out of reforming/heavenizing the world around them. Because the church truly is the Body of Christ indwelt by the Spirit this means that the church, like its Lord, is the connection between heaven and earth and angels ascend and descend upon her. The church is "a colony of heaven" on earth.
What makes Rainbow's work unique from other volumes on Johannine theology is that it considers all of the Biblical works that are traditionally ascribed to John (the Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse). Other contemporary works that have attempted to address the breadth of John's theology have tended to do so while not addressing one of those just mentioned.
These are the conversations of experienced people. Conversation flooded with input not for the sake of self gratification or pontification but for an engagement and sharing of life.
In recognizing the ways in which secular liturgical calendars pull on and shape our desires we can more clearly see the wisdom of embracing the liturgical calendar of the church. Following such a liturgical calendar functions as a counter-formation to the liturgical calendars that wish to shape our desires contrary to the Kingdom of God.
Finishing this book, for me, was like waking from a long and nerve-wracking but undeniably momentous dream; and in
NL2K does not mean we retreat from society and let it go to hell, it means that we seek the best for whatever society we find ourselves in, we live at peace with all men inasmuch as it depends on us, we lead quiet lives, and we seek out the welfare of our neighbors.
Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving from all of us here at Torrey Gazette! Eat lots of great food, drink lots of good alcohol, and make merry with the best of ‘em!
One side says that if you believe Satan is not bound then you don’t believe in God’s power and you’re just reading the Bible wrong, the other side says that if you believe Satan is bound then you are just blind to the evils of the world and you don’t read the Bible with a “literal” hermeneutic.
Niehaus’s Biblical Theology is a joy to read. It is pleasing to the mind (theology) as well as the soul (poetry).
Sports, the movies, the mall, the news cycle, etc. all serve in a liturgical manner; they all shape us and form us in certain ways simply by our exposure to them. When Smith speaks of “liturgies” he’s talking about cultural rituals that tend to shape us in ways that we aren’t necessarily aware of. In other words, liturgies don’t ask for permission to shape the way we think and feel about certain things, they just do it.
In a culture that is hyper concerned with crafting a presentable self through social media, yet finds itself bankrupt when it comes to truthful self-reflection and understanding, learning to remember well and speak our lives truthfully is a vital practice to be relearned.
The Church is the gathering together of a people who are self-conscious pilgrims awaiting their heavenly home (or, it should be). Our home is an eschatological reality, but it is not entirely future.
What is necessary is not the creation of symbols. The symbols (like marriage) are already there. What is necessary is that we have our eyes opened to the Biblical symbolism that pervades our world and that we view the world through that lens rather than the symbol-averse of late-modernity.
The disordered desires of a people result not only in individual sins but ultimately take shape in the world we inhabit. Too often we limit the scope of our sin to our personal relationship with God or (a little better) to the ways our sins affect our closest relationships. Now, while sin certain does have a (powerful) affect on those things, Smith points out the cultural and cosmic effects of sin as well.
As the gospel reaches into the cracks of the fallen, depraved and defeated, the firm foundation of Christ’s kingdom is laid. This is postmillennialism.
To reduce the gathering of God’s elect to worship the triune God to merely a time of self-help is a great tragedy. When the people of God gather to worship they are doing much more than simply edifying their individual relationships with Jesus.
Ultimately, we come to learn the ways that God works like we have just been doing here, searching the scriptures. Too often we assume that our current categories of evaluatiion are the ones that God is using. God has revealed to us in His word the ways that he deals with His creation. We should look to saturate our minds with God's word in such a way that we can view the world through Biblical eyes and evaluate the world in wisdom.
