Bible and Mission

  In this essay, I am going to begin in the Old Testament with the story of Israel’s exile and return from exile.   This will launch us on a journey of our own to the fulfillment of the New Covenant in the New Testament.   We will focus our attention on Romans 6-8.   What we will learn from this is the wonderful work of our salvation and sanctification from God the Father in the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.  The Gospel is precisely Good News because it is 'the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes' (Romans 1.16).  This power of salvation is not only the forgiving grace (Romans 4-5) but also the transforming grace of God (Romans 6-8--if we rightly read Romans 7.7-25). God says several times in Ezekiel that He poured out His wrath on Israel in the wilderness and would again pour it out on Israel in the time of the prophet, leading to their exile (7.8; 14.19; 20.8, 13, 21; 21.31; cf. Hosea 5.10).   The opposite of this is when God...

  Orthodox churches should not accept the baptisms of mainline denominations that have chosen to revise their teachings such that they are no longer orthodox in theology or ethical practices.  Many looking at this question content themselves with whether the right form of baptism was administered—baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  This idea stems from what the Church decided in the Donatist Controversy, that baptism was still valid despite the theological or ethical state of the priest administering it.  That decision should be separated from the challenge facing the Church in our day, where the form of orthodoxy is still practiced but the substance of orthodox convictions and practices are rejected.  This crisis of the Church today centres around homosexuality and gender ideology, but it is not limited to it.  Because of this revision of orthodox teaching in what were once orthodox denominations and churches,...

   'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' The Declaration of Independence  of the thirteen united States of America ,  July 4, 1776 In light of July, 2026 being a celebration of 250 years of American independence—really, a celebration of the end of the claim that the king, claiming a divine right to rule, was the law—I would like to offer a few paragraphs on the meaning of the  Declaration of Independence’s  (1776) phrase that people have natural rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  I have often wondered what this ‘pursuit of happiness’ means.  I believe I now know the source and direction of thought in this phrase, and to that end I have updated my essay, ‘Social Cohesion, Populism, and the Church's Prophetic Role in the State’. ...

In arguing for the resurrection, Paul puts forward a strange argument in the paragraph in 1 Corinthians 15.29-34: Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? (v. 29, ESV). I might prefer to translate the beginning, 'Otherwise, what are those baptising on behalf of the dead doing?'  What is baptism on behalf of the dead?  Commentaries offer a variety of interpretations for this obscure reference, and this interpretation that I have garnered from my own reading is one I believe is along the right track.  First, the word ‘baptism’ is broader than Christian baptism itself and means to dip in or under a liquid such as water or wine.  We should not read our Christian view of 'baptism' into the meaning of this verse. Note, second, that Paul does not say, ‘You’ do this or that Christians should do this.  He says that people do this.  These 'people' are those...

  I wonder if Fyodor Dostoevsky’s tale about Jesus’ return might have been inspired by an actual story of Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum.   In The Brothers Karamazov , the character Ivan Karamazov tells the tale of a Grand Inquisitor who puts Jesus on trial upon His return to earth.   The Inquisitor claims that the Church has improved upon Jesus’ work and no longer needs Him.   This Church, whatever it is, does not need Jesus, does not want Him.   The shocking story Ivan tells is shocking mostly for how true it is in so many contexts, denominations, and local churches. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus attends the synagogue of His adopted home in Capernaum and immediately encounters a man possessed by an unclean spirit.   The man—or the unclean spirit in him—cries out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?   Have you come to destroy us?   I know who you are—the Holy One of God’ (Mark 1.23-24). Beyond the connection in these stories of a ...