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Christians, death, crying and grief.
Death. It’s all around us. There’s no avoiding it. We drive past cemeteries. We see it on the news. We read about it in the paper. From time to time, we experience in our own families. And it’s never a happy occasion. While as a Christian I rejoice in the hope I have in Jesus,… Continue reading
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Things children love
My children are in their late teens. As I look back at their younger years, I remember noticing certain commonalities in things children love. For your convenience, I have complied a short list: 1. Blowing and popping bubbles. 2. Sleeping on the top bunk. 3. Making a ‘robot voice’ by speaking into a pedestal fan.… Continue reading
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Can we stop with all the NIV hate? Thanks.
You don’t need to spend long online to find many Christians (especially males in the USA) expressing or implying their disdain for the New International Version (NIV). Their dislike for that translation is only compounded by its popularity. After the venerable King James Version, the NIV is easily the most popular English translation of the… Continue reading
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Augustine said infant baptism is Apostolic
“What the universal church holds, not as instituted by councils but as something always held, is most correctly believed to have been handed down by apostolic authority. Since others respond for children, so that the celebration of the sacrament may be complete for them, it is certainly availing to them for their consecration, because they… Continue reading
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Jesus blessed infants. That’s kind of a big deal.
The New Testament ascribes many different titles and descriptions to Jesus. He is the King of Kings, the Great High Priest, the Prince of Peace, and the list goes on (waaaay on). Since these descriptions are true, it’s interesting to bear them in mind as we watch Jesus in the gospel accounts. We see people… Continue reading
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Bromiley on Infant Baptism
“The children of confessing Christians awaken to self-conscious life with the promise of the gospel in their ears and may thus have the mark of the covenant on their bodies. [ . . .] The call to them is not to enter into a totally new covenant relationship proclaimed for the first time from outside”.… Continue reading
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in totidem verbis – considering a problematic hermeneutic (part 2)
In my previous post I mentioned a well-used hermeneutical principle which I called in totidem verbis, meaning “in just so many words”. This principle says that we often understand what the Bible is teaching by seeing it laid out for us explicitly and plainly in the words before us. And it makes obvious sense. In… Continue reading
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in totidem verbis – considering a problematic hermeneutic (part 1)
Reading and correctly interpreting the Bible isn’t always easy. There are complex historical, social, and theological ideas which are presented to us across an array of literary genres, from multiple authors writing in different contexts. However, there are things the Bible says which are easy to identify without much effort. For example, the Bible claims… Continue reading
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Water Rites – a poem
Can sin be drowned in water,E’en with a flood of tears?Or is it rather SpiritThat grafts the sinner in? Does parting of the watersMake Exodus come true?Or is it rather death to sin That makes one born anew? Between the two creationsTwo baptisms confessThe one depicts the story,The other makes one blest. Immersion in Christ’s storyDeath,… Continue reading
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Did Tertullian View Infant Baptism as an ‘innovation’?
Short answer, no. In the book Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, Steven A. McKinion suggests that Tertullian’s De Baptismo was “written in response to the innovative practice of infant baptism” (p. 173; emphasis mine). Unfortunately, such a statement reveals a reluctance to deal with Tertullian on his own terms, in his own context. Bryan Holstrom, author of Infant Baptism… Continue reading
