Taking every thought captive; neither to go beyond nor to fall short
Doctor Foster went to Gloucester, In a shower of rain; He stepped in a puddle, Right up to his middle, And never went there again. (Nursery Rhyme, c.1844)
Suppose a man was walking down a street one day in torrential rain. The road has become like a river. As he crosses the road, the ground opens up beneath him; a sink hole had developed under the swollen waters. Plunging down through the water to chest height he lands on a craggy, uneven surface. His leg is broken in several places.
Some time ago there was a rallying call to focus more on “our holiness”. David Searight responded with a masterful, counter-cultural, truly biblical challenge to the prevailing voices. It is so good it deserves a wider hearing and so here it is – David’s refreshing, soul-lifting understanding on what it is to be holy….
https://www.cordeo.org.uk/the-i-in-my-holiness/
(David Searight is a former Mentor with Cor Deo)
Here’s a really encouraging sermon from Andrew Farley. Totally biblical and easy to follow. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
Where there is love, there is sacrifice.
Just two highlights from a fascinating article on Jewish sacrifice:
“…some people thought of sacrifices as a kind of bribe: if we make a generous enough gift to God then He may overlook our crimes and misdemeanours”… “This is an idea radically incompatible with Judaism.”
“In other faiths the driving motive behind sacrifice was fear: fear of the anger and power of the gods. In Judaism it was love.
We see this in the Hebrew word for sacrifice itself: the noun korban, and the verb lehakriv, which mean, “to come, or bring close”. The name of God invariably used in connection with the sacrifices is Hashem, God in his aspect of love and compassion, never Elokim, God as justice and distance. ”
https://www.ou.org/torah/parsha/rabbi-sacks-on-parsha/understanding-sacrifice/
Many people will argue vociferously that we have free will. “Our decisions are not coerced, we are free to choose what we want” they say. I agree. But let us not confuse the terminology. Continue reading “Freedom of the Will?”
I have heard a thousand times that Jesus died “in my place”. Yet wherever I look in Scripture it states He died “for me”, that is, on my behalf. The words “substitute” and “substitution” do not appear anywhere in the entire salvific narrative of Scripture.
In World War II many thousands of soldiers died for their country. We would say of them that they died “for us” – that is for our sakes – so that we could live in a better world. What they did not do was to die “in our place”; we were never in the firing line. They died their own death, at a particular moment in history, in order that we might be free. “For us” and “in our place” are not synonymous. Continue reading “In our place… or on our behalf?”
The brilliant, entertaining, insightful Roy A Harrisville, former Professor of New Testament at Luther Theological Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota with an address on “legalism”…
Audio of Roy A Harrisville is hard to come by, but boy does he pack a rich picture of God into just a few minutes. Witty, deep, and humble he’s a real joy to listen to.
The audio is poor, but it’s well worth it:
Examining differences between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint.
Isaiah 53 is often quoted in support of the belief that on the Cross, God poured out his wrath onto Jesus. It is claimed that the crushing of the Messiah was God the Father’s handiwork, and it pleased him to do so. Our English Bibles read this way, but are they consistent with the original text? What does it say in the Bible Jesus knew?
We are Christians who are tired of non-Biblical Christianity. We do not subscribe to any particular denomination, nor any confession of faith other than that of the Early Church Councils. In order to know the God of the Apostles we believe we need to read the Bible they read (i.e. the Septuagint), and learn from them in context. We love theology. We love exploring ideas from across all streams of Christendom. We are learning as we go. Our goal is to sift out non-biblical ‘doctrine’ and stick with what Scripture ACTUALLY says (1 Cor 4:6).
Our names are Richard and Wendy. We are husband and wife and are based in the UK. For more info or if you’d like to meet in person, please e-mail us at gospelcoalescence@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
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