The Lord's Supper was a full meal or agape ("love feast") even after the apostolic age until the 3rd century, when the agape and the formal supper became separate institutions.
Not until the 1520s did the Christian Church experience opposition specifically to infant Baptism. Under the influence of Thomas Muenzer and other fanatics who opposed both civil and religious authority, original sin and human concupiscence was denied until the "age of accountability."
The sixteenth century Reformation restored to the Church vital truths taught in Scripture. To stray from the Reformation is to stray from the truth of God's Word.
If the 21st century evangelical church needs another Reformation, catechism teaching in the Christian home, church and school needs to be revisited.
Is it possible that the Roman Catholic conclave of cardinals would elect a "sleeper," one who would take Catholics from Rome to Wittenburg and Geneva?
The real story of the papacy is a story of occasional virtue and piety but more frequently of venal characters, of power politics, of intrigue, and not even downright deceit.
Reading passages like Romans 3:21–22, Luther realized that he could be forgiven, not based upon his own works but upon the righteousness of Jesus that was available to him if he would trust in Christ alone for his salvation.
With the apostles Paul and Peter, and with Epistle to Diognetus, we should pray for peace, for the freedom to preach the gospel and practice our faith. We should pray and seek to be left alone by civil authorities.
In this garden, called Gethsemane, Jesus moved into the final stages of a process that would transform Him from an immortal man to a satanic being (E. W. Kenyon) and would, in turn, recreate men as little gods who would no longer be subject to the scourge of sin, sickness, and suffering (Benny Hinn).
The Galileo affair was not a controversy between science and the Bible, or faith versus reason. It was a controversy rooted in the huge difference between the Roman Catholic and Reformation principles of Biblical interpretation.
A doxology is simply a psalm or hymn sung, or words recited, in praise of God. Many doxologies are found throughout the Bible, and they were used in synagogue and early Christian worship.
How is it possible that irresistible, a term intended to besmirch and caricature the concept of a grace that eventually prevails over all opposition, has been taken up and championed by those it was meant to portray unfavorably?
10:53 PM Sunday, May 19 2013
