Tag: Holy

Here’s a short reflection on Scripture I posted on my other social media accounts a couple of weeks ago. When you inhabit Scripture, over long periods of time, the intricate beauty and artistry of its interwoven reality is undeniable. You realize that you’re reading a literal miracle, particularly as you encounter Jesus Christ on every page turned. Its Divine and Triune imprimatur is everywhere to behold within its Holy binding. Athanasian Reformed

Let me be forthrightly clear: to follow a Christologically conditioned reading of Holy Scripture is not to be, at the same time, an implicit Marcionite. It is also not to suggest that the Old Testament history is simply the Hebrew peoples’ progressive knowledge of God, and thusly their writing thereof, as if it isn’t in fact heilsgeschichte, or the story of God’s in-breaking activity all throughout ‘salvation history,’ providentially and actively orienting and working through the events of said history in order to eventuate the actualization of his pre-destination in Jesus Christ to be for the world and not against…

Dave Delaney, Roanoke, VA Warm-up Question What are the most important qualities you look for in your friends? Sharing common interests or values? Sticking by you no matter what? Agreeing with almost everything you say? Keeping you honest by telling you when you’re being annoying or about to do something dumb?  A simple choice question with no right or wrong answer: Would you rather have just a few very close friends or a lot of casual friends? 3. Since the pandemic lockdown, some young people report that it has been more difficult to build good and reliable relationships that it…

  As you make plans to celebrate the festivals of Pentecost and Holy Trinity and look ahead to summer worship, consider the following ways to explore All Creation Sings.  Day of Pentecost  Try worshiping in multiple languages through either song or spoken word. Has your assembly worshiped using ACS Setting 11, a fully bilingual setting in Spanish and English? Watch this video from Bishop Felix Malpica as he gives pointers for beginning the process of bilingual worship. Audio recordings of the music in Setting 11 are available to support your introduction process. Sing “Come, Holy Spirit” (ACS 940) as a…

Telford Work in his chapter on mapping a modern view of the Holy Spirit offers a really nice index of how that gets expressed under the pressures of secularism. Let me share how he sketches that; this is under a section he calls a Dysteological Pneumatology (think something like a Dystopian doctrine of the Spirit). For Nietzsche these spirits are individual wills vying for power. For Freud they are the dark psychological forces that drives single minds and whole civilizations. Among humanity’s countless groups and subgroups they are the countless human structures that Paul calls stoicheia or “elements” of the…

Situation: Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem. Photo: Albin Hillert/Life on Earth The humanitarian crisis continues to worsen – almost 70% of Gazan residents are displaced, and resources such as food, water and medical supplies are in short supply. The death toll has far surpassed those of previous conflicts in the region in recent decades.     Response: Lutheran Disaster Response is supporting: Augusta Victoria Hospital. The hospital is procuring medical supplies and providing accommodation for patients and staff unable to return to their homes in Gaza. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. The church is providing…

Depth Dimenson, that is the language TF Torrance uses when referring to an engagement with Holy Scripture’s deep context. He reifies the sacramental language of thinking Scripture as the signum (sign), and its res (reality) as Jesus Christ and the triune God that Christ mediates to the Church and world. The reification comes for Torrance as he thinks all things from the patristic homoousious and/or the double consubstantial (both fully God and human) person of Jesus Christ. It is from this analogy that Torrance thinks the relationship between Scripture’s broad canonical context, and the meaning that funds that context in…

The article below was originally published on the “Our Synod Stories” webpage of the Northwestern Minnesota Synod of the ELCA. It is re-posted with permission from – and gratitude for – the synod and the author, Pastor Devlyn Brooks, a member of the synod’s storytelling team. Since its charter as a Lutheran church in 1960, Calvary Lutheran Church in Perham, Minn., has always had a heart for supporting missions outside their church walls, says Associate Pastor Eric Clapp. So, it wasn’t a surprise when the Northwestern Minnesota Synod bishop’s staff announced at this year’s synod assembly that Calvary had again…

The various phenomena referred to in Holy Scripture, is the same phenomena we experience currently in the world. The world of the Bible, not its ANE (ancient near eastern) parallels, is definitive in regard to the way we think about the world. To use extrabiblical data, and read that into the “gaps” of Scripture, is neither safe nor sound. To speculate is to go beyond the things that have been revealed by God (Deut. 29:29). There is an inner-logic to Scripture, but that is biblical not speculative. This is not to say that gaining an understanding of ANE and Second…

Blessings as we enter holy week! Many of you have journeyed with ELCA World Hunger through Lent as we have reflected on the Psalms and what meaning that vast collection of hymns, poems, laments and prayers might have for hunger ministry today. As the season comes to a close, thank you for being part of the 40 Days of Giving! Lent is a common time for congregations to focus on hunger and social ministry. Indeed, almsgiving is one of the traditional “three pillars” of Lent (the other two being prayer and fasting) and is still found as one of the…