It has come to my attention (and shall be discussed in subsequent posts) that there is a movement in some extreme fundamentalist circles to question the origins of the name “Jesus” and claim it is pagan in origin. This usually occurs in some sectors of the “Hebrew Roots” (this should not be confused with Messianic [...]
Browsing Posts in Miscellaneous
Today is Ash Wednesday which is the beginning of Lent in the Western Church. While a period of preparation prior to the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus has a long history in the Church, the use of ashes to begin this time was a medieval development. The origins are rooted in the practice of [...]
Having covered the major evidence for why Christians should have the Eucharist as part of their regular worship, I now turn to why anyone would have thought differently. If the Eucharist had been a norm for worship within the Church for fifteen centuries, why did those seeking reform toss this practice aside as so much [...]
Havng addressed the patristic evidence for the normative use of the Eucharist in worship has naturally led to the Scriptural evidence from the earliest period of the Church. Since the New Testament does not address the matter of worship and liturgical norms as did the Torah for the Israelites, there might be some question whether [...]
The New Testament gives only incidental information concerning the worship of the early Church. Thus it does help to investigate non-canonical sources from early Christianity concerning what liturgical structures might have been in place among the first Christians. If there appears to be a consistent witness from the earliest days, then any competing idea would [...]
It is often argued that the historical liturgical structure of the Church with its weekly Eucharist is itself a distortion that places undue emphasis on ceremony at the expense of the centrality of Holy Scripture. The problem with this view is it assumes the worship inferred in Holy Scripture is itself circular and only pointing [...]
This post will begin a five-part series explaining why the weekly celebration of the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper should be part of Christian worship. This practice, taken from the earliest days of the Church, has fallen in observation throughout much of Protestantism and now is treated as an oddity if not ignored in many churches. [...]
There may be no more misunderstood word in the theological vocabulary as “liturgy”. For many, it conjures up images of candles and incense, vestments and formal prayers. Indeed, these may be elements associated with liturgy but they are not the substance of liturgy. In philosophical terms, they are accidental – the properties of particulars that [...]
In the last few years, I have reread some of the work of Protestant apologist Francis Schaeffer. My reasons for returning to him after many years were varied: he is one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the late twentieth century, there is a reverence given him by many Evangelical Christians cognizant that he [...]
Genesis begins with the earth void and without form and God bringing order out of chaos. Unlike many of the pagan representations of creation that had chaos and conflict at their core, the story of Scripture sees the story of mankind beginning with the formation of order from a preexisting chaos. This order is not [...]
