"The divine mystery, as interpreted by Paul, offers transformation. The believer who identifies with the death and resurrection of Christ by putting to death the old way of life (Rom 6:5-11; Gal 2:20) enters into a new sphere of influence characterized by intimate fellowship with Christ. One who is in this sphere is free from the snare of Adam and the world and is no longer bound by the power of sin and death. The divine mystery also offers ...
Has God said? Has God actually spoken, declared himself and his purposes to us? Historically the Christian faith has affirmed God's redemptive, revelatory speaking as historical, contentful, redemptive, centrally in Jesus Christ and, under Christ and by the Spirit, in the text of Holy Scripture. But in the past three centuries developments in Western culture have created a crisis in relation to historical, divine authority. The modern reint ...
Two issues in particular engaged me [when studying in seminary and graduate school]. Did God, the sovereign covenant Lord, actually communicate with men in human language? And did this Lord actually enable men to infallibly record in writing what he had made known to them? . . . The result was that I increasingly realized that unless I had confidence that the Scriptures were authentic, authoritative, and wholly reliable I would not have the cert ...
DIVINE DISCLOSURE By Robert Paul Roth Table of Contents 1. Sounds and Silence, Colors, Touch, and Fragrance 2. The Sinking Sadness of Death 3. Power and Pain 4. Time For, Place Where 5. And Gladly Wolde He Lerne and Gladly Teche 6. Paradox and Contradiction 7. A Water Droplet Yearning 8. Two Loves 9. God Calling Yet 10. Ad Futurum et Mysterium ...
Jesus teaches that regardless of one's profession, if one does not demonstrate a changed life produced by God, one will not enter into heaven. Such a judgment will be made when Jesus returns and judges every person according to his or her «works.» While this may seem contradictory to some more well-known passages ruling out the role of works in salvation (e.g., Rom 3:21-4:25; Gal 2:16-21; Eph 2:8-9), there is every good reason to understand ...
The theology of the cross is indisputably a trendy concept today. Numerous seminars, books, and dissertations tackle the topic. But The Theology of the Cross in Historical Perspective demonstrates that theology of the cross is no passing fancy. Theologies of the cross appear at the beginnings of the church, in the sixteenth-century reformations of the church, and in the more contemporary modernization of the church. Without theologies of the cro ...
Reflections on Biblical Themes by an Octogenarian represents the journey into faith by the author of the essays over the span of sixty years in the pastoral ministry and as a professor on college, university, and theological school levels. There has been a continuing growth in understanding from the beginnings of a rather conservative religious background and training to a more mature appreciation and understanding of life. This growth came abou ...
John Wesley by his own words considered himself a «Man of One Book,» meaning of course the Scriptures. Yet what does this seemingly declarative statement really mean? What was Wesley's view on the inspiration, authority, and even the infallibility of Scripture? This question is more than a historical curiosity when we recognize the current debate between evangelical groups over their views of the authority of Scripture. Recognizing ...
Ecumenism in postwar Asia, institutionalized in the Christian Conference of Asia, displayed a remarkable this-worldliness from its inception in the 1940s. This tendency was in contrast to the tension between the church-centric and world-centric approaches to Christian mission that marked conciliar mission thinking in the West. This work examines the development of such this-worldly holiness in Asian ecumenism, focusing on M. M. Thomas of India a ...