The best ideas are common property
The modern Israeli town of Shechem, framed by Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. There’s a famous story recorded in the Gospel of John, chapter four, where Jesus encounters a woman from Samaria drawing water from a well at lunchtime. He has a significant conversation with him resulting in her sudden awareness that he is Israel’s …
Continue reading "Mountains of Scripture (5): Mount Gerizim"
One of more than 50,000 baptisms performed at Saddleback Valley Community Church, California, since its founding in 1980. The baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 is seen by many as an early credal statement. As a child, I encountered Christianity in the context of various independent churches in Australia and Papua New Guinea. None of those …
I have had the privilege of visiting Israel three times. On the first occasion, in 2007, I spent several hours at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, including a tour of the Dome of the Rock, where the Jewish Temple stood during Jesus’ life, until its destruction by Rome in AD 70. Beneath the great gilt …
One of the earliest statements of trust in Jesus is beautifully captured by the author of the Fourth Gospel. In John 9, Jesus encounters a man blind from birth, and heals him. Later, the man shares his personal testimony with the Jewish religious leaders: “I was blind, and now I can see!” (v. 25). Later …
A creed is a concise, formal, public and authoritative statement of key religious beliefs. For Christians, a creed is validated by Scripture, and is a formula “in which the church’s understanding of the gospel is laid bare.”[1] The classic Christian creeds invoke the story of Jesus and the experience of the first Christians, and there …
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