Leviticus 2:4: When you bring an offering of a grain offering baked in an oven, it shall be of unleavened cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers spread with oil. The Lord’s Supper fulfills the feasts and sacrifices of the Old Testament. Long ago, Israel offered tribute . . . . Continue Reading »
Isaiah 41:17: The afflicted and needy are seeking water, but there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst; I, Yahweh, will answer them Myself. As the God of Israel I will not forsake them. Three times in this chapter Yahweh reassures Israel. Do not fear, do not fear, do not fear. . . . . Continue Reading »
James Jordan has often said that Protestants regard the Lord’s Supper as a sermon cleverly disguised as a meal, and that Catholics see the Supper as a prayer cleverly disguised as a meal. There are sermonic features to the Supper, and aspects of prayer as well. But Jordan is right that . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the respondents to my recent First Things piece on communion acknowledged that the undivided table is intolerable, but qualified that with the statement, “If you assert that an undivided table is more important than defending the table’s main purpose, a means of salvation whereby . . . . Continue Reading »
About a year ago, I was tried by the Pacific Northwest Presbytery of the PCA on charges of deviating from the Westminster Confession at a number of points. The Presbytery exonerated me of all charges. One of the underlying themes of the trial and the surrounding debates over the past several years . . . . Continue Reading »
John 17:20-23: Jesus said, I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they be one, even as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they may be in us . . . . that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in me, that they . . . . Continue Reading »
By following the church calendar, we commemorate the events of our salvation each year. Trinity Sunday doesn’t celebrate an event. Instead, it shows that throughout the church year we commemorate the events of our salvation in order to encounter the God of our salvation. During Advent and at . . . . Continue Reading »
I re-enter the “too catholic to be Catholic” arena again this morning at http://www.firstthings.com/ . . . . . Continue Reading »
In her Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity: Ritual, Visual, and Theological Dimensions (pp. 190-191), Robin M. Jenson notes that in some early Christian iconography, Peter was substituted for Moses in the scene of the striking of the rock: “In the fourth century . . . the composition of . . . . Continue Reading »
Isaiah 38:3: Remember, O Lord, I beseech you, how I have walked before You. We saw in the sermon today that Hezekiah’s prayer is a memorial. All prayer is anamnesis, an appeal to God to remember something – His promises, His great acts of the past, our loyalty to the covenant. This table . . . . Continue Reading »
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