Great stuff from Kim in TableTalk
Keys of the kingdom
What Is The Church’s Big Mac?
The end of the semester is followed by the holidays so I just saw this post (HT: Aquila Report) discussing the declining fortunes of McDonalds restaurantsamong Millennials and comparing them to the church. The author notes “More people are wanting a customized, . . . Continue reading →
Heidelberg 83: Christ Gave The Keys To The Church
This imagery is a challenge to our late-modern assumptions. We might assume that, of course, God must be happy to have us, that the kingdom of God must be inclusive. Such an assumption, however pervasive it has become in the modern age, is foreign to Scripture. In Scriptural teaching we are by nature rebels, at odds with God and excluded from his kingdom. Apart from Christ our righteous substitute and our king, we have no status before God except as condemned before the king. Therefore we very much need the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven to be opened for us. Continue reading →
Heidelberg 84: The Indispensability Of Preaching
In evangelical Christianity, to some degree after the so-called First Great Awakening and certainly after the so-called Second Great Awakening, the line between lay witness and the official (done from a particular ecclesiastical office) of preaching became blurred. The Reformed theologians who . . . Continue reading →
Heidelberg 85: Church Discipline Is The Second Key Of The Kingdom
In our late-modern (liquid), nominalist, it is widely regarded that truth claims and official acts are nothing but the exercise of power for personal gain. In other words, we live in a time of great suspicion. Whereas the dominant question of the . . . Continue reading →
Is The Church Only A Hospital Or Also An Embassy?
In our time, however, the tendency is to view the church as means of therapy, merely as a place of fellowship and encouragement, but not as the divinely instituted embassy in which the keys of the Kingdom of God are administered. Viewed . . . Continue reading →
Ursinus On The Two Kingdoms
IN WHAT DOES THE POWER OF THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN DIFFER FROM CIVIL POWER? The points of difference are many, and such as are apparent. 1. Ecclesiastical discipline is exercised by the church; civil power by the judge or . . . Continue reading →