The plot of Scripture according to Mark


The king comes back at the end of the year to see how his managers have fared with the estate he gave them. The well-being of the whole people is the criterion by which they will be judged. If the people is covered in sores and blemishes, the managers will be removed from their post and the post will be given to someone else. On the morning of that annual general meeting, the bailiffs will knock the door down and throw them out to those they defrauded 

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One testament many witnesses

Why when Christians each have a copy of the Scriptures, do they need each other? Why are they still members of the Church? It is not only Scripture, but also the Church, that is God’s witness to us. Scripture serves the Church, understood as God’s own work of self-witness. Only in the Church are we exposed to that discipline and work of sanctification by which we are transformed into those who can read Scripture. Even those recent discussions of biblical hermeneutics that set out to be theological cannot make the bible anymore than a book until they are ready to talk about sanctification and the Church. Continue reading “One testament many witnesses”

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is a catch-all concept. I will use it to mean the action of God that sanctifies and teaches us sanctification, which we could call the process of making the holy nation of God. so I am first using the word ‘sacrifice’ (sacri-ficere, holy/to make) to mean to be made holy. This is the proper place to start. We cannot sense of what is going on if we start by defining sacrifice as killing an animal for some propitiatory (to please/appease) or expiatory (cleansing, purificatory) purpose.

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The Letter to the Romans

God is righteous. He has published his righteousness to all. The pronouncement of the righteousness of God has come to Rome. It has arrived in the heart of the unrighteous idolatry of Caesar, the ruler who has set himself up over the whole world. Justice (dikaiosyne), or righteousness, is the goal of life, and it is the subject of all political philosophy. The aim is that each of us gets what belongs to us, what is just and right for us and all others. The man who is just (righteous) is the one who has his righteousness given to him by God who alone is righteous. Righteousness means nothing other than being rightly related to God, covered by God.
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