Baruch Halpern argues in his 2001 biography of David, David’s Secret Demons , that David was the first individualist, the first modern man. Part of his evidence is that David so often violates conventions in surprising ways. He offers David’s battle with Goliath as an example. Contrary to the popular presentation, David is not an underdog in his fight with Goliath, since he uses surprise tactics and attacks from “outside the ring.” He concedes that “David WOULD be the underdog,... Read more
The Gifts of God, Hebrews 9:1-10 INTRODUCTION It is often said that we come to worship to give and not to receive. That is a dangerous half-truth. Praise, thanks, adoration are all part of worship, of course, and God delights in our praise. But in worship as in all of life, we have nothing to give unless we have first received. We give praise to God because He first gives gifts to us, and our gifts to Him are simply... Read more
Iain Provan suggests the following interpretation of Ecclesiastes 8:12-13: “The clear implication of his thinking must be that there is some ‘time’ beyond the ‘times’ of life in which wrongs can be righted and imbalanced corrected; yet as we have seen Qohelet is agnostic about life after death (3:18-21) . . . . So how is justice to be done? Qohelet never explains himself. He simply expresses his confidence in the moral nature of the universe while noting various data... Read more
Evensong A full moon rises from behind The topmost branches of a tree, Then slants across the sky. A pheasant?s shriek joins distant shouts, The barks and laughter from the park, On the cooling air. Then comes the silence of the night: Not the silence of the dead, But too alive for sound, Like a choir waiting poised, Or like a watchful coiled cat, Or like a breathless lover. Read more
John 4:10-14 Jesus fulfills the entirety of the Old Testament. That is John?s gospel: The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh to dwell among us. He gives wine in place of the water of purification; His body is the true temple; He is THE teacher of Israel; and He is greater than our father Jacob, who dug the well of Sychar. Jesus is superior to the Old Covenant... Read more
In this morning?s sermon, we considered the continuities and discontinuities between the Old and New Covenant with regard to liturgy. Contrary to some Protestant traditions, Jesus did not teach that the New Covenant would dispense with rites, signs, material substances, and physical actions in worship. That is not what Jesus meant when He spoke of ?Spiritual?Eworship. And one great sign of that, as I suggested, is that we do perform rites using material substances and physical actions ?Ethe rites of... Read more
The worship of the Christian church is ?spiritual?Eworship, worship ?in the Spirit?Eand ?through the Spirit.?E Every Christian can agree on that. What we cannot agree about is what this means for our worship. For some Christians, spiritual worship means worship that ignores our bodies as much as possible. Spiritual worship is worship that majors on our internal life, highlighting feelings, emotions, and thoughts, rather than actions, gestures, and objects. Spiritual worship is quiet worship, peaceful worship, soothing worship. Spiritual songs... Read more
Ephesians 5:1-2, 25 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma . . . . Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. The Word of the Lord. Amen. Let us pray. Almighty God, who out of Your great love for the world gave... Read more
One of the most illuminating chapters of Ward’s book on the covenant of works is his discussion of grace and merit in chapter 17. Some highlights: 1) He notes that the word “grace” is used in the NT “without any notion of favour in the presence of demerit,” citing Lk 1:30, 2:53; Acts 2:47 and adding that the word “is widely used in this more general sense in the 17th century Calvinistic writers.” 2) He says that the covenantal arrangements... Read more
The Hour Is Coming, John 4:1-42 INTRODUCTION The relationship between the Old and New Covenants is one of the critical issues in Christian theology, including liturgical theology. Most of the differences in liturgical tradition within the church are bound up with evaluations of Israel?s worship in the temple. In the Roman church, the priest?s role in Christian worship is very similar to the role of the priest in Israel: the priest offers sacrifice on behalf of the people. In many... Read more
Leithart
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